PlayStation Trivia
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49 free PlayStation trivia questions with answers — technology quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
45 free PlayStation trivia questions with answers. PlayStation began as a CD add-on for Nintendo's Super Famicom and ended up as the best-selling console brand in history. This quiz covers the whole story: Ken Kutaragi and the deal Nintendo broke at CES 1991, the logo, the launch against the Sega Saturn, the one-word '299' price reveal at the first E3, the DualShock and its four coloured buttons, the PS2's DVD drive and Emotion Engine, the PS3's Cell chip and $599 price, the PS4's share button, the PS5's DualSense and Astro's Playroom, plus the handhelds (PSP, PSP Go, Vita), the PocketStation, the PSX, PlayStation VR, PS Now, PS Plus and the Portal. Easy questions ask which company makes it and what the buttons look like. Medium ones cover launch years, rival consoles and best-selling games. Hard ones want the logo designer, the compensatory details of the Nintendo split, the price of the Slimline, the model that had an S-Video port and how many units the PS2 finally sold. Every answer has been checked against reference articles on the brand and each console, and each question shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Sony executive, later dubbed 'The Father of the PlayStation', conceived the console?
Ken Kutaragi
Ken Kutaragi, the engineer behind the Super Famicom's sound chip, led the console project and was moved out of Sony headquarters so that internal opposition could not kill it.
Q 02The PlayStation project grew out of a broken partnership with which company to build a CD-ROM add-on?
Nintendo
A day after Sony showed the 'Play Station' SNES-CD at CES 1991, Nintendo announced it was going with Philips instead.
Q 03Which Sega arcade hit convinced Sony to focus the PlayStation on 3D polygons rather than 2D sprites?
Virtua Fighter
Virtua Fighter, Sega's 1993 polygonal fighting game, made the case: SCE's Ryoji Akagawa said that after seeing it in Japanese arcades 'the direction of the PlayStation became instantly clear'.
Q 04In which year was the original PlayStation released in Japan?
1994
The PlayStation reached Japanese shops on December 3, 1994, eleven days after the Sega Saturn, and arrived in North America and Europe the next year.
Q 05Which two consoles were the original PlayStation's main fifth-generation rivals?
Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64
The Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64 were the rivals; the Saturn actually outsold the PlayStation in their home market's first weeks on the strength of Sega's flagship arcade fighting game.
Q 06What two words did Sony's Steve Race say on stage at E3 1995 to reveal the PlayStation's US price?
'Two ninety-nine'
Race simply said 'two ninety-nine' and left the stage, undercutting the Saturn that Sega had just priced at $399 with a surprise immediate launch; Michael Jackson also appeared at the event.
Q 07The PlayStation went on sale in North America on which date?
September 9, 1995
On September 9, 1995 the PlayStation sold more units in two days than the Saturn had in five months, with 17 games available at launch versus the Saturn's six.
Q 08Which Namco arcade game was confirmed as the PlayStation's first game and became a launch title?
Ridge Racer
Ridge Racer, Namco's 1993 arcade racer, was the first game confirmed for the console and a Japanese launch title; Namco's System 11 arcade board was built on PlayStation hardware.
Q 09Which racing game, at 10.85 million copies, was the original PlayStation's best seller?
Gran Turismo
Gran Turismo, released in 1997, sold 10.85 million copies on the PlayStation, ahead of every other title on the system including its own 1999 sequel.
Q 10Which 1997 PlayStation RPG is credited with making the genre mass-market outside Japan?
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VII, released in 1997, sold close to ten million copies on the PlayStation and brought Japanese RPGs to a mass Western audience; a multi-part remake began in 2020.
Q 11Who designed the PlayStation logo, with its optical-illusion 'P' standing over the 'S'?
Manabu Sakamoto
Manabu Sakamoto of Sony's design centre created the logo for the console's launch, while Teiyu Goto designed the hardware and its controller, including the four face-button symbols.
Q 12The PlayStation company, SCEI, was formed in 1993 in close partnership with which division of its parent?
Music
Kutaragi's team had been shifted there after most senior Sony executives opposed the project; the music arm knew how to make and market discs.
Q 13What was the Net Yaroze?
Q 21What non-game was the PlayStation 2's best-selling launch-period title in Japan?
A DVD of The Matrix
A DVD of The Matrix outsold every game in the launch period because the console's built-in DVD drive was cheaper than most standalone players, and many early buyers used it mainly for films.
Q 22Roughly how many units did the PlayStation 2 sell over its lifetime?
160 million
About 160 million PlayStation 2 units were sold, nearly triple the combined sales of its sixth-generation rivals, the Xbox, GameCube and Dreamcast.
Q 23The best-selling PlayStation 2 game was which 2004 title?
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
A black PlayStation sold with tools for hobbyists to write games
A black PlayStation sold with tools for hobbyists to write games, the Net Yaroze took its name from Japanese for roughly 'let's do it together'; creators shared programs on a Sony-run forum.
Q 14The PocketStation, a memory card that doubled as a mini handheld, was sold only in which country?
Japan
Japan was the only market: a US release was planned but scrapped amid supply shortages at home, where over 80 games supported it, including Final Fantasy VIII.
Q 15The smaller redesigned original console, launched concurrently with the PS2, was called what?
PS one
The PS one, about a third smaller than the original, outsold every other console, including its own successor, for the rest of its launch year and got an optional 5-inch LCD screen.
Q 16Which of these was the FIRST PlayStation controller to include a pair of thumbsticks?
The Dual Analog
The Dual Analog Controller arrived in April 1997 and was soon superseded by the DualShock, which added vibration and became the longest-running controller line.
Q 17In what year did the DualShock controller first go on sale?
1997
The DualShock first went on sale in November 1997 in its home market and reached North America the following May; its analog sticks could also be pressed in as the L3 and R3 buttons.
Q 18Which of the four PlayStation face-button symbols is pink on the original control pad?
Square
Square was pink, with Triangle green, Circle red and Cross blue; designer Teiyu Goto meant the square to suggest a sheet of paper for menus and documents.
Q 19The PlayStation 2 launched in Japan on March 4 of which year?
2000
March 4, 2000 was the Japanese launch; the PS2 reached North America that October, about a year after the Dreamcast and a year before the Xbox and GameCube.
Q 20The PlayStation 2's custom central processor, co-developed with Toshiba, was called what?
Emotion Engine
The Emotion Engine, a 128-bit MIPS-based chip co-designed with Toshiba, got its name from Sony's promise of games that would convey 'unprecedented emotions'.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Rockstar's October 2004 release, sold about 17.3 million copies on the PS2, the most of any game on the console.
Q 24How long did the PS2 take to ship its 100-millionth unit, a record at the time?
5 years and 9 months
Sony announced the milestone in November 2005, 5 years and 9 months after launch; the original PlayStation had needed 9 years and 6 months to hit the same mark.
Q 25The PlayStation 2 Slimline of 2004 launched in the US at what price?
$149
At $149 the Slimline was half the PS2's original US launch price; it was smaller, quieter and added a built-in Ethernet port.
Q 26What was the EyeToy, released for the PlayStation 2 in 2003?
A USB camera for motion-controlled games
The EyeToy was a USB camera for motion-controlled games, developed with Logitech and launched in 2003 alongside EyeToy: Play; the camera went on to sell more than ten million units.
Q 27The PlayStation 3's Cell processor was co-developed by Sony, Toshiba and which third company?
IBM
IBM joined Sony and Toshiba in the STI alliance announced in March 2001, with its Austin, Texas design centre leading much of the work on the chip.
Q 28The PS3 was the first console to use which disc format as its primary storage medium?
Blu-ray
It was also the first with an HDMI port and 1080p output, and it helped Blu-ray beat HD DVD in the format war.
Q 29The 60 GB PlayStation 3 launched in the US at what infamous price?
$599
At $599 Sony lost money on every 60 GB unit; iSuppli estimated the GPU alone cost $129 and the disc drive $125, for a build cost near $840.
Q 30The PS3's first official controller, which had motion sensing but no rumble, was called what?
Sixaxis
The Sixaxis, named for its six-axis motion sensing, dropped rumble during a patent dispute with Immersion; the DualShock 3 restored vibration in 2007 after a settlement.