20 years of PlayStation: the making of WipEout


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20 years of PlayStation: the making of WipEout

Digital Foundry talks retro tech with Sony on PS1's coolest game.

 

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Maybe this original WipEout concept art could be realised as actual gameplay on PS4? If only...

 

By Richard Leadbetter Published 04/12/2014

 

Namco's Ridge Racer demonstrated the power of the original PlayStation when it released alongside the console at the Japanese launch, 20 years ago. But for many - especially in the West - it is WipEout that is synonymous with the arrival of Sony's debut gaming hardware. Psygnosis' futuristic racer wasn't just a technological showcase for the new 3D era in console gaming, it was more than that - it was the game that made PlayStation cool for the more mainstream gamer without alienating the core.

 

Today, Sony's Dominic Mallinson is Vice President of Research and Development at SCEA, working on research, SDK, system software and some hardware development. Most recently, his team worked on the Project Morpheus prototype. However, 20 years ago, he was getting to grips with the original PlayStation hardware, developing WipEout first as lead programmer, then as producer.

 

"At the time, I was working in Psygnosis' Advanced Technology Group and we'd been developing on new CD-ROM platforms like 3DO, CD32 and FM Towns," Mallinson says. "But none of those platforms really did 3D graphics and so when we first saw the demos for PSX, we were blown away. For us the exciting thing was the combination of a formidable polygon rendering GPU with the special GTE coprocessor that accelerated 3D geometry and lighting. The SPU audio processing, the MDEC and the CD-ROM were the icing on the cake."

 

In terms of timelines, Psygnosis was a Sony-owned company from 1993, with the PlayStation launching in December the following year. However, access to hardware was limited. Mallinson attended technical hands-on meetings in December 1993, recalling that actual hardware arrived in the Liverpool office in spring 1994, with full production on WipEout kicking off some time in the second half of 1994 ("I could be off a little").

 

"The hardware was super-strong and relatively well balanced. The SPU audio processing was amazing for its time. The GTE was very powerful once we figured out how to access it at the low-level. Memory size was a challenge but nothing unusual for the day," Mallinson notes.

 

"I recall our initial problems were with the development tools which required some weird Sony NEWS workstation and had very little in the way of debug features. Once SN systems fixed that, next issues were with early builds on the Operating System, which didn't quite deliver what we needed."

 

Continues...

 

The single reason that I bought a PS1 :wub: Still heartbroken that the studio/game is gone :(

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I always wanted to like Wipeout. The second in the series was good, but it never really clicked with me. My biggest problem was that I never felt "connected" to the race craft. Also as weird as this may sound, virtually no engine sound made this problem worse. It was like cussing in the vacuum of space.

 

Give me F-Zero X for the N64 any day! I'd love to have a graphical update released for that game. Don't screw with the physics/AI though!

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This is actually why I purchased and still own a PS3. Too bad this won't make it's way to PC again. This is one title that has been often imitated, but never duplicated.  :/

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This is actually why I purchased and still own a PS3. Too bad this won't make it's way to PC again. This is one title that has been often imitated, but never duplicated.   :/

 

They had a pre-rendered tech demo of it before the public release for the 1995 film "Hackers" IIRC.

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That game was so just so painfully cool. I remember it coming out - the music, and the visual design / style, not to mention the graphics for a home console. It was just brilliant. I didn't like the game itself to actually play (which might sound stupid) but everything else about it was amazing :)

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I always like the game, even though I was never any good at it. I needed to practice more I bet. But there was so many other games back then that I was just finding out about as well. I sure do hope they make another one  :rofl:

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I always like the game, even though I was never any good at it. I needed to practice more I bet. But there was so many other games back then that I was just finding out about as well. I sure do hope they make another one  :rofl:

 

It was a lot more difficult in the original game with the digital-only SCPH-1010 controllers. It became a lot easier when they started supporting Dual Analogue and Dual Shock in later titles.

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