While our mercenary pilots prepare to sortie for Ace Combat Infinity Update 2.02, I'd like to take a moment to announce and celebrate the 20th anniversary of the PlayStation! Ace Combat started on the arcade, but if it wasn't for Sony's easy-to-develop-for and vastly-popular PlayStation console (what we call now the PSone), who knows where the series would have gone, if it even would have left the arcades?
Air Combat, Ace Combat 2, and Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere all took full advantage of the graphics the PSone could show off, as well as the new controllers designed specifically for the console. By the time Electrosphere released, the DualShock came with analog sticks, making Electrosphere the first Ace Combat game to support analog stick input!
20 years later, we're looking to the future. Ace Combat Infinity was designed with Sony's assistance and support in integrating the PlayStation Network for its free-to-play mechanics, as well as protected cloud saves and improved multiplayer. After the release of Infinity, hopes are still running in the fandom for the series to continue onto the PlayStation 4, as well as the possibility of the old PSone and PS2 games to be added to services such as the PlayStation Store or PlayStation Now. Not to mention, should the older games be released on the Store or Now, Share Play on the PlayStation 4 would essentially allow us to play the local multiplayer modes of the older Ace Combats online, an impossibility on the older hardware!
PlayStation has released various themes for everyone for free to celebrate the anniversary, on PS3, PS Vita, and PS4! Take a look through your local PlayStation Store's recently-released themes and celebrate with the world!
Happy 20th anniversary to a world of PlayStation!