Counting the two portables, Sony has created six consoles since the PlayStation’s debut in 1994 in Japan. The weight and size of its launch lineups have varied over the years; sometimes, they are absolutely bursting with titles, and, with other launches, they barely have anything.
Sometimes, it’s not the amount, though. Launch lineups can be measured by quality over quantity. Many factors will be taken into effect when calculating the results of this ranking. Also of note, every launch game available for the North American launches will be named. What console will reign supreme over all and will the PS5 eventually topple this list?
6 PS1
There were twelve games available at the launch of the PS1, which released on September 9, 1995 in North America. These games include Air Combat, Battle Arena Toshinden, ESPN Extreme Games, Kileak: The DNA Imperative, NBA Jam Tournament Edition, Power Serve 3D Tennis, Rayman, Ridge Racer, Street Fighter: The Movie, The Raiden Project, Total Eclipse Turbo, and Zero Divide.
Seven of the twelve games were exclusive, which would be impressive, but this lineup is rarely anyone would want to go back to today. Rayman is maybe the only one and even that comes with an asterisk.
5 PS3
There were fourteen games available at the launch of the PS3, which released on November 17, 2006 in North America. These games include Blast Factor, Call of Duty 3, Genji: Days of the Blade, Madden NFL 07, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire, NBA 07, NBA 2K7, Need for Speed Carbon, Resistance: Fall of Man, Ridge Racer 7, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07, Tony Hawk’s Project 8, and Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom.
Only six of those games were exclusives. They are some of PlayStation’s worse in history like Genji. No one will ever forget about the “giant enemy crabs" meme. Resistance was a decent enough shooter, along with Call of Duty 3, though, and, even though Marvel Ultimate Alliance was on other stuff earlier, it was still good to have a co-op game at launch. Overall, with the $600 price, the PS3 didn’t have much variety or quality.
4 PSP
There were twenty-four games available at the launch of the PSP, which released on March 24, 2005 in North America. These games include Ape Escape: On the Loose, Archer Maclean's Mercury: Ignition USA, ATV Offroad Fury: Blazin' Trails, Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower, Dynasty Warriors, FIFA Soccer 2005, Gretzky NHL, Lumines, Metal Gear Acid, MLB, MVP Baseball 2005, NBA, NBA Street Showdown, NFL Street 2 Unleashed, Need for Speed Underground Rivals, Rengoku: Tower of Purgatory, Ridge Racer, Smart Bomb, Spider-Man 2, THUG 2 Remix, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005, Twisted Metal: Head-On, Untold Legends, Wipeout Pure, and World Tour Soccer.
No, those weren’t typos. There were just games called NBA and MLB on the PSP. Anyway, Lumines and Metal Gear Acid are the standout titles here. Some of the others, while good like Spider-Man 2, are just better on consoles. Not many games at launch took advantage of the portable nature except for the two previously mentioned titles. With the variety and quality of those two games, they are leagues above the other two consoles so far.
3 PS Vita
There were twenty-five games available at the launch of the PS Vita, which released on February 15, 2012 in North America. These games include Army Corps of Hell, Asphalt Injection, Ben 10 Galactic Racing, Blazblue: Continuum Shift EXTEND, Dungeon Hunter Alliance, Dynasty Warriors Next, EA SPORTS FIFA Soccer, Escape Plan, Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational, Hustle Kings, Little Deviants, Lumines Electronic Symphony, Michael Jackson The Experience, ModNation Racers: Road Trip, Plants vs. Zombies, Rayman Origins, Shinobido 2: Revenge of Zen, Super StarDust Delta, Tales of Space: Mutant Blobs, Touch My Katamari, Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Virtua Tennis 4: World Tour Edition, and Wipeout 2048 F1 2011.
While not the best game in the series, Uncharted: Golden Abyss is decent for the portable. There are actually a lot of good games on this list that, though they have superior console ports, are more than enjoyable on the system. We're talking about titles like Rayman: Origins and Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3. It is at least a better lineup than the PSP's.
2 PS2
There were twenty-nine games available at the launch of the PS2, which released on October 26, 2000 in North America. These games include Armored Core 2, Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore, Dynasty Warriors 2, ESPN International Track and Field, ESPN X-Games Snowboarding, Eternal Ring, Evergrace, FantaVision, Gungriffon Blaze, Kessen, Madden NFL 2001, Midnight Club, Moto GP, NHL 2001, Orphen, Q-Ball Billiards Master, Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2, Ridge Racer V, Silent Scope, Smuggler’s Run, SSX, Street Fighter EX3, Summoner, Tekken Tag Tournament, TimeSplitters, Unreal Tournament, Wild Wild Racing, and X-Squad.
Impressively, twenty-four of those games were exclusive at launch. Many of them still hold up today, more or less, although some things about the PS2 can make going back to them seem antiquated. Chief among them are SSX, Summoner, TimeSplitters, and Tekken Tag Tournament.
1 PS4
There were twenty-five games available at the launch of the PS4, which released on November 15, 2013 in North America. These games include Angry Birds Star Wars, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Battlefield 4, Blacklight: Retribution, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Contrast, DC Universe Online, FIFA 14, Flower, Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition, Just Dance 2014, Killzone: Shadow Fall, Knack, Lego Marvel Super Heroes, Madden NFL 25, NBA 2K14, NBA Live 14, Need for Speed: Rivals, Resogun, Skylanders Swap Force, Sound Shapes, Super Motherload, The Playroom, Trine 2: The Complete Story, and Warframe.
That’s a big list with a lot of fairly well-received games, but don’t forget that most of those either premiered earlier on the last-gen systems or launched day and date on other consoles, as well. Only four of those titles were PS4 exclusives, in other words. Knack and Killzone: Shadow Fall don’t get discussed much today as classics, but they were decent enough for launch games. The best game among them all is Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. Even though that was also on last-gen systems, that alone helped make the PS4 have the greatest launch lineup for the PlayStation family so far.