Releases of the 90's: GTA 1 for PS in Japan

release of the first GTA for PS in Japan caused a real furor. The reason for this was the main feature of Grand Theft Auto - the player is free to deviate from the standard script and travel around the game world. This feature was unusual for users and it is not typical for the 90-ies.

The delight of the Japanese players was reinforced with the release of GTA adapted to the PlayStation platform game, introduced in 1994, which was also considered a novelty in those days.

System requirements of the new games seem to be funny today. For stable operation, the GTA was required only 16 MB RAM, 1 MB on the video card and a 100 MHz processor gaming platforms. Accordingly, the graphics were far from perfect, but the reason for the success of the game lies in the very idea of a realistic virtual world.

the Realism of GTA

The basis for constructing the terrain was really existing cities - Miami, new York, Los Angeles. Accordingly, in the game they are named after Vice city, liberty city and San Andreas.

Based on long-term observations of the real world the developers have created the script and the way the criminal world for GTA. Players had the opportunity to work closely with him, without exposing yourself to danger in real life. And to protect the virtual character was provided modest Arsenal, which includes the gun, flamethrower, machine gun, grenade launcher. To use it, start the game on the PS, the inhabitants of Japan were able only in 1998.

the Official release of GTA 1 for PS in Japan

The release of GTA 1, adapted for the PlayStation, only took place on 28 August 1998. About the upcoming event people knew in advance. The information transmitted mainly by word of mouth, as telecommunications were developed rather poorly.

Before admission in mass sales for the game were imposed strict age limits. To acquire the first GTA could only Japanese people over the age of 18 years. Compliance with this limit was carefully traced, as immersion in a realistic criminal world could have an adverse effect on the psychological development of adolescents. At first people are wary of innovative developers, but curiosity and technological progress has prevailed, and GTA began to gain popularity exponentially.

Amazing is the fact that the release of the first GTA for PS took place after 8.5 months after the release in Europe, although gaming platform PlayStation was first introduced it in Japan.  This situation is an objective reason is the strict laws of the 90-ies operating in Japan.

After almost 3 years after the official release of the game surfaced some interesting details. According to unconfirmed information, in 2011, were published in 1995. He described the concept of the game world. It turns out that originally the game was able to get the title Race Chase. As it could affect the popularity of the game now will forever remain a mystery.