“Select your Country / Region”
PlayStation.com, 1998–2026

The December 5, 1998 capture is almost all black. The only picture is the logo on the globe with its orbits, and the browser tab reads Welcome to the World of PlayStation. Look at the left orbit: a sixth button, a square, has no region next to it. Under the greeting, three lines of small print name the owner: An Official Site of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. SCEI™.

The console was four years old. It went on sale in Japan on December 3, 1994, in North America on September 9, 1995 and in Europe on September 29, 1995.^[1] The page doesn’t name a single game.

The April 1999 and June 2000 captures show the same page, button for button. The oldest capture of the address we found is from December 11, 1997, but its pictures don’t render in our replay, so this rewind starts a year later.

In June 2001 the orbits are gone. A grey wireframe globe fills the left side, a wordmark spells PlayStation.com with the .com in red, and four regions run down the page in italics: North America, Europe, Japan and Australasia, with Australia and New Zealand in small type under the last one. The Middle East from 1998 isn’t on the list.

The browser tab changes too. In 2001 it reads Playstation.com - Home, and from 2002 to 2005 Playstation.com - Global Splash, with a lowercase s in the middle of the brand.

The PS2 went on sale in Japan on March 4, 2000, in North America on October 26 and in Europe on November 24.^[2] None of these five splash pages shows it. The June 2004 capture adds a line, China, between Japan and Australasia, with the wordmark moved and a Global Home button at its right.

In June 2006 the black page turns blue. A white PS symbol replaces the wordmark and the globe, and one line of text around the middle of the page, PlayStation® Global, sits over a row of nine destinations: Australia, China, Europe, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, North America and Taiwan. PlayStation Network launched for the PS3 that November.^[3] None of the three gateway captures mentions it.

In 2007 a faint world map and a streak of light fill the screen, and the prompt now says Select your Country / Region. China, Hong Kong and Taiwan have folded into one link, Asia. The 2008 capture keeps the map and the streak.

Almost every word on these pages is a picture, so the page’s code describes each one in alt text, the words a browser shows when an image doesn’t load. That’s where the typos live.

Behind the gateway, the US site at us.playstation.com had its own page for the PS2. In June 2006 it has a menu down the left, starting with Highlights, and a row of Featured Games: America’s Army: Rise of a Soldier, Over the Hedge™, Hitman™: Blood Money and NFL Head Coach. Above them is a large empty space. The page’s code explains it: In order to see this media, please download Macromedia Flash Player™ 8 and make sure your browser has JavaScript enabled. In our replay the space is blank.

By January 2008 the page has gone dark. Three tabs run across the top, PLAYSTATION 3, PSP and PS2, with the PS2 tab lit, and a list of new games sits under another empty Flash area. Its code still asks for Macromedia Flash Player™ 8 (or higher).

From 2009 the gateway is gone from our captures, and most of the next six years come from the UK site, uk.playstation.com. The June 2, 2009 page is a magazine: a racing game called Fuel across the top with Head Into The Wilderness, then games, news and a column of promotions. The tab says Official PlayStation website.

Halfway down, under A World Of Entertainment, each console gets one line. PLAYSTATION®3: Get ready for the next generation. PlayStation®2: The world’s most popular console. PSP™: Is that a PlayStation in your pocket?

Note the spelling. In June 2009 the page writes PLAYSTATION®3 in capitals. On August 18, 2009 Sony announced a slimmer PS3 at $299 and said its release would change the name from PLAYSTATION 3 to PlayStation 3, with a new logo.^[4] By June 2010 the capitals are gone: PlayStation®3.

The slimmer model also lost a feature: the same release said it couldn’t install other operating systems.^[4]

The 2010 page leads with a deal, Buy a PSPgo and get 10 free games worth over £200*, and the asterisk lands in the small print: *Approximate value based on PlayStation®Store retail prices as of June 2010. Conditions apply.

The June 15, 2011 capture leads with a car. The top slot shows a red Nissan Juke on a night street and three phrases: New Nissan Juke, Urbanproof, Energised. Below it come PS3 news, a free Ape Escape demo and a PlayStation Network panel.

Two months earlier the network had gone dark. Sony said an intrusion between April 17 and 19, 2011 had compromised account information, and switched its online services off.^[5]

When they came back, eligible PS3 owners in Europe could pick two free games from a list that included inFAMOUS, LittleBigPlanet and Wipeout HD + Fury, plus 30 days of PlayStation Plus.^[6] inFamous had been one of the games on this homepage in 2009.

The page itself has moved on. The page’s code includes the headline NGP Becomes PlayStation Vita At E3 2011, and the menu reads PlayStation®3, PS Vita, PSP™, PlayStation®2.

The October 16, 2012 page is blue, with a horror film on top: Paranormal Activity 4 and All the activity has led to this.... A PlayStation Latest News list follows, beside a DanceStar Party Hits promotion. The page’s code adds a news item about the network going offline for maintenance, and the archive saved the page on the afternoon of October 16, after the window had closed.

The menu now runs PlayStation®Network, PlayStation®3, PS Vita, PSP®, PlayStation®2, and the code still lists a whole row for the oldest console: PS2 Games, PS2 Manuals, PS2 News, PS2 Peripherals and PS2 Support.

One console refuses to leave. The PS2 is in the menus up to 2012, in the browser tab in 2013 and in the page’s code in 2014, and its own page still promises Over 1800 games in 2015.

The November 20, 2013 capture is from the US site, five days after the PS4 went on sale in North America on November 15.^[7] Its top picture is blank in our replay and that empty space is closed up, so the page starts with three tiles: Greatness Awaits, PlayStation®4 with a BUY NOW button, and The Latest in PS Plus. Then a heading, Amazing PlayStation® Games, over Killzone™ Shadow Fall and other PS4 games.

The browser tab lists six systems in one line: PlayStation® : PS4™, PS3™, PS Vita, PSP®, PSP®go, PS2™, PlayStation® Games - PlayStation®Network. The PS2 is still in it, 13 years after its launch.

On February 11, 2014 Sony’s European blog announced a brand new redesigned interface for PlayStation.com.^[8] The UK capture of March 21 shows it. The dense grid is gone. A dark blue page carries one line, Enjoy Your Power, and below it inFAMOUS Second Son is OUT NOW - how will you use your superhuman powers? The main illustration is missing in our replay; only the game’s logo is left.

The blog promised a section called Sign In and Compete, where you could see all your trophies and compare them with friends.^[8] On the page the menu is called SIGN IN & CONNECT, and its code says: Get even more out of PlayStation.com when you sign in. Compare trophies and see your friends’ latest activity. The blog also asked for opinions through the short survey found on the homepage.

Two years earlier the US homepage had asked for one too. On January 1, 2012, its code read: Please take this brief survey (8-10 minutes) and help us make the site better for everyone!

The menu’s code lists inFAMOUS Second Son, Minecraft and Killzone Shadow Fall under Top Games. It still has links for the oldest console too: PS2™ GAMES, PS2™ ACCESSORIES and PS2™ HELP. After this capture the PS2 doesn’t appear in the text of our homepage captures again.

The PS2 page outlived the PS2’s place in the menu. In January 2013 and again in February 2015, us.playstation.com/ps2/ opens with the same words: Entertainment For Everyone and Over 1800 games on the PlayStation®2. Then the pitch: Who says Grandma won’t like Gran Turismo®?

Further down, a shelf of game boxes and a heading, Entertainment packed, with three short lines: Something for everyone in the family. And the neighborhood. And the state. The page sells a console Sony had launched nearly 15 years earlier, with the same copy two years apart.

From 2015 our captures come from the US site at playstation.com/en-us/. On November 20, 2015 one picture fills the width of the screen: Star Wars Battlefront, with AT-AT walkers on a battlefield and Now available. Also available in Standard and Limited Edition PS4 Bundles. and two buttons, BUY NOW and SHOP BUNDLES. Under it a slogan in italics, The Best Place to Play™, over PlayStation®4.

The tab now says PlayStation® Official Site – PlayStation Console, Games, Accessories. The code still carries PS3 and PS Vita menus, and one line sells the Vita as a second screen: Play your PS4 while on the go with PS Vita’s Remote Play capabilities.

In June 2016 the top of the page is a blue banner for PlayStation at E3 2016: See all the latest updates straight from the show floor. The slogan underneath hasn’t changed.

Mid-June is E3 week, and the captures show it. In June 2017 the banner is four glowing outlines, a triangle, a circle, a cross and a square, above PLAYSTATION AT E3 2017. Under it sits a gold console: Introducing Limited Edition Gold PlayStation® 4 System, $249.99 MSRP.

June 2018 has a starry sky, the PlayStation logo, E3 EXPERIENCE 2018 and the same four symbols, with a bar underneath: Check out the latest trailers and new game announcements. The buttons that held the regions in 1998 have no job here. They are the brand.

On November 15, 2019 promotional artwork for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order fills the top, marked Now Available. The PS symbol in the header is blue now, as it is in our 2020, 2022 and 2024–2026 stills.

A year later, on November 20, 2020, the top of the page is a white console and a DualSense controller on a dark stage, with the line Play Has No Limits. The PS5 had gone on sale on November 12 in its first seven markets and on November 19 in Europe and more countries. In the US it cost $399.99 as the Digital Edition and $499.99 with a disc drive.^[9]

Scroll down and this page still sells the previous generation: a PS4 Pro with a Shop Systems and Bundles button, and a Black Friday sale on games, PlayStation®Plus and PlayStation®Now subscriptions and more.

Our 2022–2026 captures share one layout: a wide promotional picture with a headline and a button, then a row of small promotional thumbnails. In June 2022 it’s The Callisto Protocol, Survive the horrors of Callisto, a survival horror game out 2nd December 2022. In May 2023 it’s Fall Guys and Season 4 - Creative Construction.

On September 21, 2024 the top slide is the PS5 Pro, Witness Play Unleashed™. In the tile row below it is a 30th-anniversary tile. Two days earlier Sony had announced a PlayStation 30th Anniversary Collection in the colors of the first PlayStation, with a limited PS5 Pro bundle.^[10]

The bundle came in 12,300 numbered units. Sony said the number stands for the month and day of the first console’s launch in Japan: 12/3, December 3, 1994.^[10] The collection also had cable ties shaped like the four button symbols.^[10]

In June 2025 the top slide reads A new era for Rainbow Six, over the soldiers of Siege X. The live US homepage we loaded on October 15, 2026 gives the same space to a footballer: the EA Sports FC 27 logo, The World’s Game is here, and Step into The Grounds (PS5 only). The tab says PlayStation® Official Site: Consoles, Games, Accessories & More.

1998 · Regions2026 · FC 27

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The 1998 page welcomed you to the World of PlayStation and asked you to pick your part of it: a cross, a triangle, a circle. The first screen of the 2026 page has no region picker. The region is in the address, /en-us/, and the world in the headline belongs to a football game.