As I recently learned from semi-random Wikipedia reading, Sony didn't exactly come up with the idea of these kits by itself. Sony bought Psygnosis in '93 and ha

As I recently learned from semi-random Wikipedia reading, Sony didn't exactly come up with the idea of these kits by itself. Sony bought Psygnosis in '93 and had it develop some early PS1 hits—but it seems the dev still had some freedom, including developing for N64 and Saturn and publishing its games (until 99 or so). And thus: > As Psygnosis had previously published PSY-Q development kits for various consoles by SN Systems, Psygnosis arranged for them to create a development system for the PS based on cheap PC hardware. > While Sony had provided MIPS R4000-based Sony NEWS workstations for PlayStation development, Psygnosis employees disliked the thought of developing on these expensive workstations. When Psygnosis arranged an audience for SN Systems with Sony's Japanese executives at the January 1994 CES in Las Vegas, Beveridge and Day presented their prototype of the condensed development kit, which could run on an ordinary personal computer with two extension boards. Impressed, Sony decided to abandon their plans for a workstation-based development system in favour of SN Systems', thus securing a cheaper and more efficient method for designing software. An order of over 600 systems followed, and the company supplied Sony with additional software such as an assembler, linker, and a debugger. SN Systems would go on to produce development kits for future PlayStation systems, including the PlayStation 2: it was bought out by Sony in 2005. It's also said that Psygnosis played a role in developing the console itself: > Ian Hetherington, Psygnosis' co-founder, was disappointed after receiving early builds of the PlayStation and later recalled that the console "was not fit for purpose" until his team got involved with it. Hetherington frequently clashed with Sony executives over broader ideas. In the months leading up to the PlayStation's launch, Psygnosis had around 500 full-time staff working on various games as well as assisting with software development. IIRC Psygnosis also functioned as help for external developers, having quite some staff for that—but I can't find the quote right now.