Final Fantasy VII was released in January of 1997. Allow me to break this down and end this "debate".
Sales of the Playstation From Launch to December 28, 1996 -
4,558,389
Sales of the Playstation from December 29, 1996 to December 27, 1997 - 5,057,693
Source: Vgchartz
So, you have an install base that more than doubles in that year, and you don't want to assess that as the turning point? You don't want to give credit to a game that sold, within days, 2.3 million copies - a number that would represent, easily, half of the install base at the time? You don't want to give credit to a game that sold, to be fair, 6 million copies by the end of 1997, which would be over half of the install base of the console worldwide?
Right...But that is not good enough - let's hammer the point home further. You also stated that the Playstation was well ahead of the Saturn, did you not?
Sales of the Sega Saturn from Launch to December 28, 1996 -4,326,256 (which is to say that the Playstation was ahead for sure, but certainly not by any significant margin. For all intents and purposes they had equal market share at this point)
Sales of the Sega Saturn from December 29, 1996 to December 27, 1997 -907,200
Source: Vgchartz
Oh... SNES sales from the Playstation launch to December 28, 1996 - 4,067,022 (which is to say that the Playstation was not really out pacing the prior generation's hardware by much, so how much of a "success" was the first 15 months?)
The year after -301,822
Source, again: Vgchartz
There you have it. Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Tekken were out and they had no effect on the market presence of Sony, which was running neck and neck with the SNES and Saturn. It was not until 1997, as just shown in the cold hard numbers, that the Playstation pulled away and established itself as the market leader (PS, the N64 sold just under 3 million units from launch to the end of 1997).Final Fantasy VII was THE game that changed this.One last number - Q1 1997 Playstation sales:1,758,094Compare and contrast that number to what the Playstation sold in total prior.
Quid Est Demonstratum
SpyhunterReborn
lol VGchartz... Did you read my link and what i quote.? By the end of 1996 the PS1 had 7 million units sold not 4.5 million like VGchartz claim,Tomb Raider sold 7 million copies and release before FF7 not matter what you claim it is a FACT no my opinion. Now before i go any further VGChartz was created in 2005 2005 dude,the Link i posted from IGN has been up since 1998,not even the xbox and PS2 existed when that article was made,it was made with fresh data,and as you can read on my link Sega quoted misleading numbers all the time in order to make see like the Saturn was doing good it wasn't the PS outsold it quite fast in Japan,and in US even that the Saturn release on May 1995,by December the PS was already in the lead in US the Saturn in US sold like garbage,not only was more expensive it games also were more expensive,it wasn't until they saw the gap disappear that they dropped the price. The Link i gave you completely destroy VGchartz fake numbers,after all VGchartz started on 2005 IGN made that article on 1998. Guinness World Records awarded Tekken with multiple records in the Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008. These include, "First PlayStation Game to Sell Over One Million Units" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tekken_%28video_game%29#Reception Tomb Raider 1996 7 million copies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#PlayStation Resident Evil sold 2,750,000. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil_%28video_game%29#Reception Crash Bandicoot sold over 6.8 million and was also release on 1996 it was basically the Mario of the PS by that time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_Bandicoot_%28video_game%29#Reception There are many more games like those,unlike what you claim the PS had several hit and million sellers,in fact some of the games you say they did not help sony all were million Seller,been the biggest one Tomb Raider. 
Log in to comment