Twenty-five years ago, the original PlayStation went on sale for the first time in Japan. With a lineup led by Ridge Racer and the promise of a 3D future, Sony quickly outpaced Sega and Nintendo and went on to dominate the video game console market.

To celebrate the anniversary, we wanted to do something a little different, so earlier this year we started talking with video production group Archipel — which you may know from its recent Dreamcast retrospective — about producing a documentary looking back on what it was like behind the scenes working on Sony’s first console.

The result is the video you see below: Memories of Play, a retrospective look at PlayStation centered around a casual dinner in Tokyo.

Rather than focus on games, we wanted to highlight the business and technology behind Sony’s hardware. So we brought together former Sony executives Makoto Iwai and Shuji Utsumi alongside tech experts Kazuyuki Hashimoto (Final Fantasy 7) and Masanori Yamada (Tekken) to reflect on the challenges Sony and its developers overcame getting PlayStation off the ground.

From working with temperamental visionary Ken Kutaragi, to the limited memory available for games, to not being allowed to leave their office without permission due to tight deadlines, the group came prepared with stories to tell.

Please check it out and let us know what you think.