Platinum Range (Best Selling PlayStation Games, PAL)

Platinum Range is the Sony PlayStation budget range in the PAL region, which covers Europe, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and Africa.

Platinum Range titles were recognisable by a platinum/silver coloured band on the game's casing. This band runs along the top of the case's front. In old PlayStation 2 platinum games it is also common for the silver band to act as a border and to contain the game's original cover, which is shrunk to fill about 75% of the platinum cover. The new PlayStation 2 platinum games feature a new layout. They have a black border, and silver outlines around the shrunk original game cover. There is also a red orb located at the bottom of the original game cover with the words Platinum on it. The platinum band can also be seen on the manual. The PlayStation 3 Platinum range box art replaces the black background of the PlayStation 3 logo on the left with a yellow background, and has the original box art shrunk slightly, with a gray border, and a yellow rectangle on top of it, with 'Platinum' written in black.

PlayStation and PlayStation 2 platinum game discs do not feature any of the original game disc's design, it is replaced with a simple silver design, which, along with the copyright notices around the edges, feature the game's name in the center surrounded by a black outline. PlayStation Portable platinum games use the original games disc design whilst PlayStation 3 platinum games use the original disc design with a platinum design on the disc.

To become a Platinum release it was required that a game have over 400,000 total worldwide sales after generally one year on the market (PAL region sales in particular; games that sell over 400,000 units in another region alone, such as Japan or the U.S., do not necessarily qualify for a Platinum title).

Source: Wikipedia, "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentials_%28PlayStation_range%29", available under the CC-BY-SA License.

Admin Note:

• The Platinum Range label was launched in January 1997. In 2010 it was renamed Essentials in 2010 for PSP and PlayStation 3 in 2012.