TL;DR / AV Edition – I hope you enjoy the video above (or the even quicker 17-second Shorts version)! Read on for the full story that adds a little more detail
After looking at nearly 2,000 memory card icons I never actually stopped to ponder “what was the first, or the oldest icon ever created”? But after stumbling into some developer documentation on PSXDEV.net I started to put some dates on things and now I think I’ve got a pretty solid candidate…
This one!
Admittedly, it’s not terribly exciting to look at although it does seem like a perfect fit when you think about it. Memory card icons can have a total of 3 frames of animation and if you need 3 unique images, what could be simpler or more universal than rock, paper, scissors? Most cultures have an equivalent variation and it doesn’t need any translation to see what’s going on.
Now, I have no doubt that there are other, older test images, seen and created by only a handful of internal Sony staff. In fact, that same developer documentation includes at least one more icon that I have yet to identify. But this one — our little rock, paper, scissors guy — seems like a valid candidate for the oldest icon for a couple of reasons.
For starters, it has a copyright date of 1994 and since it’s included in the developer documentation it would likely have been created even before Sony’s own launch titles. The inclusion of じゃんけん ぽん (jan ken pon) and グーチョキパー (gūchokipā) — two ways to say rock, paper, scissors in Japanese — is also a dead giveaway that this originated in Japan as an early example of PlayStation development practices. Finally, this icon has been included with several other developer resources through the late 90s including ones with English instructions. This thing has been around so long that it seemingly became the memory card icon tutorial for PlayStation developers.
Now, you could argue that this one doesn’t count because it’s never been used in an actual game but, funny story, it kind of has?
When I first saw the 3 still frames in the developer tools it suddenly reminded me of some icon that I’d seen somewhere in this year-long process that I’ve been going through. It seemed odd when I first spotted it that a racing game would use rock, paper, scissors for its icon but I chalked it up as a quirk and continued processing the next hundred icons that were in front of me.
It turns out that the racing game in question was Castrol Honda Superbike Racing from 1999, released 5 years after our icon was created. Adding to the mystery, it’s only present in the North American original that was published by Electronic Arts. By the time it was released in Europe later that year — and in Japan a full year later — the icon was replaced by a much more fitting checkered flag.
Was it an oversight by Bubble Boy Ltd who brought the PC original to PlayStation? Was it someone’s idea of a joke to include this “default” memory card icon in the final game? Was it spotted too late by Sony’s internal review or overlooked entirely before going to manufacturing in North America?
Chances are we’ll never know but it adds a fun wrinkle to the legacy of this foundational memory card icon. And who knows, maybe there are more places that it’ll turn up. I’ve only barely started in on the European and Japanese lineups so if I spot it again I’ll be back with an update.
UPDATE: December 17th, 2024
Well that was quick! Almost as soon as I published the video MDTravis commented to point out DeathMask as another example. The Japan-exclusive console port of the PC FMV adventure game, Angel Devoid: Face of the Enemy, was Vantan International’s only PlayStation release. I’d wager to say they weren’t up to speed on how to make a PlayStation game and copied over our rock-paper-scissors friend just to meet the requirement for a memory card icon.
So we’re up to two sightings already! Who knows where else this one will show up next
