Crash Bandicoot is an action platformer developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation.   Players take on the role of a genetically altered bandicoot named “Crash” whose goal is to prevent Dr. Neo Cortex’s plans for world domination and rescue his girlfriend Tawna, a female bandicoot being held captive by Dr. Cortex.

The game’s conception began in 1994 when development studio Naughty Dog caught the attention of Mark Cerny of Universal Interactive Studios.  In 1994, Naughty Dog founders Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin created a game for the 3DO titled “Way of the Warrior” and presented it to Mark Cerny.   Cerny was impressed with the game and signed Naughty Dog to a three-game deal with Universal Interactive Studios.

Rubin and Gavin travelled across the country to move Naughty Dog to the Universal Studios back lot, while forming their plans for a three-dimensional action-platform game which became the first Crash Bandicoot game. Forming the three-game deal with Universal Interactive Studios provided Naughty Dog with the needed funds to expand and hire employees for their next game. Production of the game began in 1994 with the creation of a tool called Game Oriented Assembly Lisp, to create the characters and gameplay.

Naughty Dog met with Cerny after moving into their new Universal City office to discuss what console would be suitable for the development of the first game in their agreement.  It was determined that the 3DO, Atari Jaguar, Sega 32X and Sega Saturn were not suitable options due to poor sales and low market share.   Upon further discussion they decided to proceed with developing the game for Sony’s new PlayStation console due to Sony’s lack of a mascot character.   They seen Sony’s entry into the video game market with no mascot an opportunity and embraced the idea of becoming the console’s mascot.  This was something they did not shy away from when marketing the game, even going as far as calling out Nintendo specifically in their marketing campaign.

The development studio filed to become an official developer for Sony’s yet to be released console, the PlayStation.  They acquired a PlayStation development kit for $35,000 and received the unit in September 1994.  Universal set a development budget of $1.7 million for the game and official development began in October 1994.