Much of the time journalists would write articles about the games in their early stages, this was done with the help of press materials handed to them through Sony's marketing departments. Not only does this include a lot of the screenshots used in early previews, but often renders, logos, and details about what the game will be like, too.
There were an awful lot of these discs, and all of them contain really cool stuff, so they're great tools for preserving early Spyro press materials and artwork. Only a very small handful of these discs have been preserved so far, and hopefully, we'll recover more of them in time.
Under the cut, I've included links to all of the press discs we have recovered so far. Enjoy!
Power Source E3 1998 Press Kit CD 1
Redump link: http://redump.org/disc/70570/
This one's pretty great; despite being a broad press kit intended to hold press info on all of the PlayStation games shown at E3 that year, Spyro gets a hell of a lot of content all to itself. Press release documents, a tonne of screenshots of the earliest known build of Spyro 1, lots of artwork renders, and some unusual screenshots showing areas of the game that don't seem to exist in the final product, this disc is full of early Spyro content. It even contains some metadata showing the original filenames of a few of the included images, which is pretty interesting (to me, at least).
Spyro the Dragon Press Kit CD
Spyro the Dragon Press CD included within the PAL region press kit.
The official press CD, included with Spyro 1's official press kit. Lots of artwork renders (many of them very high resolution), a few screenshots from multiple different points in development, and plenty of press release documents on here.
Sony Autumn / Winter Collection '99 Press CD 3
Redump link: http://redump.org/disc/70631/
The only press disc we currently have for Spyro 2. More of the usual stuff, including a few nice high quality renders, and plenty of early screenshots.
Sony E3 2000 Press Disc 1 (PlayStation Update)
Sony E3 2000 Press Disc 1 - PlayStationContributed by Hwd405 as part of Project Eclipse---Aladdin in Nasira's RevengeLogo, screenshots, and
A SCEE press disc for E3 2000, coinciding with the reveal of Spyro 3 - this time, Spyro takes up much less space, with this disc only including a few press documents and some renders.
Sony E3 2000 Artwork Disc
Redump link: http://redump.org/disc/88966/
This artwork disc is another E3 2000 disc containing only a small handful of Spyro 3 things - no press release documents this time, just a few of the Pre-E3 screenshots.
ECTS 2000 Press Disc
Redump link: http://redump.org/disc/69488/
Another event-related disc - this time, for the European Computer Trade Show event in London, in September 2000. A few press documents, a nice render, and a bunch of screenshots of what looks to be one of the demo versions of Spyro 3, for some reason.
