Tony Hawk.. With the rise of skateboarding and reaching it mainstream peak it helped pushing gaming into the mainstream and vice versa the popularity of the games (on all systems) had a positive effect on skateboarding.. That game had far more influence on culture at that time then the other two.. Great pick Ryan..

Agree, variety is PS strength and one of the reasons why they fullfil my gaming needs better than the competition, on PS you can find games from the biggest american AAA exclusives or multiplats like Farcry 4 and Uncharted/The Last of US to the most niche japanese games like the Neptunia games, the Tales games, Disgaea etc, plus Sony is also always focused on creating new IPs (and thats another thing i love), thats part of the reason why they dont have "mascots" because most of their IPs only last one gen or two, since they focus more on making new and interesting games.

Erm what? If sony owned spyro and crash you better beleive we'd be getting games from them. What do you think rachet, jak and sly were trying to replace on the ps2?

On topic: Final fantasy for sure. I remember some people posting some information about how the ps1s sales wern't overly impressive until it showed up.

Final Fantasy, I remember when I was a kid a bunch of people wanting PlayStations just for that game. When I played it, it was awesome and the graphics were amazing for the time. Sadly I didn't finish it then and I have trouble wanting to play it now due to terrible graphics and already knowing what happens with the story.

what are you talking about? i never even mentioned crash or spyro... im only saying that Sony is focused on making new games every gen which is undeniably truth, just look at all the new exclusives the PS3 got, and now the PS4 is also getting a lot of new exclusive IPs Knack, The Order 1886, Driveclub and Bloodborne.

Edit: i tink you were trying to reply to Intrinsic not to me... i may have agreed with him in the overall point but i never said that crash or spyro were owned by sony...

Gran Turismo was the first that came to mind

Both of you. I disagree with the statement that sony was never about mascots. Crash and spyro rivalled Nintendos best back in the day, and that is what they were meant to do. Then when they lost control of them they attempted to make some more in Jak, Sly and rachet. The ps3 gen was them changing demographics more than anything, which was a smart move as we can see with the sales of mascot platformers and less "mature" titles these days.

"Final" Fantasy, obviously.

For me personally it was Final Fantasy. That was the whole reason I begged and pleaded with my parents for a PS1 as a kid. Once I got it I also played & loved Metal Gear Solid, but it was FF that got me hyped.

Tony Hawk I played on my N64, so that was never a factor for me.

Depends on region. Japan, FF easily.
Europe, GT easily

Dunno about USA

TH & MGS I imagine pushed a lot more people into getting PS2.