Funny thing is I wanted to get the N64 but my parents bought me a PS1 because it was better. Since then I've owned a PS2, PS3, PS4, PSP and a Vita :)
Just seeing the intro again with the music gives me goosebumps.

Sure I'll share! Got in in 2001 (I would have been 5) as a Christmas present for the entire family (all 5 of us kids) from Grandma. I remember it coming with a Jampack demo disc and that thing kept us occupied for a long time; just trying out the various demos like Coolboarders, Spyro, Tekken, Driver, Gran Turismo, Blasto, Jersey Devil etc. I'm pretty sure that disc was the only one that came with it. My sister got Spyro 1 for her birthday (I have wrapped that game at least 20 times at full 100% and still play through it), my brother bought Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 (lots of fun playing 2 player HORSE with my brothers), my other sister bought Crash Bandicoot 2 (I've beat it around 20 times but never got all the colored gems! Reminds me of one time in grade 6 computer class when I got kicked out for Youtubing videos of how to get the gems. It was that red one on Snow Go that pisses me off haha) and Twisted Metal 2 (had so much fun with this; even my mom played with us as Axel). We also had High Heat Baseball 2000 and Gran Turismo 2 I believe, and Tomba which my one sister borrowed from a friend and never returned.

I beat all of those games and all of the demos so many times it isn't even funny. Believe it or not I didn't play a MGS/FF/RE game because my mom was quite strict on the ratings (my sister snuck Twisted Metal in and ironically mom liked it). The console melted about 2 years into its life from all the playtime and I never laid my hands on one again until I rescued one from a flooded house in 2008. I played the old games again and also Mort the Chicken, which my brother took from his girlfriend's house lol. That system is still at home with Spyro, Mort and the Jampack disc but all the other games have been lost. To this day the PS1 remains my favorite console of all time. Even when we got a PS2 I mostly used it to play Crash and Spyro all over and over again. My best friend in elementary had a PS1 and the Spyro trilogy and I remember wanting to go over there to play it all the time. Almost everyone I knew had a PS1 but we really didn't talk about it too much; we were too busy playfighting. Half of them just had older siblings that used them as CD players.

When I look at the game line-up for the PS1: Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 9, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Vagrant Story, Xenogears, Tekken, Twisted Metal, Chrono Cross, Gran Turismo, Castlevania, Suikoden, Legend of Dragoon, Parasite Eve, Tomba, Street Fighter, Tomb Raider, Star Ocean, Syphon Filter and the list goes on. Long story made very long: Nothing compares.

My story is that I didn't get one until its era was almost over, I had first chosen to get a PC instead (due to non gaming stuff) and being very young I then couldn't afford to also get the console. But i played and finished plenty of games at a friend's house (yay for youthful free time), specially from Capcom (RE, Dino Crisis). Also Tekken and Syphon Filter. Few years later i sweeped through games I had missed such as the FF titles (disappointing), Parasite Eve (heart) and Silent Hill (heart). Good library but I preferred the PS2.

It's kind of a bittersweet anniversary for me because in a way it represents the decline of the console makers I grew up with in Nintendo and Sega. Sure Nintendo is still around, but in a lot of ways it was never the same again after the Super NES and the loss of third party support.

Still I've purchased every single Sony hardware and enjoyed all of them, getting a Playstation in late spring of 1996 for the first time and the highlight being Final Fantasy VII in September of 1997, that really blew me away.

Playstation 1 was such an epic console!!!

lol you recorded an emulator with frapes, you could have hide the counter kylee

I recorded nothing, made the gif out of some video on youtube.

Have you played Symphony of the Night or Alundra? those games are masterpieces

I remember playing Resident Evil at a friend's house. Creepy as **** and so intense, at least at the time. Kept expecting his mom to bust in and turn it off. I started saving up money at that point, with the goal of having enough to buy a PSX around Christmas time. The only things I bought during that period was issues of EGM (so I'd have an idea of what to buy) and an abused copy of Tekken 2 from a video store.

Then Christmas hit, and was surprised to get a PSX as a gift. Played the demo disk & Tekken 2 like crazy, then realized I could spend the money meant for the system on games. That was glorious. FF7, Tomb Raider 2, Crash Bandicoot, Twisted Metal 2 & Resident Evil. And the awesome games just kept coming.

Wasn't all peaches & cream, though. I bought a "super memory card" or something, and it kept erasing my FF7 save at about the 10 hour mark. Now I know it's because the stupid thing was supposed to be removed before turning the system on or off, but I was so pissed at the time.

The PS1 will probably always be my favorite system.

I owned an Atari 2600, NES, and SNES previously.  However, with the SNES, I started to grow bored with gaming.  Gaming in that period was kind of shallow, for the most part, with a lot of platformers and brawlers and characters who were just stereotypes.  When I couldn't find anything else that engaged me the way FF6 had, I began to drift away from gaming as a hobby.  It had always been a secondary way to spend my time, anyway.

Then came FF7 and I just had to have a PS1, even though part of me wanted to be loyal to Nintendo.  Turned out to be a fantastic decision.

I couldn't afford to buy many games but, thankfully, renting let me try a lot of new stuff.  Gran Turismo, for one, totally blew me away.  I can still remember trying to win that first race.  I just had to go out and buy it.  Then I rented Suikoden and fell in love.  So many games that grabbed and engaged my imagination.  It was like gaming was truly on the next level for me.

So, yeah, even though I played on other systems, I look at the PS1 as the console that made me really care about gaming.

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