Did it really though?  Video gaming was expanding Gen over Gen before Sony's entrance into the market.  Whenever a competitor stumbles, someone always fills more of the void than if there was a healthy environment.  When Atari, Coleco, and Mattel all got hit by the North American Video Game Crash, Nintendo stepped in and absorbed all of their sales, plus whatever part of the market they might have had anyway.  Once Sega got a foothold in the marketplace, the SNES had to split sales with the Genesis that the NES hadn't had to face the previous gen.  But the SNES having less sales than the NES doesn't mean the video game market contracted.  It expanded.  When Nintendo stumbled by sticking to cartridges with the N64, and Sega made their mistakes leading to the Saturn launch, Sony sucked in sales from 2 competitors simultaneously.  It's easy to look at the PlayStation's sales in a vacuum and say "Sony introduced 100 million people to video games that weren't there before", but that's a gross over-estimation of what happened.  Each successive gen has a wider consumer pool of potential sales to go after.  If Nintendo had switched to discs, they wouldn't have lost Square and the Final Fantasy series, among other 3rd party support, and the N64 would have taken back some of the sales it lost to the PlayStation.  If Sega hadn't made the mistakes they made as well, the division of console sales would have been more even among the 3, more like what we saw in the Wii, PS3, Xbox 360 gen just recently.

edit - I also don't think the PlayStation library is dramatically more impressive than the NES library.  Not by a wide margin, or any margin to be honest.

No surprise there. There's no reason to buy it unless it's for collector value. Just like all the classic/mini consoles.

Your personal opinion.  A lot of people buying the other retro systems bought them for use and enjoyment.

Sorry, but no.  The PS1 was not overrated, it was the best console with the best games in its generation.  This classic is just the greatest example of why these classics are nothing more than collectors items or toys for people who never owned the original consoles and games in the first place.  Not a single classic yet has seemed worth the money for any actual gamer.

Riddled with personal opinions and misconceptions.  Go on Atari Age or YouTube and see how many people buy these mini consoles for actual play, or just to put on a shelf.  And to say that no one who bought one ever played them back in the day, lol.  And then to say that no "actual gamer" would find value in one of them... wow.  It's good to know that you get to classify who is and isn't an "actual gamer".  That must be a hefty burden for you to bear.

If they served no other purpose than just sitting in a collection, no one would complain when a shoddy version of one comes out.  It literally wouldn't matter if the emulation quality was good or bad.  No one would care.  Just because Sony throws a lazily rushed cash grab product into the holiday marketspace doesn't vindicate your belief that all retro consoles are pieces of trash for people you believe are non-gamers.

Yeah of course it's my opinion.  What the hell do you think all this crap is?  Opinions.  IMO if you are satisfied with the NES Classic as anything more than a collectors item or to play some shits and giggles games for a little while you aren't much more than a sunday gamer.  AKA not much of a gamer really.  And yeah, this PS1 classic is the shittiest of a line shitty classics.  It really is nothing more than a PS1 with a crap limited library with an HDMI port slapped onto it.

Though, the fact that the other classics have more than an HDMI port slapped onto it, still don't make them appealing to me.

More opinions.  Please cry more.

There could simply be software for the games themselves. See how many 15 to 20 dollar "____ Greatest Hits" collections there are. The software would cost a fraction of the mini console. The mini console itself is useless since it has no operation of a console. It's not a console at all. It's basically software itself. So you are paying $60 - $100 for a fancy dressed "greatest hits" software. So the only reason to buy it is for collector's value. Which is what Sony/Nintendo will exploit its consumers for.

Somebody piss in your corn flakes this morning, or are you always this cheerful?  It's funny how the people who consider themselves the "hardcore"/"real gamers" are the jaded miserable people.  And the ones that get looked down as "casual"/"not real gamers" are the ones who generally get more enjoyment from their hobby.  But thanks for projecting on me the fact that you are unhappy to wake up every day.

Wow you got all that from what I said?  Hardcore is a bit much.  I am an avid retro collector of RPGs, but I only spend a few hours of gaming a day on my heavy gaming weeks.  I do think there are different levels of devotion to gaming.  It's not that I look down on 'casual gamers', it is just that there are casual gamers.  They are just that, casual about gaming.  Nothing more, nothing less.  A casual gamer might be satisfied with one of these classics, I personally think that if you are heavily into retro gaming you already have something far better than these classics.  I think these classics, all of them, are crap. Sorry if you think that opinion makes me 'unhappy to wake up every day'.

Also.  Opinions.

Sorry, your first response came off as both jaded and antagonistic.  Your 2nd response was much less so and more composed, which I appreciate.  So, I'll happily say I misjudged.  I still do believe that these consoles are being bought by a demographic of gamer not solely restricted to casual play.  As I had said, there are tons of retro enthusiasts online and on YouTube who play, enjoy, and endorse the good quality systems.  I own a Switch and an Xbox One, and I still enjoy some of them myself.  The original Legend of Zelda never gets old to me, and the same goes for a number of other games on those systems.