I think it's safe to say it was the games.

For me it was the GTA franchise.

It was Final Fantasy VII that started it all for me, and was the core of my gamingness.

After that it was all playstation other then the gamecube which made me a sad gamer last gen. :I

Back when I was 4 or 5 we had a SNES, Then they stopped making games for it, so I asked for a new console for my birthday. I got a PS1 , Crash bandicoot and spyro, I then got Tekken 2, That was it, i knew I Had gotten the best console back then, MGS Just sealed the deal.

Well ,I was very bored with the SNES and Megadrive by 1995 ,the games hadnt really evolved for some years and the price for the few games improving a bit were uncannily high due to the chips inside (Starfox ,Virtua Racing ,etc ) ...the Sega CD and 32X werent exactly what I was expecting as a new console .

There was a lot of consoles out there in that year ,with the 3DO ,Commodore CD32 ,Philips CDI marketed as a games machine ,Atari Jaguar ,Sega Saturn and finally the Sony Playstation .

In my country when all those were released it was clear the real contenders were the PS1 and the Saturn .And it was clear from the word go that the PS1 had more power for 3d graphics .The Saturn had some good games from the arcades but it seemed the PS1 was getting most original content with new sagas as Tekken ,Ridge Racer ,Tohshinden ,Wipeout ....by the time Resident Evil was released it was crystal clear the PSX was the console to get.I got the Ps1 and loved it ,great RPGs ,a hardware that kept improving its results for years and years ,a massive step over the Snes-Megadrive and powerful enough to fight the N64 that released two years later...many new game genres and the inmersion in the 3d world for the first time .

I didnt buy the PS2 ,it looked cheap looking to me ,and was pretty sure the Cube and Xbox would get all the games (Cube the japanese and Xbox the occidental ) between the two so them being more powerful that the PS2 the right choice for me was these two.I liked both consoles quite a lot ,but missed many PS2 exclusives .

As for the PS3 ,looking at the specs ,features and games that would surely come (and not having to wait ages for a confirmation ) I knew it was the console I wanted ,plus some things of the rival consoles put me off ....the Wii gimmicky nature and lack of horsepower and the 360 lack of a HD reader ,online fees and RROD plus having most of its games on the PC.

i got on board the PS1 wagon because of GT and Crash Bandicoot. Been with Sony since.

one game kept me to stick to stick with the Playstation 1 Tekken 3

I am a Nintendo supporter since the beginning (i also had the Megadrive, but that console was just awesome), I was already hyped with the N64 when i saw the Playstation on the Asian store where i used to buy my systems and games, i told to them that i wanted to try it out, so i did, i remember that i played Arc the Lad (my first SRPG) and Wipeout, i absolutely loved it, so i bought it with those 2 games and some Konami RPG that they recommended me (yes, it is Suikoden, i'm telling the story as i lived it back then)...

I was very happy with those games, then i looked at the magazines and i started seeing all this 3rd party going Playstation, I still bought the 64 because it's Ninty (and the 64 turned out awesome even without all that 3rd party), but then i saw on a Video Game's TV show that Final Fantasy VII was going to the Playstation, at first i couldn't believe it, because the SNES JRPG lineup was fresh on my memory, specially Square's lineup; then it was confirmed everywhere, that pushed me to try more PS titles, and right there i found Sony's 1st party, that was the hookup... 3rd parties go anywhere, i know this since the 1st console wars, but what makes me support a brand is the 1st party product, and that's what SCE accomplished to me...

I actually got both as gifts...

PS1 and PS2...

hum... game a galore. plus twisted metal that help put it on the track. had to love single track back in the day