Ah, the PS One – I loved that thing. The moment when gaming finally became cool!

We’re not talking about the original PlayStation, which wasn’t even called the PS1 back then (well, that would have been wildly presumptuous). This is the PS One – and it was no mere name change. Sony’s sleeker, curvier console – half the footprint, a third of the weight – was aimed at a younger, wider audience less obsessed with mean, angular hardware. And you could buy a screw-on 5in screen that arguably made it Sony’s first portable console.

A portable PS? Were they expecting you to play serious games on the bus?

Sort of. Slap on that screen and, boom, instant self-contained portable gaming. Now, obviously, you couldn’t play it anywhere – unless you had the world’s longest extension lead. But it freed the console from the family TV and gave us our first hint of AAA gaming on the go, years before the Steam Deck was a glint in Valve’s eye. Plus, the car adapter could keep kids quiet in the back, blazing around virtual race circuits while parents – ironically – sat there grumbling in a traffic jam.

So did anyone really buy this thing, or was it just for weird 2000s retro heads?

People loved it. The PS One crushed the competition in 2000, outselling everything from Sony’s own supply-constrained PS2 to Sega’s beleaguered Dreamcast. Even with the screen, it was a bargain, giving budget-conscious gamers access to a quality machine with a huge library of titles – enough to keep it going until 2006, just before the PS3 arrived. It wasn’t hyped, it wasn’t ‘next gen’. But smart decisions ensured it was a stellar success. There’s a moral for the games industry in there…