I have been a huge fan of consoles for many years now and in my opinion, no console manufacturer quite rivals Sony’s panache and ability to bring enjoyment to your living room - or alternative designated gaming area.

When you consider Sony's current hold on the gaming market, you would be forgiven for thinking they have been in the console game since day one. However, despite their success over the past two decades, Sony were considerably late arrivals in the console market, but it took the electronic giants little time to play catch up when their first generation console arrived across the globe in 1994. With SEGA and Nintendo leading the gaming market in the late 80s and early 90s, Sony entered into fierce competition, when they announced the development of their own console system - named The PlayStation (or PS One as it's more commonly known today).

The PlayStation chassis was of a simple design - sleek, lean and grey in color - with two wired control ports on its face. Located on top of the system was an eject-able disc tray, controlled by an adjacent eject button and a power button mirrored on the opposite side of the disc tray (Oh, how I enjoyed pressing that button after a tortuously long day at school). Thanks to its slim design, the PlayStation fitted nicely on top of the VCR (remember those?) and could easily be tucked away from view, unlike its more cumbersome competitors.

Shortly after its release, The PlayStation soon became the must have gadget of its generation where gamers were itching to get their hands on the increasingly popular titles that generated so much attention around the gaming community and so, Sony hit the ground running, with the release of ground breaking titles such as Wipeout, Crash Bandicoot and Pandemonium - to name a select few – PS One titles that paved a bright future for Sony to evolve, expand and tighten their grip on the gaming industry - and they duly did!

With the PS One flourishing only a short time into its gaming life, it quickly outgrew its competition and dominated the market with a catalog of diverse games covering an expanding genre set. It was around this flourishing period in the PS One's existence, when I saved hard earned newspaper-round money to get my very own PlayStation - needless to say, it took several months and hundreds of newspapers!

My personal highlights from my PS One playing days were losing hours enthralled in Grand Theft Auto, Gran Turismo, International Superstar Soccer, Abe’s Odyssey, Time Crisis, Driver, Tekken and many more.

For me, the Sony PlayStation has left a lasting impression thanks to a long list of iconic titles, but the one memorable PS One experience I savour - well over a decade after putting it down -was Squaresoft’s Final Fantasy VII. Countless evenings, days and weeks were spent deprived of food and drink, traversing from Midgar to the Golden Saucer in search of the twistingly brilliant uber-villain - Sephiroth.

For Final Fantasy VII alone, I am in eternal debt with Sony for allowing such complete and engaging game to grace their system, and giving Squaresoft the hardware and platform to weave their magic.

Climax and a New Era

During the PlayStation’s reign it became the first console to ship over one hundred million units Worldwide, which it reached 9 years and six months after its release.

As the flow of PS One titles dwindled late in the PlayStation’s life span, Sony announced that their second console system was in development and….. Wait for it – the aptly named PlayStation 2 was waiting in the wings, so Sony could take the gaming industry by storm once again...