Psone

» Manufacturer: Sony » Year: 2000 » cost: £80 (launch) £30 (today, unboxed)

If there’s one thing that’s prevalent in the world of consoles it’s the concept of the redesign. Atari revisited the aging Atari 2600 in 1986, nearly a decade after its original release, while Sega and Nintendo made various updates to their own consoles over the years. Perhaps one of the most successful updates of a console though was the introduction of the Psone in 2000. Later redesigns for both the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS would also go on to strike a chord with consumers, but there were few consoles at the time of the Psone’s release that revitalised the core brand in the same way.

Incredibly neat in its design, it was significantly smaller than the original Playstation and it still looks absolutely gorgeous today. The moulded curved corners make it look exceptionally stylish and its well crafted, too. There are concessions of course (the parallel and serial ports are missing) but it’s a fair trade off and the end result is a beautiful looking machine that has access to one of the most diverse range of games on any home console. Little wonder it outsold every other games system on its first year of release, including Sony’s brand spanking new Playstation 2.