The beginning of PlayStation, its first release, and the start of Sony's gaming industry. PlayStation came out back in 1994, and it was one of the first consoles that used a CD disc instead of traditional cartridges. Thanks to this advantage, game production was much cheaper, and also, a CD disc could hold a much larger game size. As you know, a CD holds up to 700 megabytes of memory, which was a huge leap back then. With the passage of time, this tradition of owning discs became a favorite hobby for PlayStation users. Many people, including myself, still keep specific games just for the sake of collecting.
As you know, according to Sony's latest information, the next PlayStation console, the PS6, will not be manufactured with game discs; instead, you will only be able to download games as a digital version. Yes, this news irritated many gamers and PlayStation fans. The tradition of owning a console and discs starts exactly with the appearance of the PlayStation 1. It's because of this that this console is still loved by many today, and PS1 sales even surpassed 100 million. On the other hand, the next-generation PlayStation 2 became a massive hit and maintains the title of the best-selling console to this day, with its sales reaching 250+ million. At that time, this was driven by the fact that Sony was selling its console not just as a gaming device, but as a DVD device. It was a universal machine where you could watch movies and also play games on it. That's exactly why it still has countless fans today. If Sony really takes this step with the PS6, it means consoles will find themselves in a major turning point. Today, I want to talk about exactly this beginning of the era and its founder, the PlayStation 1.
In the early 2000s, even before Sony would release the PS2, it released a compact version of the PS1—the PlayStation 1 Slim. This tradition comes exactly from here, and today we see Fat and Slim versions of every PlayStation. The PS1 Slim was my childhood. It was my first console that worked on discs, and its graphical capabilities were much better than predecessor consoles like the NES or Super NES. This gaming device of my childhood gave many pleasant hours to both me and my family members. Games like Driver, Driver 2, ISS Pro Evolution 2, Tekken 3, and Fighting Force were our daily routine, especially during summers. With the passage of time, the console's reader got damaged and for some period it was just stored in a warehouse, but I decided to give it a new life so it could firmly remain a part of my collection.
The PS1 was a pretty strong and durable device; you would rarely find a problem in it that wasn't related to its reading laser. Otherwise, it really had no issues. That's why I decided to buy a new reader for it. There is a lot of talk on the internet about whether it's even worth buying a new laser. In 99 percent of cases, this is not a Sony product but a Chinese-made replica. After a lot of searching, I decided to try anyway and bought a laser in a Chinese store. It cost 10 dollars and had pretty good reviews. The strange side of this console was that this laser had an adjustable potentiometer, which is adjusted with a star screwdriver and a multimeter. That's exactly how I managed to adjust it for the perfect result. First of all, of course, I opened the console, installed the new laser, then measured the resistance on the potentiometer and started adjusting it. The resistance should be between 700 and 1200 ohm, and I got the result at 950 ohm. With this result, the laser read discs perfectly without any problems. As it turned out, I succeeded in picking the laser, and I paid just under 10 dollars for it.
It's an interesting fact that back when the PS1 was popular in my city, rumors went around that some people had a more powerful PS1 that could read scratched discs better than what others had. This was exactly connected to the potentiometer adjustment and the freshness of the laser. After aligning it perfectly, the result will definitely be pleasant and successful.
In 2026, of course, a controller with a cord is a bit outdated. Even though I have the original controller with me, I decided to buy a modern, non-original but wireless controller. I bought it on the Taobao market, also in China. Of course, this falls short in quality compared to the original controller, but playing it from the couch makes this console feel even more modern. I managed to buy this controller for 6.5 dollars—an incredibly good price, right? As it turned out, despite the cheap price, the controller turned out to be good and working. But here I ran into one very important problem: the PS1 doesn't have an HDMI port, it has old RCA ports, but new TVs almost don't have this anywhere anymore. I ran into this exact problem when I wanted to connect it to my new Samsung Crystal UHD TV. By the way, if you haven't read the post about this TV yet, you can see it here.
And I found the solution easily: I bought a PS2TOHDMI adapter for just 4 dollars on the Chinese market. True, it has PS2 in the name, but it works on the PS1 too. In total, for just around 20 dollars, this console came back to life and became modern, and in it, you will find many such games that simply aren't released today. The post about another member of this collection, the PS3, is already on our blog, you can view it here.