No one can pretend that the original PlayStation was pretty. It was an ugly grey slab, like a paving stone with a pan lid on top. But opening that pan lid was the gateway to worlds we’d never seen before.

You could immerse yourself in the waterways of Venice and the catacombs below. The hidden race tracks of Mars. The ancient castles of, um, Southeastern Australia. All in three glorious dimensions thanks to Ken Kutaragri’s 32-bit chip, boasting technology first used in Silicon Graphics workstations.

The PlayStation, retroactively dubbed the PS1, was made from two slices of awesome with a tasty filling of genius, chutzpah and luck.