I used to work for a Sony retailer in Scotland when the PS2 was launched, and we were all incredibly annoyed they wouldn't give us one to demo.

"But you sell TVs, DVD players, and audio systems, not games consoles, you won't sell any of these"

Well not if we can't demo it we won't!

Despite this being the prevailing attitude at Sony - "don't sell them in shops where people are already spending five figure sums on home entertainment" - it did really well.

The one thing where I think they really missed a trick though, was their 200-disc changers. They had a CD changer and a DVD changer, massive units (we had a DVP-CX850D on demo), that took 200 discs like the name suggests, plugged into your TV and audio system, and you could select which one you wanted to play from an on-screen menu.

I think they really biffed it by not offering that chassis with PS2 guts. Just think, you've got your library of films, audio CDs, and games, all in one unit tucked neatly out of the way. It would have been expensive but it would have blown the market apart.

And, like the CX850, it'd still be about 700 quid on eBay 27 years later.