Condition & Grading
Hold the disc under a lamp and tilt it. If the underside glows that deep, smoky black, you're holding the real thing – Sony pressed original PlayStation discs with black-tinted polycarbonate on the read side, and nearly thirty years on it's still the fastest authentication check
PS1
Ask anyone who owned a launch-era PlayStation why it ended up sitting upside down on the carpet, and you'll get the same sheepish grin. The optical drive in early units wore with age, and flipping the console over was the folk remedy that kept your cutscenes from
Games
Ape Escape wouldn't even start without a DualShock. Sony's Japan Studio shipped it in 1999 as the first PlayStation game to require both analog sticks – left stick steers Spike, right stick swings the Stun Club and the Time Net – and the original digital pad got politely