Who Wants To Be a Millionaire was, as I recall, the only thing people watched on TV in 2000. The one-liners were usable in so many situations. Is that your final answer? Do you want to phone a friend? How did we say these things before this show began? We must have had a really good system of grunts and gestures.

Regis Philbin, man. What a hot piece of manmeat. Yum. But you know what really used to get me off? The fact that, after shelling out thousands of pennies for the PS1 version of the game, Reege had no qualms about reminding me that I was not a REAL millionaire.

"We have it in the company vault, but that's as far as it goes," he says. Do you think that ABC still has a million dollars in the company vault? It'd be worth what now...like $300,000? Philbie continues: "You're only a pretend millionaire. Do you see the difference?" Ooh baby. A man putting me down? I'm getting all sweaty just thinking about it. I mean, I was all, "I won! I'm rich!" and then Regis was all, "No you're not! " and I was all, "Oh right, I have two maxed-out credit cards and have had nothing but Annie's Mac and Cheese for the last week. And I am living at my dad's and fighting with my brother about bathroom time. But please, Regis: Tell me a bit more about how pathetic I am. Hold on—wait, first let me get a drink. Waiter? Tap water, please. Neat. Now Regis, please go on. I'm glad we had this talk."

Anna Jane Grossman will be with us for the next few weeks, documenting life in the early aughts, and how it differs from today. The author of Obsolete: An Encyclopedia of Once-Common Things Passing Us By (Abrams Image) and the creator of ObsoleteTheBook.com, she has also written for dozens of publications, including the New York Times, Salon.com, the Associated Press, Elle and the Huffington Post, as well as Gizmodo. She has a complicated relationship with technology, but she does have an eponymous website: AnnaJane.net. Follow her on Twitter at @AnnaJane.

Nothing major in the familiar arc of the story has changed: An ill-fated Nintendo partnership inspired a few spurned execs to push for Sony's entry into the gaming industry—an ambition that wasn't met with much enthusiasm by Sony's traditionalist leaders. They relented, Sony mounted their dramatic war against Sega, and you know the rest.

The most interesting part of this story is what didn't happen, like the wildly different branding concepts, or the equally varying controller concepts. Did you know that the PSX almost shipped with a controller that wouldn't cause repetitive stress injuries to anyone with adult-sized hands? Me neither! [Edge via Crunchgear]

New 80GB PS3 eliminates "emotion engine" chip [Gamesindustry]

PS3 Update [PlayStation]

Among the sparklers are upscaling PS1, PS2 and DVD movies to 1080p, remote play on PSPs over the internet, and streaming of pictures, music, and video over the network from DLNA3 enabled devices. We haven't heard much about Digital Living Network Alliance before, but it's a bunch of companies that collaborated into making interoperability easier. We're not sure which products support this though. If Sony keeps up this line of fantastic firmware updates, the PS3 may actually be something worth buying by the middle of 2008! – Jason Chen

Press Release [Sony]

The handful of compatible titles are: "2Xtreme, Crash Bandicoot, Destruction Derby, Jet Moto, Jumping Flash, MediEvil, Rally Cross, Syphon Filter, Tekken 2 and WipeOut." If you've already purchased this for the PSP, you can re-download them for the PS3 for free. Now for your scheduled PSP licking. – Jason Chen

PS Store Update [Kotaku]

Latest PS3 Firmware Hits, Fixes BC Graphical Issues [Kotaku]

But I have faith. Maybe Sony will support WiFi transfers one day, over the PS4. And here is a video of their sweet emulator in action for those who are also itching to play some Twisted Metal 2 again. Notice that you can button map as a standard option. That's really nice for old games on new systems, unlike how Nintendo's classic line for the GBA has new button configurations for Super Mario World that ensure you not only will suck, but have absolutely no fun playing your all time favorite game. – Mark Wilson
Thanks Cree!

Look for the PlayStation with the model number SCPH-1001, which is the unit with separate audio and video RCA output jacks.

It seems the PlayStations sound best when left on all the time. You shouldn't even listen for the first three days. Both units need every second of the break-in period.

Compared to his own top-of-the-line, Class A+ rated Sony SACD machine, the PS1 fell behind in listening tests, but they were definitely in the same league. –Brian Lam

A second life for your first PlayStation [MSNBC]