I remember those EB machines. I only ever saw a single one, in Japan, and never used it. We actually started working on the PS 2 before there was any hardware at all (even the Toshiba CPU had not been finished) and wrote the simulator so development could start before the hardware was available.

Oddly enough the first time I ever clapped eyes on a production PS 2 was at Fry’s, and it was a slimline (2nd gen) so that would have been five or six years after launch.

We were also working on the Dreamcast at the same time, but less deeply. Obviously there was no direct overlap. Luckily I never ended up visiting both companies the same day.