Welcome everyone to the debut of Long Live Play PSN Community Spotlight! Since the announcement that the gates were open on the PlayStation Community Forums to send in your PlayStation story; we’ve seen a flood of great stories related to PlayStation gaming and we’re happy to now debut with a post from PSN Member the_mdt, who is now the recipient of a $50 PlayStation Store voucher code. From here on, every Saturday we’ll have a new PSN member to spotlight.

the_mdt recalls a story that many of us are familiar with, yet is all his own. PlayStation today is a household name, but to those who have been able to be gaming with PlayStation since the first console, it’s more than a name. For long time fans, PlayStation weaves itself into the events in our real life and can frame how we look back on those times. Check out his story.

(Real) Life with PlayStation
I don’t recall the exact year it happened – I’d like to think it was 1998 or 1999. One Christmas morning, I remember seeing a box under the tree addressed to me and my older brother, with three small flat gifts next to it tagged to each of us specifically. We never really received anything great during the holidays past – my mom was floating between jobs after divorcing my dad, and at the time even he had fallen out of luck with his work and ended up unemployed, unable to support us. When we opened the package and found our own PlayStation, the feeling was unreal.

2003. Times were rough – My job changed owners and the new bosses didn’t want to schedule me the hours I had previously been pulling down, my girlfriend’s job closed down forcing her to find a new job, and at one point I worked two jobs day and night just to barely pay for rent and utilities. We seemed to not see each other all that much aside from the car rides to and from our jobs. The only thing that kept me going at this point was being able to come home and unwind with the second Ratchet & Clank game, Going Commando, and the title stays as one of my favorite games for the system for being both outrageously fun and at points nail-bitingly hard. (That glider level! Oh, that glider level!)

2010. The PlayStation 3 had been out for some time again. It was my mother who came in again to save the day on Christmas. After the presents with my family had all been handled, it was clear that more attention had been given to my older brother who had not only just purchased a house but was about to have a baby with his wife. I was clearly left out in comparison. After he had left, my mom asked me to wait and then handed me a large amount of money. “We know you wanted a PS3, and we didn’t want to tell your brother we were getting you one in case he got jealous. Use this to buy yourself one.”

2012. I picked up the PS Vita. It was the first ever game system, let alone portable game system, that I’ve ever owned on its launch date let alone its launch month. I drove home, set up my 3G account, and continued to run around my house taking pictures for the “Hello Face” cube in Welcome Park. I played the demo for Uncharted: Golden Abyss, pleased with the way the touch screen played instead of using the jumps and analog controls, and was incredibly amused at how the sniper rifle scope moved with a turn of the console. Being my first dabbling in Augmented Reality, I was endlessly entertained with the three free games, most importantly Cliff Diver. I watched as I laid a card on my desk as the tabletop sank in, filled with water, and a plank sprouted up from nothing to which a man on a helicopter flew gracefully onto. The graphics, the screen – it just signals a new era of gaming. The whole experience was by far the coolest thing I had ever seen a portable game device do, and I’m excited for the promise of new things to come.

It seems like a long trip – from being at my parents house playing Ape Escape to living on my own with my girlfriend and our cat, playing Portal 2 together through the link with the Steam network. Just knowing about upcoming titles for the systems gets me anxious. Wherever I end up, I know that around the next corner will be a new surprise from PlayStation, and it keeps me playing to the next level. Long Live Play.

You can check out the_mdt’s original post here. LLP PSN Community Spotlight is an ongoing series which means you’ll continually have the chance to post a great PlayStation story throughout the upcoming months. If your post gets featured on the blog, you’ll be awarded a $50 PlayStation Store voucher. So get writing!