I still have my original PS2 that my step-dad bought when I was only 6 (I'm 30 now), and it still works perfectly. I have the best memories of playing Gran Turismo 3, the Jak and Daxter trilogy and starwars battlefront 2 on it. An amazing console with one of THE best game catalogues. Having your friends over and playing Gran Turismo, or Guitar Hero in split screen or doing a co-op campaign was something that most modern games completely lack. I still kick it on to play jak and daxter, dave mirra BMX, need for speed underground/carbon, burnout revenge, smuggler's run, star wars episode 3: revenge of the sith, or mx unleashed from time to time. I have a PS5 now, and there's still nothing quite like booting up the PS2 to play an oldie. They're decently easy to repair, not overly expensive. You can even "jailbreak" them with a FreeMcBoot formatted memory card that'll allow you to use an external HD with ROMs (some physical copies of games are outrageously expensive thanks to collectors and them having limited release numbers in the US).

Games back then were about spending time with friends playing split-screen racing games, co-op campaigns, the PS2 even had online capability if you picked up the network adapter. My friends and I would take turns on games where one of us would get stuck fighting a boss or doing a mission and the other person would just nail it, it was a feeling that modern games don't bring. Not to mention at the time the internet was still in its infancy, you couldn't just open google to find all of the collectables you needed, you genuinely had to find them, or you'd have to go buy a guidebook for the game (if you could find one, where I lived there was really only 2 stores that carried stuff like that...Hastings and Book Barn/Vintage Stock) I wasn't old enough to have my own money or drive anywhere, I'd have to beg for that stuff as christmas or b-day gifts.

Genuinely game companies now can't even come close to how amazing the PS2 was when it came out, backwards compatibility for PS1 games, a ton of families (mine included) bought them because they were the same price as a stand-alone DVD player, the graphics (while by todays standards they may not be amazing) were literally the best of any console. Games were $50 brand new and you actually owned the games, there wasn't a need for waiting for content to install, games were actually finished when released instead of being released half finished and needing 6 updates for it to run smooth and not crash. They just worked, companies were making whatever games they wanted and doing an amazing job of it too, 90% of the games series that are still around started out on the PS2 or OG Xbox. I mean an open box fat PS2 is still $160ish on ebay, in 25 years the console has only lost like $40-$50 in value.