This was around the time I got my PS3
Missed!
The PS3 came out in 2006, it's definitely not the early 2000s, and it's totally not very. I'm about somewhere around 2002 or so, not too late after Conker's Bad Fur Day came out.
Since the late PS1, we have gotten a little better with consoles, the PS2 was already sold in full force (all consoles from the store are chipped, only pirated discs, a little later it also became terrible machine "translations", which from time to time simply made the game unplayable. I used to stood at the start of the redump.org project and tried to buy everything licensed I could get my hands on, and it was extremely difficult not because of the price, but simply because there was nothing). Yes, only gray imports, and only very, very popular ones, but they were there. But it was always a big problem to find something from Nintendo, our silly shadow brokers always had the idea that Nintendo is for stupid children. In the days of the DS it was very difficult to find a DS, in the days of the 3DS I had to try hard to find it. Even when the Switch began to systematically and methodically destroy everything in its path, these idiots tried to the last to carry only cartridges (and devices, unfortunately, mostly refurbished) for the long-dead PS Vita. Now it seems that all three giants are officially presented, although Nintendo's prices are as if they did not go to a poor country during the war, but to the masters of the galaxy, the price of games is around $85, hello.