What year did you start playing your first The Sims game?

I tried picking up the series for the first time sometime in 2003 on the Nintendo Gamecube console. I had really fallen for Animal Crossing and realized that these life sims might be the best kind of games for me. I didn't like The Sims on the GCN for whatever reason, but I came back to the series time and time again, until early 2004 when I got the PC version and the rest is history.