History
There were two or three problems around a launch of the models. Merely two or three million users got found consoles per prevent of 2000 due to hardware shortages. Developers too complained just about a models existence hard to have for, by owning little in the way of information lesson from either Sony for its exotic architecture. Although a PS2 launch seemed unimpressive & gaffe-prone, in comparison easily-planned launch of the Sega Dreamcast which was making a echt attempt to woo developers & which experienced better launch titles, a PS2 at the start sold swell alone on the basis of the nature and severity of the PlayStation brand and its backwards compatibility, letting a PS2 to tap a big installed base established per PlayStation. An additional major merchandising point above a Dreamcast was a PlayStation Two's ability to play DVDs and this gained the PS2 a presence around electronics places that erst didn't sell streaming game consoles. Later on Sony gained steam by owning fresh development kits for game developers & further PlayStations for consumers.

Numbers of experts predicted a close Three-way match-up between the PS2 & its soon-to-become-freed competition Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo GameCube, noting that the PS2's graphics were inferior however it experienced the benefit of a head begin (Xbox's nature and severity was inside its devices, GameCube was a cheapest of the Terzetto consoles). Nevertheless, a release of many blockbuster games in a period of a 2001 holiday year pushed a PS2 far ahead just as the Xbox & GameCube mass produced their telling debuts. Non since a times of the NES has a console dominated a market to the extent that PS2 has.

Despite a PS2's dominance, a advent of the Xbox & GameCube has injured Sony's profits due to all 3 rivals lowering their console prices (already below break-even point) in a price war, and because Sony Computer Entertainment is the subsidiary that accounts for over half of Sony's profits.

Devices sales remained hard until 2004 saw the console apparently approaching saturation point. Inside September of that month, eventually for the launch of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (the greatest marketing game when you took the 2004 Holiday year), Sony revealed a freshly, little PS2 (watch Hardware revisions).

Sony experienced stopped making a older PS2 exemplary (SCPH-5000x) at one time or another when you took a summer of 2004 to let the channel empty retired stock index of the units. Fallowing an apparent manufacturing issue driven a bit of initial lag withwithin producing a freshly unit, Sony reportedly underestimated require, stimulated in section by shortages between a instance a old units were cleared out & a newly units were quick. This led to farther shortages, & the issue was compounded inside Britain whenever a Russian oiler became stuck in the Suez Canal, blocking a ship from either China carrying PS2s attached for the UK. within the period of seven days in November, sales in the entire united states of Britain totalled 6,000 units - in comparison 70,000 two or three weeks prior. [http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,14935-1396182,00.html] Shortages in the U.s. were likewise highly severe; of these retail chain in the U.S., GameStop, had good 186 PS2 & Xbox units in hand through extra than 1700 places on the day prior to Christmas. [http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=GME&script=1010&item_id=997399]

Games
A PlayStation brand's nature and severity has lead to heavy third-person trend lines for the models. Although a launch titles for a PS2 were unimpressive inside 2000, a holiday year of 2001 saw the release of many right-selling & critically acclaimed games. Victims PS2 titles helped a PS2 maintain & extend its lead in a streaming videos game console market, despite increased competition from either the successful launches of the Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo GameCube. Critically acclaimed games on a machine come the Grand Theft Auto and Final Fantasy series, the latest 2 Metal Gear Solid titles, all tierce Devil May Cry titles, latest three Ace Combat titles, the Square Enix/Disney collaboration Kingdom Hearts and its upcoming sequel Kingdom Hearts II, and foremost-person Sony Computer Entertainment brands such as a Gran Turismo, SOCOM, Ratchet & Clank and Jak and Daxter series, ICO, God of War and the Everquest spin-offs Champions of Norrath and Champions: Return to Arms. For the additional complete listings of PS2 games view List of PlayStation 2 games.

Hardware compatibility
A PS2 devices potty page through each compact discs and DVDs. These are backwards compatible using older PlayStation (PS1) games, allows for even DVD Video playback, & might play PS2 games remove of inexpensive Video-ROMs or higher-capacity DVD-ROMs. A ability to play DVD motion picture allowed consumers to further easy justify a PS2's comparatively high price tag (inside October 2000, a MSRP wwhen $300) as it flushed a want to acquire an external DVD streaming video player (indeed, it can be said that a profits of the DVD format was partially down to the PS2's ability to play DVDs, when a format seemed to appeal other to consumers when a console's launch). A PS2 as well supports PS1 memory cards (for PS1 stake saves merely) & controllers (a PS2's Dual Shock Two controller is au fond the slightly upgraded PS1 Dual Shock).

After it was freed, a PS2 experienced numbers of advanced features that were non present inside more contemporary streaming video game consoles, including its DVD capabilities & USB and IEEE 1394 expansion ports. It was non until late 2001 that the Microsoft Xbox became a 2nd console using (non-standard) USB & DVD trend lines (this is assuming the Nuon, an advanced DVD player graphics coprocessor, is non considered the console).

Software compatibility
Trend lines for original PlayStation games was besides an significant marketing point for the PSTwo, allowing owners of an older patterns update to the PlayStation 2 & keep their old software formulas, & returning freshly users access to older games until the big library was developed for the fresh system. As an added bonus, a PS2 experienced a ability to enhance PlayStation games by speeding higher disc see period and/or adding texture smoothing to improve graphics. Spell a texture smoothing was always efficacious (albeit by using odd results in which transparent textures come utilized), sooner disk reading can reason a bit of games to fail to batch or even play aright.

The handful of PlayStation titles (notably Metal Gear Solid: Special Missions) fail to run on the PS2 the least bit (Favorite Missions fails to recognise Metal Devices Firm at a disk swop screen, e.g.). These are the most common misconception that disk swapping inside the game (for even instance, for multi-disk games or expansion packs) is non conceivable on the PS2. A anomalous failure of the above title at its disk trade screen could keep around given birth to this hearsay. Software program for a lot PlayStation consoles contains one of troika area codes: for Japan and Asia: NTSC/J, North America: NTSC-U/C and Europe and Oceania: PAL.

Online play
By owning a buy of a separate unit known as the Network Adaptor (which is built into the freshly patterns revision), a few PS2 games trend lines online multiplayer. Instead of getting the unified, subscription-depending on the internet service rather Xbox Live, online multiplayer on the PS2 is free, but split between publishers. This, yet, comes at the price, when any connection could attach to the cyberspace by owning the PS2, ensuant around lag whenever slow connections come present. Xbox Live, however, takes broadband internet access.

Entirely freshly on the internet PS2 games (since 2003) come protected per Dynamic Network Authentication Rules (DNAS). A purpose of this patterns is to stop piracy and online cheating. DNAS may block games from either existence played on the internet in case it is determined to exist as pirated copies, or even in case it use at times been modified.

Home development
Independent article: PS2 Linux

Sony freed the version of the Linux operating system for the PS2 within the pack that too includes the keyboard, mouse, Ethernet adapter and hard disk drive. Presently, Sony's on a internet store states that the Linux kit is no yearn purchasable around North America. Still as of July 2005, the European version was however available. (a kit boots by installing a proprietary interface, the Run-time environment which is on the area-coded DVD, so the European & America kits to each one exclusively operate by owning a PS2 from either that vicinity).

Around Europe and Australia, the PlayStation Two go with the loose Yabasic interpreter on the bundled demo disk. This allows elementary software online to become created for the PlayStation Two per prevent-user. This was involved inside a failing attempt to circumvent the UK taxation by defining the console as a "computer" whenever it contained certain package.

The port of the NetBSD project is also available for the PS2.

These are besides conceivable to listen to MP3 music and observe Divx movies with homebrew programs running around consoles that have a modchip installed.

Hardware revisions
A PlayStation Two has undergone numerous revisions, a bit of single of internal construction & others by using real external changes. Which are actually informally known amongst PlayStation Two devices hackers when V0, V1, V2, etc., when much as V12 (as of November 25, 2004).

V0 was a Japanese model & was never sold around Europe or even the U.s.a.. These involved the PCMCIA slot instead of the Expansion Bay (DEV9) port of fresh system. V0 did nin have a built-inbuilt DVD streaming video streaming video player & instead relied on an encrypted player that was copied to a memory card from either either an involved Video-ROM (unremarkably, the PS2 might just execute encrypted computer software from its memory card, however look at PS2 Independence Exploit). V3 has a substantially different internal structure from either the subsequent revisions, featuring many interconnected printed circuit boards. When of V4 all about was unified into a single board, except a power supply. V5 introduces minor internal changes & a just difference between V6 (for instance known as V5.I) & V5 is a orientation of the Power/Reset switch board connection, which was reversed to check the utilise of there is no-solder modchips. V7 & V8 come too similar, & V9 (model total SCPH-50000/SCPH-50001) added a Infrared port for the optional DVD Remote Control, removed a widely unused FireWire port, added the capability to scan DVD-RW discs, & the quietly fan. V10 & V11 own minor changes. Within September 2004 Sony unveiled a third major devices revision (V12, model dull SCPH-70000). Available inside November 2004, these are little & thinly than the old version & includes a built-inbuilt Ethernet port. Within the bit of markets it as well integrates a modem. Due to its thinly profile, it doesn't contain a Trey.Phoebe" expansion bay, and therefore does not support the internal hard disk drive. This poses a problem for games such as Final Fantasy XI, which requires the use of this peripheral, and prevents the use of the official PS2 Linux kit. A product named HD Connect can be soldered into the unit giving hard drive support though. It is widely believed that Sony has abandoned support for the hard drive. There are also some disputes on the numbering for this PS2 version, since there are actually two sub-versions of the SCPH-70000. One of them includes the old EE and GS chips, and the other contains the newer unified EE+GS chip, otherwise being identical. Since the V12 version had already been established for this model, there were some disputes regarding these sub-versions. Two propositions were to name the old model (EE and GS, separate chips) V11.5 and the newer model V12, and to name the old model V12 and the newer model V13. Currently, most people just use V12 for both models, or V12 for the old model and V13 for the newer one. The new V12 model was first released in black. A silver edition is available in the United Kingdom exclusively. It is unknown whether or not this will follow the color schemes of the older model.

Sony has also made a PVR/DVD burning consumer device that plays PlayStation 2 games called the PSX. The device was poorly received, with some major features absent from the first revisions of the hardware, and has thus far experienced very poor sales in Japan, in spite of major price drops [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/news.php?aid=4280]. The machine's future continues to be uncertain, with North American and European launches considered to be distant if at all.

Screenshots

Accessories
Main articles: DualShock, PlayStation 2 Expansion Bay

The PS2's controller is largely identical to the PlayStation's, with the same basic functionality; however, it includes analog pressure sensitivity on the face and shoulder buttons, is lighter and includes two more levels of vibration. The fact that the design didn't change pleased some consumers who were already used to the PS1 controller, however, it disappointed others who were hoping for a more ergonomic design (the two analogue sticks being as they are in an awkward-to-use position for the thumbs to operate).

Optional hardware include additional controllers, a DVD remote control, a hard drive and modem, ethernet adapter, memory cards, and various cables and interconnects: Multitaps, Component video, S-Video, VHF antenna video cables, Mouse and Headset.

Technical specifications

The specifications of the PlayStation 2 console are as follows, with hardware revisions: CPU: 128 bit "Emotion Engine" clocked at 294 MHz (later versions 299 MHz), 10.5 million transistors System Memory: 32 MB Direct Rambus or RDRAM (note that some computers use this type of RAM) Memory Bus Bandwidth: 3.2 GB per second Main processor: MIPS R5900 CPU core, 64 bit Co-Processor: FPU (Floating Point Multiply Accumulator × 1, Floating Point Divider × 1) Vector Units: VU0 and VU1 (Floating Point Multiply Accumulator × 9, Floating Point Divider × 1), 128 bit Floating Point Performance: 6.2 GFLOPS 3D CG Geometric Transformation: 66 million polygons per second (1) Compressed Image Decoder: MPEG-2 I/O Processor interconnection: Remote Procedure Call over a serial link, DMA controller for bulk transfer Cache Memory: Instruction: 16KB, Data: 8KB + 16 KB (ScrP) Graphics: "Graphics Synthesizer" clocked at 147 MHz DRAM Bus bandwidth: 47.0GB per second DRAM Bus width: 2560-bit Pixel Configuration: RGB:Alpha:Z Buffer (24:8, 15:1 for RGB, 16, 24, or 32-bit Z buffer) Maximum Polygon Rate: 75 million polygons per second (1) Dedicated connection to: Main CPU and VU1 Sound: "SPU1+SPU2" Number of voices: 48 hardware channels of ADPCM on SPU2 plus software-mixed channels Sampling Frequency: 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz (selectable) I/O Processor CPU Core: Original PlayStation CPU (MIPS R3000A clocked at 33.8 MHz or 37.5 MHz) Sub Bus: 32 Bit Connection to: SPU and CD/DVD controller. Interface Types: 2 proprietary PlayStation controller ports, 2 proprietary Memory Card slots using MagicGate encryption, Expansion Bay (DEV9 or PCMCIA on early models) port for Network Adaptor, Modem and Hard Disk Drive, IEEE 1394 (2), Infrared remote control port (2), and 2 USB 1.1 ports with an OHCI-compatible controller.

Disc Media: DVD-ROM (CD-ROM compatible) with copy protection. 4.7GB capacity, a few are DVD-9 (8.5 GB)

(1) Polygons per second under ideal circumstances (e.g. no texturing, lighting, or vertex colors applied). Some criticize these figures for being unrealistic, and not indicative of real-world performance. The true polygons per second figure with full textures, effects etc. is around 13 million.

(2) IEEE 1394 removed in SCPH-50000 and later hardware versions, and Infrared remote port added.

Price history
North America US$299.99 (October 26, 2000, Launch Price) US$199.99 (May 19, 2002) US$179.99 (May 14, 2003) US$149.99 (May 11, 2004)

Japan JP¥39,800 (March 2000, Launch Price) JP¥29,800 (2001) JP¥19,800 (2003) JP¥17,800 (June 2004)