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Experts Opinion: The PlayStation2 is equipped with a 128-bit Emotion Engine processor that enables lightning-fast gameplay and impressive graphics power. The console builds on its home entertainment value by doubling as a DVD player and accommodating most of the original PlayStation's vast library of games. PS2 is known for its excellent selection of titles for the older gamer.
PlayStation 2 Timeline
In late 2002, when a number of reporters were asked about the success of PlayStation 2, one reporter commented, "Sony can do no wrong, even when Sony is very wrong." This pretty well summed up the early life of PlayStation 2, a console that will very likely go down in history as the most successful game console of all time.
What went wrong with PlayStation 2? The system first launched in Japan with an operating system flaw that enabled it to breach DVD coding protections that Sony had helped to create. Sony only had half the inventory it promised for its U.S. launch. PlayStation 2 was so difficult to program that many of the big games planned for the Japanese and U.S. launches were released late.
And then there was the competition. Nintendo, the most veteran company in video-game hardware had GameCube. Microsoft, the richest company in the world, had Xbox. Both systems were more powerful than PlayStation 2.
But compared to the things Sony did right, the glitches were minimal. Sony had a slick system with a sophisticated electronics feel. There was no mistaking PlayStation 2 for a toy -- this was a component for your home entertainment system. Sony helped mature the market with the original PlayStation, then took advantage of that matured market with PlayStation 2.
"The PlayStation 2's first two milestones are easy to see -- the launch in Japan followed by the U.S. launch," says Michael Gartenberg, vice president and research director of Jupiter Research. "The launch boom was unbelievable in terms of market enthusiasm and the excitement that was generated by that launch initially."
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But after that initial boom, PlayStation 2 languished as a repository for bad sports games, giant robot games, and other disappointing releases for months. Then, a few months before Nintendo and Microsoft launched its systems, the Sony hit machine reached its stride starting with games like Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec, Metal Gear Solid 2, and Devil May Cry.
The biggest surprise, of course, would be Grand Theft Auto III. Not many people noticed GTA3 at E3, 2001. When it came to Rockstar Games, the big news seemed to be State of Emergency. Shortly after GTA3 hit retail, however, it became an industry-driving phenomenon. "The release of Grand Theft Auto III was a major coup for Sony," says Gartenberg. "That is the kind of software that sells systems.
"The cool part about a hit-driven industry is that it doesn't matter if you plan for it ... it just matters if you had it. At E3, nobody was talking about GTA3, and at the next E3, every publisher was talking about how they had a title that was just like GTA3, but … and you fill in the word."
Sony meandered into the 2001 holiday season with less than a 2 million-console lead over the still unreleased GameCube and Xbox systems. It finished the season with a 3 million-console lead. As Sony Computer Entertainment Senior Vice President Jack Tretton put it, "If they plan on catching up to us, they better start closing the gap."
Sony also emerged as a versatile game publisher in its own right after releasing PlayStation 2 and cemented its place as an industry leader by offering free online support with its moderately-priced Network Adaptor.
"When Sony introduced the Network Adaptor online services, that sort of set the stage for the next generation," says Gartenberg. "I think people are going to look back and see that as a real milestone."
1998
- November 27th: Sega initiates the next generation of game consoles by launching Dreamcast in Japan at a price of 29,800 Yen ($260 U.S.). Due to manufacturing problems, Sega has reduced inventory of the launch.
1999
- March 2nd: Sony unveils the unnamed follow-up console for the PlayStation.
Sony conducted this unveiling in true industry-leader fashion. Held in a lavish Tokyo concert hall, the event was attended by 1,500 journalists, analysts, and game industry notables from around the world. Soon-to-retire Sony President Norio Ohga spoke, as did his successor, Nobuyuki Idei.
Sony Computer Entertainment President Teruhisa Tokunaga, who soon would be promoted to Sony's general board, spoke. So did Ken Kutaragi, then the vice president and acknowledged father of the PlayStation.
At this point, Sony had shipped 50 million PlayStation consoles and sold more than 430 million PlayStation games.
It was during this meeting that Kutaragi introduced the name "Emotion Engine." He confirmed that the unit would be backwards compatible.
- May 11th: Sony formally presents its "second-generation PlayStation" at E3.
A few details are added to the presentation Kutaragi made in Japan, but not much. The unit is not playable.
- September 9th: Sega launches Dreamcast in the United States for $199. Sales are initially strong, but they slow dramatically after the holidays.
2000
- February 18th: Sony holds an event called "PlayStation Festival 2000."
A proprietary tradeshow after the fashion of Nintendo's Spaceworld/Shoshinkai shows, Festival 2000 gave Japan's elite publishers a chance to demonstrate the games they had planned for PlayStation 2. While Namco and Koei had good-looking games ready for launch, Capcom's "Onimusha," a game that would not be ready until that summer, stole the show.
- February 28th: PlayStation 2 is featured in the cover story in Newsweek magazine.
This was a milestone for Sony and the entire video-game industry. "Newsweek" magazine, one of the cornerstones of the mainstream media, was taking the launch of a video-game console so seriously that it merits a cover story.
- March 4th: PlayStation 2 goes on sale in Japan. Some stores have sold out through preorder, others open early and hand units out on a first-come, first-served basis. Along Akihabara, Japan's "Electric Town," stores with a few hundred units have lines of several thousand people. Sales begin at 12:00 a.m. and all PlayStation 2 console inventory is sold out before stores officially open at 10:00 a.m.
Sony had less than 1 million units to sell. Had there been 3 million units, they would have sold out. The Japanese launch of PlayStation was as close as video games may ever get to an event like Woodstock. People from around the world camped out, many for days, in the hope of going home with a PlayStation 2. One disappointed boy is said to have committed suicide by jumping from the top of a building in Akihabara. When a boy was robbed while bringing his PlayStation 2 home from the store, it made national headlines in Japan. The government of Japan declared PlayStation 2 a "super computer," and limited the number of consoles visitors could take home.
That the success of the PlayStation 2 launch was based solely on the popularity of the Sony brand as the launch lineup was universally panned. (Sony did not have any in-house games in that lineup.)
- March 5th: Sony sells 980,000 PlayStation 2 consoles and runs out of inventory More than 500,000 of these consoles were sold through Sony's online site. By March 31, the number of consoles sold rose to 1.4 million -- constrained only by lack of inventory.
- March: Days after the launch, a bug is discovered that enables PlayStation 2 to bypass DVD regional coding, causing a recall. Other manufacturing problems would also surface, slowing console production.
- March 10th: Bill Gates announces Xbox at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, California.
- March 30th: Tekken Tag is released for PlayStation 2.
"Street Fighter Ex3" had slowdown problems and other flaws. "Ridge Racer V" had bad aliasing problems. With the exception of "Kessen," which was considered a niche game, the PlayStation 2 launch line left people disappointed. "Tekken Tag," which slipped from the original launch date, was seen as the next big opportunity.
Because of the difficulty of programming for PlayStation 2, it took months before big ticket games like Sony's "Gran Turismo" and Capcom's "Onimusha" arrived in stores. For months after the release of PlayStation 2, the system was mostly used for watching DVD movies. (Prior to the release of PlayStation 2, the DVD market was small in Japan.) The biggest-selling disc for PlayStation 2 during this time was the DVD version of the hit movie, "The Matrix."
May 10th. Sony Computer Entertainment America President Kazuo "Kaz" Hirai announces plans for the U.S. launch of PlayStation 2. Sony will ship 1 million consoles, which will be slightly modified from the Japanese design. Sony announces that it will maintain the $299 launch price of the original PlayStation.
The slight changes made in the North American version of PlayStation 2 had big consequences for Sony. The North American version had space built into its shell for a hard drive and modem. More importantly, it had a different graphics synthesizer than the Japanese version. Early problems with the manufacture of this synthesizer came back to haunt Sony.
- September 20th: PlayStation 2 gets its first hit game when Capcom releases Onimusha: Warlords in Japan.
- September 20th: Sony Computer Entertainment America President Kaz Hirai announces that due to manufacturing difficulties, Sony will only have 500,000 PlayStation 2 consoles on hand for the U.S. launch. He promises additional shipments of 100,000 units per week through the end of the year.
Sony's inventory shortage gave Sega one last fighting chance. Sega of America Chief Peter Moore claims that if he can sell some 3 million units over the holidays the Dreamcast business would be profitable enough to sustain itself. Sega of Japan focused all of its energy into creating games that would appeal to U.S. gamers -- "They need to fish where the fish are biting," says Moore.
October 26th: Sony Computer Entertainment America Launches PlayStation 2.
Supplies were short to begin, but the inventory sold out immediately. PlayStation 2 became a big-ticket item on eBay with people paying over $1,000 for consoles. Sony's weekly 100,000-unit shipments only further agitated the market. Though PlayStation 2 units were readily available in Japan, the console remained virtually sold out in the United States through March, 2001.
"Sony had to respond to shortages," says Gartenberg. "You could not get a PlayStation 2 in the U.S. in that first holiday season, and that is one of the areas where success can actually hurt you -- when consumers are looking to buy your product and can't. Sony responded quickly."
Unlike the Japanese launch, the U.S. launch had a wide range of software -- some of which was good. Electronic Arts, already the largest and one of the most prestigious publishers, tapped into PlayStation's graphics power with the games "SSX" and "Madden NFL 2001." Rockstar Games, much smaller in its pre-"Grand Theft Auto III" days, had "Smuggler's Run" and "Midnight Club."
The successful launch of PlayStation 2 broke the back of Sega. Price drops no longer mattered. Superior library no longer mattered. Dreamcast never caught on in Japan; and now that PlayStation 2 had arrived, American consumers no longer had any interest in Dreamcast. On January 24th, Sega formally dropped out of the hardware business.
- November 24th: PlayStation 2 launches in Europe at a price of 299 Pounds. Most of the small 200,000 console allocation is sold out in pre-sales.
- December 14th: Sony Computer Entertainment releases Dark Cloud, another highly-anticipated and delayed game, in Japan.
- December 23rd: Squaresoft's highly anticipated cinematic fighting game, The Bouncer, is released in Japan.
This game epitomized the problem PlayStation 2 was facing at this point. Here was yet another game that was highly-anticipated, graphically gorgeous, delayed at launch, and not as fun as expected when it was finally released.
2001
- March 23rd: Sony has already shipped more than 10 million PlayStation 2 consoles worldwide.
- April 28th: Sony Computer Entertainment publishes Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec in Japan.
Everything suddenly changed.
People had been expecting a game called "Gran Turismo 2000" since the launch of PlayStation. "Gran Turismo 3: S-Spec" was a completely different game that pushed the known limits of PlayStation 2's graphics processor while delivering the real-to-life driving experience people had come to expect in a "GT" game. The launch of "Gran Turismo 3" marked the beginning the of second generation of PlayStation 2 games.
- May 15th: Sony Computer Entertainment and partners RealNetworks and AOL kick off E3 by announcing a "multi-faceted strategic alliance" as SCEA promises to have its online services available by the end of 2001.
Despite the big announcements, PlayStation 2 does not get an online presence for another year.
- September 14th: GameCube goes on sale in Japan for 25,000 Yen (approximately $210). Sales are unexpectedly slow.
- October 25th: Rockstar Games releases Grand Theft Auto III.
Overlooked at E3 as just another game, "GTA3" became the biggest hit of the next- generation systems remaining among the top 10 bestsellers for over a year. More than 9 million copies of the game were sold worldwide before it was released in Japan. "GTA3" helped define the gaming experience of this generation in the way that the first big "Mario" and "Sonic" games defined gaming in their day.
- November 15th: Xbox launches in North America and sells out instantly.
- November 18th: GameCube launches in North America at a retail price of $199.95 and sells out.
2002
- May 14th: Sony Computer Entertainment cuts the price of PlayStation 2 from $299 to $199 the week before E3.
Throughout the PlayStation generation, Sony showed a mastery at E3 politics, catching companies such as Sega and Nintendo off guard with price drops and other announcements. This time, however, Sony outdoes itself. With Microsoft and Nintendo waiting for the show to announce its price drops, Sony drops its price the week before the show. When the competition matches the price drop, it looks to the outside world as if Sony has forced it to make a move it did not want to make.
May 15th: Electronic Arts announces that EA Sports games will only support PlayStation 2 online.
- August 27th: Sony Computer Entertainment ships the Network Adaptor.
With Microsoft preparing to launch Xbox Live and Sony releasing the Network Adaptor, online gaming became the next battleground in the console wars. In some ways, Microsoft grabbed the upper hand by offering a far more robust service -- Sony basically offered a matching service. Microsoft's online service had a higher penetration rate among Xbox owners than Adaptor sales had among PlayStation 2 owners.
In other ways, Sony's offerings were dominant. Though a smaller percentage of PlayStation 2 owners bought the Adaptor, the PlayStation 2 market was so much bigger than the Xbox market that Sony had more people online. Also, Sony sewed up an exclusive deal with Electronic Arts so that games like "Madden" would only support Sony's online service.
- September 30th: Sony Computer Entertainment announces that it has surpassed the 40 million consoles shipped mark worldwide with 17.94 million shipped to North America, 12.6 to Europe, and 10.98 shipped to the already-saturated Japanese market.
- October 29th: Rockstar Games releases Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, which sells over 10 million units, overtaking GTA3 and becoming the new best-selling game of its generation.
2003
- January 15th: Sony Computer Entertainment announces that it has surpassed 50 million consoles shipped worldwide.
Interestingly, by this time Sony had shipped almost 21.5 million to the North American market and only 16 million to Europe. Before this generation, Europe has been the biggest hardware market.
- March 12th: Sony Computer Entertainment America announces that it has sold more than 500,000 Network Adaptors. During the same conference, Hirai announces that the Network Adaptor will come packed in with PlayStation 2 hardware at no extra cost.
Microsoft drops price of Xbox to $179 in response.
- July: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe releases Eye Toy. By December, more than million units have been sold in Europe.
- July-September: After a slow summer, it appears that PlayStation 2 sales in North America may have thinned out as they did in Japan. Retailer inventory of the unit seems high with 24 million consoles shipped into the channel and only 19 million sold through.
With no new "Grand Theft Auto" title planned for the year and sales bottoming out, many industry watchers expected Sony to lower the price of its hardware. Sony did release some creative bundles drive sales, but maintained its $199 price point.
- November 4th: Sony releases Eye Toy in North America.
2004
- January 14th: Having survived slumping sales in the North American market, Sony has a banner holiday season. By the end of the year, Sony will have sold more than 22 million PlayStation 2 consoles into the market according to the NPD Group. (Sony has the number at 24.5 million.)
By this time, Sony had shipped more than 70 million PlayStation 2 consoles worldwide and sold more than 2.4 million Network Adaptors.
The success of PlayStation 2 has permanently altered the video-games market. Thanks to its sleek styling and its ability to play music, games, and movies, PlayStation 2 is the first game console to fit in with the Playboy demographic that has been the target of game makers for more than a decade. PlayStation 2 helped usher in the age of online gaming on consoles, and it has dominated in a market that has seen the decline of game sales in Japan.
When he first unveiled his new console, Ken Kutaragi said that emotion would be the element that would define the games of this generation. The skeptics laughed. Sega had already launched a system with a built-in modem, and online gaming seemed to be a much more likely defining characteristic. While "Emotion" may not be the best term to describe the cinematic elements that have defined this generation of games, it is pretty close. Sony's success with its Network Adaptor and Microsoft's Xbox Live success have set the stage for the next generation of hardware. But in this generation, the Grand Theft Auto games have so completely dominated that online seems less important than the ability to convey a truly cinematic experience.
PlayStation 2 System Features and Specifications ( www.online-toy-store.net )
CPU 128-bit CPU
System Clock Frequency: 294.912 MHz
Cache Memory: Instruction: 16KB, Data: 8KB + 16 K(ScrP)
Main Memory: Direct Rambus (Direct RDRAM)
Memory Bus Bandwidth: 3.2GB per second
Co-processor:
FPU (Floating Point Unit)Floating Point Multiply Accumulator x 1Floating Point Divider x 1
Vector Units:
VU0 and VU1 Floating Point Multiply Accumulator x 9Floating Point Divider x 3
Floating Point Performance: 6.2 GFLOPS
3D CG Geometric Transformation: 66 million Polygons per Second
Compressed Image Decoder: MPEG2
GRAPHICS Graphics Synthesizer™
Clock Frequency: 147.456MHz
Embedded DRAM: 4MB
DRAM Bus Bandwidth: 48GB per second
DRAM Bus Width: 2,560 bits
Pixel Configuration: RGB:Alpha:Z Buffer (24:8:32)
Polygon Drawing Rate: 75 million Polygons per second
Screen Resolution: Variable from 256 x 224 to 1280 x 1024
SOUND “SPU2 + CPU"
Number of Voices: ADPCM: 48 ch on SPU2 plus definable, software programmable voices
Sound Memory: 2MB
Output Frequency: Variable up to 48 KHz (DAT quality)
IOP I/O Processor
CPU Core: PlayStation (current) CPU (R3000)
Clock Frequency: 33.8688MHz or 36.864MHz (selectable; PlayStation/PlayStation 2 mode)
IOP Memory:2MB
Sub Bus:32-bit
Interface Types:
IEEE1394 i.LINK, Universal Serial Bus (USB) x2, Controller Port x2, Memory Card slots x 2
DISC DEVICE, CD-ROM and DVD-ROM
Device Speed: CD-ROM 24xDVD-ROM 4x
ADDITIONAL FEATURES Drive Bay (for 3.5" hard disc drive)Expansion Bay (for network peripherals)DVD Player software built in; no memory card required to play DVDs.
GENERAL
Power Requirements: 120V AC, 60 Hz
Power Consumption: 79W
Dimensions (approx.): 301 x 78 x 182 mm (w/h/d)(12 x 3-1/8 x 7-1/4 inches)
Mass (approx.): 2.2 kg (4 lbs. 14 oz)
Operating Temperature: 41°F-95°F (5°C-35°C)
Laser Diode Properties: Material: GaAlAs Wavelength: l = 650/780nm
INPUTS/OUTPUTS – CONSOLE FRONT
OUTPUTS – CONSOLE REAR
Controller ports (2) Memory Card slots (2) USB Connector (2) S400 i.LINK connector (1)
AV Multi Out connector (1) Digital Out (Optical) connector (1) Expansion Bay (1)
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