Sony Computer Entertainment Sony PlayStation 2

About

The PlayStation 2 is the best-selling video game console ever made. That statement requires no qualifiers, no asterisks, no caveats. With 155 million units sold between its March 2000 Japanese launch and its final production run in 2013, the PS2 spent 13 years in active manufacturing and amassed a library of 4,489 games — numbers that no console before or since has matched. It wasn’t just dominant; it was an era unto itself. Sony entered the 2000s riding the momentum of the original PlayStation, which had dethroned Nintendo and marginalized Sega in the 5th generation. The PS2’s development, led by Ken Kutaragi (often called the “Father of the PlayStation”), aimed for nothing less than making the console the center of home entertainment. The machine wouldn’t just play games — it would play DVDs, and at a time when standalone DVD players cost $300-500, this was a strategy of devastating effectiveness. The Japanese launch on March 4, 2000 was chaotic. Sony shipped 980,000 units against pre-orders exceeding a million. Stores were overwhelmed, scalpers thrived, and the limited launch library (only 10 games in Japan) didn’t matter. People were buying a DVD player that also happened to play games — and could play their entire PS1 library through full backward compatibility. The North American launch on October 26, 2000 at $299 USD followed the same pattern: insufficient supply, massive demand. The PS2’s market timing was impeccable. It launched 18 months before the GameCube and Xbox, building an installed base that created a gravitational pull for developers. By the time competitors arrived, the PS2’s library was already deep, its price was dropping, and its DVD functionality had helped it penetrate households that might not have purchased a dedicated game console. Third-party publishers treated the PS2 as their default platform — if a game was going to be on one console, it was going to be on the PS2. The PS2’s custom Emotion Engine CPU ran at 294.912 MHz and was built ar

References

• Video Game Console Library↗