P L AY S TAT ION 2

The one we all love, Sony’s followup did everything first

“ACCORDING TO GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS, 157.68 MILLION PEOPLE HAVE OWNED A PLAYSTATION 2.”

Sony’s decision to label PlayStation 2’s 128-bit CPU ‘the Emotion Engine’ was fitting. At the time PS2 launched, however, the overriding emotion was disappointment. The day-one lineup included Ridge Racer 5 and Street Fighter EX3, mediocre legacy franchises. Quirky fireworks puzzler FantaVision threatened to excite, demonstrating PS2’s power to push particles en masse. However, it was left to Rockstar Games to tease where PS2 would succeed, with the open world innovations of Midnight Club and Smuggler’s Run.

Ultimately, though, PS2 would be Sony’s greatest success, and the only emotion we have looking back at the misshapen black box is dewy-eyed love. According to Guinness World Records, 157.68 million people have owned a PS2 during their lifetimes.

At launch Sony got two things right. First the price: at £299 PS2 was cheaper than a launch PS1. (Sony made a loss on PS2 in its first year.) The decision to adopt DVD as the media source meant non-gamers saw buying the console as a way to get a DVD player for less than a standalone unit, and ensured PS2 was the first console to be an integral part of many people’s living room multimedia hub.

PS2 sold 500,000 units in its first day, setting a new record, thanks to its eye-catching technology. PS2 was backwards-compatible with PS1, and supported old memory cards and controllers. It could handle features such as lighting, texture mapping, AI, physics, and high polygon counts. It was built to push large, open worlds, and this would be PS2’s legacy.

It took a year for PS2 to find its feet. Chris Deering, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe at the time, was always clear the console’s success lay in the games. Under his leadership Sony signed multiple third-party exclusive games, including Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy, and Grand Theft Auto.

As further features were added, including online play and augmented reality, and new editions, such as the cheaper Slimline model, were introduced, we all fell for the accessible technology Sony had created. PS2 went on to become the world’s best-selling games console, and tellingly it was only eventually discontinued on 4 January 2013, six years and 54 days after PlayStation 3 went on sale. We just couldn’t give this one up.