the PlayStation 2 is the most successful video game console of all time leading a 13-year legacy of incredible games that has made a profound impact on not only the games industry but millions of people worldwide so without a doubt there's a lot of interesting things out there about the PlayStation 2 that people simply don't know that's why today we're going to take a look at over 50 quick fire facts about the one and only PlayStation 2 while it's no secret that the PlayStation 2 is number one in video game console sales with 155 million units
sold worldwide it's lesser known that the system saw three thousand eight hundred and seventy four games released in total with combined software sales of over 1.5 billion early into the ps2 s lifecycle and prior to the Xbox and Gamecube many analysts at the time were predicting a very close three-way match between each console which in hindsight wasn't even close given Xbox and the 24 million units sold in GameCube 21 million upon boot-up you might be familiar with the white towers animation that appears every time you turn on your PlayStation 2 but those towers are actually
influenced by how many game saves are present on the inserted memory cards the more save files you have the more towers you'll see speaking of save files Sony actually suffered a massive shortage of memory cards back in the day the company did not anticipate eight megabytes being insufficient for most households and the massive sales the console saw made the memory cards in high demand the PlayStation 2s design isn't entirely original it was actually designed inspired from the atari falcon micro box the sony patent for the ps2 even credits Atari Sony liked how the design would
allow for consumers to play the console vertically or horizontally another purposeful design choice was the colors the ps2 logo is blue to symbolize earth while the black console was meant to symbolize the vastness of space while the ps2 was a great DVD player for many consumers back then it actually also had Netflix support via disk though this was only available in Brazil and never saw release anywhere else speaking of Brazil the ps2 officially launched there in late 2009 yes late 2009 and it cost approximately four hundred and sixty one dollars oh yeah it's very expensive
to buy games there Sony had plans to expand the broadband capabilities of the ps2 by offering a streaming music service but it ultimately never came to fruition at a certain point was the subject of terrorism scares it was rumoured that Saddam Hussein was collecting a bunch of consoles to repurpose them as military weapons this evidently turned out to be false however because of the military weapon scares Japan faced some exporting restrictions for a little bit while the whole scenario is being evaluated while the original PlayStation had Mouse support it required Sony's official product the ps2
accepted most third-party USB Mouse's for the few games that supported it in 2002 a British man named Dan Holmes enjoyed his ps2 so much that he decided to legally change his name to mr. PlayStation 2 he apparently at the time also attempted marrying the console and spent over 7,000 pounds on games the ps2 ended production in January of 2013 and miraculously still had games releasing well beyond that some of its final releases were FIFA 14 and Pro Evolution Soccer 2014 while Sony did seize manufacturing 2013 they still repaired consoles well beyond that September 7th 2018
was the last day Sony Japan set for any final repairs requested from owners ps2 s dualshock to controller features analog pressure sensitivity for the buttons so depending on the games that supported it pressing harder on the buttons actually did work Sony released an official linux disc with keyboard and mouse for those who want to go online and use open source code with their PlayStation twos the ps2 wasn't without its problems early on the console suffered from disc read errors and in some cases damaging save files or discs Sony eventually ended up offering repairs and even
$25 compensation checks ps2 actually supported high-definition for a very few select titles games like valkyrie profile 2 and tourist trophy could be played in 1080i in 2003 Sony launched the PSX in Japan which was a ps2 DVR system with a built-in hard drive this was one of the very first uses of Sony's XMP user interface ultimately sales were poor and the system never saw release outside of Japan when Sony launched the slimmer ps2 in September 2004 they initially let the old model run out in stores but they didn't manufacture enough slim models to coincide with
running out of old models there was a massive shortage and to make matters worse a cargo ship carrying PS news from China to the UK was blocked by Russian oil tanker in 2010 Sony released a 22 inch bravia HDTV with a ps2 built right in nowadays these are very rare and hard to find a very rare set of ps2 consoles are the 50 millionth edition celebrating 50 million consoles sold they came in aqua blue metallic silver and Sakura pink more rare than that is the automotive edition celebrating 20 million consoles sold only 2000 were made
for each color and they came in light yellow metallic silver ceramic white super red and Astro blue now you might be wondering why would it be called automotive edition when it's celebrating 20 million units sold because the father of playstation ken Kutaragi loves cars the colors were picked out from his favorite cars which included a BMW and Mercedes early ps2 consoles could be networked together via at night link port this however had very little support from developers so Sony stopped supporting it as well one of the first games to truly master a seamless open-world was
jak and daxter released in 2001 aside from loading the game and your save file the game could be played from start to finish with no visible loading screens because in my professional opinion the change is an improvement the father of PlayStation Ken could Wragge Express slight remorse in 2001 omitting the ps2 s architecture was too complex he was quoted as saying yes the parallel architecture is very deep but difficult we should have made it easier for content creators in the beginning at one point internally Sony was considering a subscription service for what was initially called
Sony Network ps2 s online play they were even considering subsidizing it with free Hardware like a cell phone plan during a dice summit keynote in 2015 oddworld creator Lord landing made a bold statement that ps2 and ps3 were so difficult to develop for that they put many developers out of business and it was the first time I ever saw you getting passionate you going why why he changed the industry changes and I said he put half of the development community out of business but what what what it was was as as I'm sure none of
you can relate to that the ps2 si toy was actually conceived as early as 1999 by dr. Richard Marx after who was impressed by an early ps2 demonstration during GDC he joined Sony Computer Entertainment that year to pursue the peripheral even further and then when I draw a shape with it one of the PlayStation symbols that's gonna recognize the gesture of what I what spell I wanted to cast so if I do a circle that's the fire spells so then I can find that's the magic fireball spell the I toy is technically still a very
basic webcam with USB and what the correct installed drivers can be successfully used on a computer I toyed cameo a software that would allow you to scan your face to be used in games that support at the feature this however wasn't really widely adopted and not many games used it rule of Rose is an infamously rare ps2 title because it had a very limited release it was banned in many countries and sold in very low volume the title had a reputation having child cruelty which ended up not being true but this is what led to
its limited run another rare survival game was Coen which received mediocre reviews due to its length and low replay value and because of that is sold very poorly and it now holds a value in the 2 to $400 range while the ps2 is backwards compatible with ps1 games not every game works a select few titles have issues like Metal Gear Solid and Tombo Tombo for example has to have the intro sequence play out for the game to start properly the original playstation is actually forward compatible to lack two controllers from the ps2 on the flip
side the ps3 is backwards compatible with DualShock 2 controllers with the help of a separate peripheral though the controller will fail when the games require sixaxis functionality one of the ps2 s launch games Fanta vision was actually an early tech demo for the ps2 hardware which eventually ended up turning into a full game when the ps2 launched it was difficult to find in stock so even back then in the year 2000 people were indeed buying consoles on eBay and paying over $1000 which adjusted for inflation would be around a thousand four hundred and sixty-seven dollars
today the best-selling PlayStation 2 game was none other than grand theft auto san andreas at an impressive seventeen point three million copies sold second place went to Gran Turismo 3 a speck at fourteen point nine million copies Sony is essentially to blame for kicking Sega out of the console business despite the Dreamcast successful launch with 97 million dollars made in the first day Sony made over 250 million on the ps2 s first day this eventually caused Sega to discontinue the Dreamcast by March 2001 the original fat ps2 had an expansion Bay for a traditional hard
disk drive and this was required for Final Fantasy 11 the redesigned slimline ps2 however removed the expansion bay and thus made it impossible for owners to play Final Fantasy 11 the ps2 reached 100 million units sold in five years and nine months from its original launch date an absolutely incredible feat one of the first commercials for the ps2 was actually for a theoretical PS 9 an orb of unmatched wonders and capabilities in the futuristic world of 2078 the commercial ends was showing the ps2 implying that this is the beginning the sync start games on ps2
can actually be used on same start for ps3 the ps3 would request the ps2 game to be inserted to read the songs off the desk one of the strangest peripherals for the PlayStation 2 was the own emotion 3 katana controller yes a full-blown sword that can be used as a controller after the ps1 launched ken kutaragi began work almost immediately on ps2 and when the ps2 launched he began almost immediately on ps3 by the time the slimline ps2 launched Sony was getting serious about online network play and added an Ethernet port to the console but
in some markets they actually built a modem into the console as well now you might not believe this one so bear with me but the PlayStation 2 actually got its name from being the second console after the first PlayStation and Skyrim has never officially been released on it not yet thank you so much for watching this video I hope you've enjoyed it I certainly enjoyed making it the PlayStation 2 is such a great platform I have so many fond memories with it so I always try to find a good excuse to make a video about
the ps2 and I think this was a good one here so that was that worked out great but if you have not yet subscribed for the best PlayStation news reviews and updates that are here on YouTube and dance pretty much it that's it for me in this video I will see you all in my next one you take it easy [Music] you
