The PlayStation 2 launched in Japan on March 4, 2000 – it became a highly successful console.

Although America had to wait until October 2000 (and Europe until November, respectively), we have to look at the earliest launch date for a console to celebrate its birthday. The PS2 has become 19 years old, and it not only became Sony‘s best-selling console, but it became the best-selling video game console of all time! With its 157 million sold units, the PS2 is on the throne at the moment, thanks to it also being a DVD player.

Sony’s move has paid off big time: the PlayStation 2 was priced similarly as high-end DVD-players, but the PS2 was also able to play games (including PS1 titles!), and it helped the DVD format to be used worldwide. Sony manufactured the console until the end of 2012/early 2013, which means the PS2 was almost being developed until the PlayStation 4’s reveal. It still got games after its death (!!!) – the last officially released PS2 title in Europe was Pro Evolution Soccer 2014, which came out on November 8, 2013. (Just one week before the PS4’s launch!!!)

Several successful franchises have started out on the PS2. Jak & Daxter. Ratchet & Clank. Killzone. Red Dead. God of War. Devil May Cry. Kingdom Hearts. Sly Cooper. Yakuza. No matter how we look at it (and we didn’t even include other franchises with highly successful PS2 games), it’s a respectable list, and the console can be proud of it.

Even PlayStation’s Japanese Twitter account has celebrated the birthday. The PS2 cannot be ignored in the gaming history – no wonder multiple PS2 games got updated versions on the PlayStation 4. (Too bad there’s no disc-based backward compatibility…)

Source: DualShockers

【PlayStation®2は19歳になりました】

本日3月4日は、PlayStation®2の19歳の誕生日。19年前のあなたは、どんなゲームをプレイしていたか思い出せますか？#PS2生誕祭 pic.twitter.com/YypLKNzC1B

— プレイステーション公式 (@PlayStation_jp) March 4, 2019