The PlayStation 2 Is 19 Years Old!

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

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Anikó, our news editor and communication manager, is more interested in the business side of the gaming industry. She worked at banks, and she has a vast knowledge of business life. Still, she likes puzzle and story-oriented games, like Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments, which is her favourite title. She also played The Sims 3, but after accidentally killing a whole sim family, swore not to play it again. (For our office address, email and phone number check out our IMPRESSUM)

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