PS2 turns seven years old

It may have been a fat baby, but the PS2 has slimmed down and celebrates its seventh birthday in the States today. GI.biz has a nice little rundown of the unit's life. Since Oct. 26, 2000, the heir to the PlayStation name has shipped 120 million units and a billion units in software. Another 10 million PS2 units are expected to sell worldwide by March 2008. Peter Dille, Sony America's senior vp of marketing says, "Never before has an in-home game system experienced this type of worldwide success on such a long-lasting scale." That's absolutely true, PlayStation gave PS2 a good start in life -- now, about the grandkid.

We have the list after the break of the PS2's top-selling titles, but if you ever needed to know how important the Grand Theft Auto franchise is to PlayStation, it becomes quite apparent looking at the list. The top three games are GTA: Vice City (13 million units), GTA: San Andreas (12 million) and Grand Theft Auto III (11 million). Looking at the full list quickly, it's made up of GTA, Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts. Strictly based on PS2 software sales, it appears Sony needs to do what it can to hold on to Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy. But this story isn't about the PS3, it's about the PS2, and nobody can argue its success. Happy Birthday PS2, enjoy the rest of your ten-year cycle.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (13 million)
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (12 million)
Grand Theft Auto III (11 million)
Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec (11 million)
Gran Turismo 4 (8.79 million)
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (7 million)
Kingdom Hearts (5.6 million)
Final Fantasy X (5 million)
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (3.7 million)
Final Fantasy XII (3.68 million)

Reader Comments (62)

But only had the Dreamcast as competition, which was crushed shortly after launch. Then got a big headstart on the other consoles and seized the market, kinda like the 360...

Yea I don't see it this time, Sony was at the right place at the right time. Dreamcast was doing ok but 3rd party publishers were not fully backing it for being burned already (Saturn) and the PS1 was coming off a nice success with only having to worry about Nintendo 64 and its stubbornness to not support CD media (they were afraid of pirates?? )and go with expensive limited storage cartridges. They had a whole year to be crappy with no real competition from Nintendo (didn't launch Gamecube until fall of 2001) and Microsoft (who had just started developing their platform after "helping Sega" with their Dreamcast OS). Whole different story when you bring a system to market that already has a competitor with a decent track record who had a year head start, and a company that decided to take focus away from the hardcore market and make it a family focus system with a half the cost lower price point.

And Now for a Xbot moment....

L0LZ DRE LUZORS!!!! SUX TO BUY 4 PS2$ CUZ OF CRAP HARDWARE L0LZ0RZZ!!!!1111!!

I'm on my 3rd ps2, I refused to buy one for about 5 years when my 2nd one broke and sony told me to piss off withthe DRE, but couldn't stay away from karaoke revolution!!!

That's a SDF moment, they are always bringing up RRoD ;)

I know, I was doing to them what they do to every xbox thread

I still play my PS2... pretty much just for Karaoke Revolution and Singstar.

Yeah, what pisses me off is the backwardscompatability for PS3 doesn't support the disc swapping feature, else I'd get rid of the PS2 now.

I remember launch day. I preordered weeks in advance, casually walked into toys`r`us, took it on the train and brought it home. That very night, the Yankees won the world series. It was one of the happiest days of my life, lol, and I was only 15 at the time.

I have had the same PS2 since launch

Ive owned most of them...

Gta III
Gta Vice City
Gta San Andreas
Metal gear solid II
Metal gear solid III (subsistence version)
Kingdom Hearts
Final Fantasy XII

i just didnt play GT out of that list.

I also played games like

RE 4
God of War
Shadow of Rom
Devil May Cry 3
Timesplitters 3
Guitar hero I
Guitar hero II

etc etc

I had lots of games, sold most of them now.

I have an xbox 360 instead ... still got my ps2 though =P

Let's not forget that the original Xbox's b-day [North American, anyway]is Nov. 15. IMO these are the two best consoles ever created [Sorry Sega].

Ok, so the PS2 is 7, Sony states it will live until 10... so does that mean 3 more years before PS3 sees some support?

/Devil's Advocate

PS2 turns seven years old

Reader Comments (62)

Posted: Oct 26th 2007 4:02PM Slaziman said

Posted: Oct 26th 2007 6:44PM RPGJock said

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Posted: Oct 26th 2007 3:59PM Slaziman said

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Posted: Oct 26th 2007 5:32PM In A World said

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Posted: Oct 27th 2007 7:54AM WedgeTalon said

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