PS2 - The Best Selling Console Ever (Review & Retrospective)

the sony playstation 2 originally released in the year 2000 and is the best-selling video game console of all time hey how's it going i'm josh from 91 tech and today i'm very excited to talk about my childhood console the playstation 2. i have so many fond memories of playing so many games on this thing and today we're gonna take a look at it nearly 21 years later how does it hold up hall of famer top seed choreographer mastermind hero world champion pilot all-pro entertainer what do you want to be when you grow up rated e for everyone playstation 2 the only place to play you heard me right the ps2 is almost 21 years old it came out march 4th 2000 which is nearly 21 years ago and i actually was born about a month afterwards which makes me almost 21 years old and now i'm feeling old but it's just another reason for me to closely identify with the ps2 i love this machine the ps2 replaced the very very successful playstation now known commonly as the ps1 and was in direct competition with the sixth generation of consoles the 1999 sega dreamcast the 2001 xbox and also 2001 gamecube and the ps2 kind of wrecked them all seriously it wasn't even close the ps2 remains to this day the best selling console of all time with over 155 million units sold worldwide with the ps4 being sony's second best-selling console at 113.5 million that's right the ps2 sold over 40 million more units than the ps4 in a time where i think most of us would admit video games weren't nearly as relevant in pop culture why was this well for a multitude of reasons actually a big one was that the competition didn't perform very well the original xbox sold 24 million the gamecube 21 million and the dreamcast 9 million but i mean the ps2 would have to be a pretty great console to steal so many sales away right well yeah i'd say it was it was helped by the head start it got releasing a year before the gamecube and xbox of course the dreamcast came out in 98 but i'm only really including it out of respect for the hardware as it quite literally killed sega's hopes in the console game and was discontinued in 2001. it was awesome and actually sold pretty well considering how little time it was around just not enough to pull them out of the hole they had dug post the genesis era also the ps2 kind of killed it in sales once it came out it's no coincidence the dreamcast was stopped so soon after the ps2's launch but what the ps2 really had that drew consumers in was a built-in dvd player now that was huge especially because the ps2 only costed 299 dollars american which shockingly was about the same price or sometimes even less as a standalone dvd player meaning either you could get just a dvd player for like 200 300 or you get a dvd player and access to playstation 2 games for 300 it was kind of a no-brainer of course the ps3 did something similar having blu-ray which at first wasn't so successful but it did help it in the long run as it eventually caught up and even surpassed the xbox 360 in sales and the ps1 kind of did something similar having a cd player built in and so why buy a cd player when you could buy a ps1 and get a cd player in the process and the ps2 remained popular well into the seventh generation of consoles to the point where it was produced until 2013. that's right the ps2 was produced until 2013 the year the ps4 came out fifa 14 actually was released for the ps2 fifa 14 that's insane and it's in large part because the ps2 just kept selling even after the launch of the ps3 which had a very slow start now saying it was made until 2013 is a little bit deceptive as it was officially discontinued worldwide january 4th of 2013 but hey that's still 2013 the numbers don't lie but right from the get-go with the announcement in 1999 that playstation 2 was a hit it really had everything the aforementioned dvd player was huge but it also came with complete backwards compatibility with the original playstation and its accessories like the dualshock controller and the memory cards the ps2 on day one pulled in 250 million dollars in sales including games and accessories which demolished the 97 million made on the first day of the dreamcast although i gotta say uh 97 million dollars first day of the dreamcast not bad funnily enough because we can definitely relate to nowadays it was pretty tough to find the ps2 at release as it was in such huge demand and the factories just couldn't keep up also similar to how with the ps5 the ps2 could be found on sites like ebay where the console would go for over a thousand dollars i think the backwards compatibility really was a huge selling point for the ps2 all your ps1 games would just work with no issues whatsoever he got a dvd player in the process and the jump in graphics from the ps1 to the ps2 is pretty huge compare gran turismo 2 from 1999 the gran turismo 3 a spec from 2000. interesting fact gran turismo 3 is commonly considered to be one of the best racing games of all time going to metacritic and ranking it by top scoring racing games it received a 95 good enough for second place behind you guessed it the first grand turismo although strangely enough third and fourth place are both taken by ios games so i'm not sure how seriously you can take metacritic's rankings regardless gran turismo 3 came out fairly soon after the launch as in a year later and was a very appealing reason to buy the ps2 and that wasn't the only great game to come in the early years although believe it or not the launch lineup was actually pretty bad at first this here is a list of them from ign do you recognize any of those games i recognize some of the franchises but very few of the individual games actually stand out but again ps1 backwards compatibility meant you'd still have games to play regardless this feels again familiar with the ps5 launch as it really doesn't have very many launch titles but the vast vast majority of ps4 games are playable which is a huge bonus for buyers including myself but around the holiday season of 2001 a blockbuster game lineup for the ps2 helped maintain the momentum in sales and managed to keep it going above newly released rivals in the xbox and gamecube sony was helped by temporarily having exclusive rights to grand theft auto 3 which wouldn't hit xbox for another two years and then of course metal gear solid 2 which was a big hit and as if it weren't successful enough already sony cut the price of the console in the may of 2002 from 299 to 199 making it the same price as the gamecube and a full hundred dollars less than the xbox while sony was ahead of the game in many ways the xbox was actually the more powerful system and was very innovative with xbox live hitting in late 2002 to try to compete sony released the playstation network adapter at the same time with online capable games releasing alongside it such as the first socom game while there's no doubt that xbox live was the best way to play online and it was helped with the no network adapter being necessary for the system as it was built in sony's online support was there and it was a big selling point for the system of course online gaming as we know it today really started in the next generation of consoles come the september of 2004 just in time for the launch of grand theft auto san andreas sony revealed their new slimmer playstation 2. and slim it was this is the ps2 i remember growing up with in fact my family has actually had two of them i remember the first one that we had it was probably bought pretty shortly after launch and uh it ended up breaking within a couple years it couldn't read discs anymore so my dad bought another one which is the one we have here it was the best console i'd have until the christmas of 2009 when my uncle would get me and my brother the xbox 360. but i still had years of fun with the ps2 and i absolutely loved this system it's hard for me to think of my childhood without thinking of the playstation 2. i played way too many video games we've pretty much covered the life of the ps2 already but there's one more model the ps2 you may not have ever known existed the playstation 2 tv that's right a television with the playstation 2 built in because why not i guess it came out in 2010 and was called the sony bravia kdl-22px offering a 22-inch lcd screen with a 720p resolution why anybody would ever want this i have no idea besides that it's kind of neat but an even tougher question is why does it even exist in the first place of course the ps2 is a dvd player so it doubled as a tv with a dvd player built in but those existed anyways so why just why i'm gonna assume this is pretty rare nowadays as i couldn't even find any on ebay but as far as i can tell it does indeed exist but if you want to play a ps2 nowadays you're probably going to be looking at either the original phat model or the slim playstation 2. the playstation is alive with groups coming together boy band group is mingle happily with football mascots meanwhile stock market traders compete with each other to see who can put on the best display of their skills one trader gets carried away and ends up in danger they pit crews defend their territory fiercely such is life on the playstation the original ps2 is a bit of an absolute unit it's got a very unique design being a matte black plastic a box but with kind of a grille looking middle area in a smaller box offset on the bottom apparently the design was actually based off the unreleased atari falcon 030 which was a micro box computer and comparing them based off images yeah i can see it there's definitely a resemblance the ps2 is innovative in that it allowed for two different orientations of course the most obvious was for the ps2 to be laid down horizontally but it also came with a stand so you could stand it up vertically as well and i mean it can stand up on its own even without the stand mine doesn't have the stand unfortunately but you can see it in photos here the playstation logo in the middle of the disc drive actually can rotate something that is true for the slim as well and even the first ps3 on the top of the console is the ps2 logo in blue with the playstation 2 word mark and grain to the plastic underneath it the disk tray comes out at the push of the eject button and will automatically pull it back in when you press it again this is the only dvd drive of this style sony has used at least that i know of with the ps3 ps4 and ps5 all having slot loading drives where you have to put the disk in and then it kind of eats it up we have two controller ports on the front yes only two and then two memory card slots above them you had to buy an adapter to play with four controllers at once we also have two usb ports on the front as well as a firewire port which was dropped on newer ps2s and never utilized much on the back of the console we have the power supply switch and acn the power supply is built into this console like the original ps1 and then we have the av out and digital audio optical port there's also an expansion bay where you can put in a hard drive that's a pretty cool addition i have to say and it's one that ps2 enthusiasts swear by as they use it to load all their ps2 games without the need for discs again i have to say i really like the design of this console it's sleek i love the matte finish and it really feels fresh compared to the first playstation the first playstation's design is fine it's just very simple and i think the ps2 looks a lot more modern comparing it to the playstation 5 and well the original ps2 no longer feels large the ps5 looks like a monster compared to it although i guess it really looks like a monster compared to any console as it's just huge hard to believe there's 20 years between these two consoles but there is and while the ps5's design is strange to say in the least it's definitely a lot more modern and even futuristic looking but this ps2 isn't the only model we of course also have the ps2 slim from 2004 which is mind-blowingly small in comparison how on earth sony managed to shrink their console so significantly is beyond me there's no built-in power supply and no hard drive bay but beyond that it's pretty much the same machine just tiny this has to be the smallest mainline console of all time right it's sleek it's lights and i absolutely love it the ps2 slim was sony's best console until the ps3 came out two years later comparing it to the ps5 is like talking about david versus goliath so when the ps2 slim came out again it was the best console sony offered you imagine today if sony released a ps5 as small as the ps2 or even like triple the size that would be mind blowing and just wouldn't happen i think sony deserves a lot of respect for making the slim back in 2004 going to buy a new console if you were a little torn on the xbox versus the ps2 this is what you would be looking at now the xbox is huge on its own but looking at it versus the ps2 slim and it's almost laughable the size difference now if it helps the xbox 360 would only come out a year later in 2005 but still i just think the slim is super cool the ps2 slim's dvd reader goes the same style as the ps1 as in when you hit the eject button the top flips open i much prefer this as less moving parts means less breakable parts i know for a fact there were a decent amount of people eventually having issues with the dvd tray on their original ps2s but that can't happen here and i also just like popping the cover up and clicking it in because it's somehow very satisfying from the front the ps2 slim is very similar to the first one with two controller slots and two memory card slots ps2 memory cards contained eight megabytes of data that's right eight megabytes and you can access what's on your memory card by booting the console without a disk i love this ui it's so much fun with the little icons for each game you have saved this is my memory card i've been using since the first ps2 we got and man it's gone through a lot so many saved games deleted over the years to make space i kind of regret a lot of that as it would have been cool if they were still here but when you're a kid and don't have the money to just buy another memory card you don't have much choice so the vast vast majority of my old saves are gone though interestingly i do still have a save of sonic heroes from 2006 on here that's really cool to me i would have been 60 years old when i made this it's very weird to think about i actually got sonic heroes for my sixth birthday and i kind of remember that it's cool to look at old saves and 8 megabytes does seem like a really small size now and it is but at the inception of the ps2 in 2000 it wasn't unreasonable it also shares the same format as ps1 memory cards which only had one megabyte and can still be used on the ps2 it's worth mentioning that the ps2 has been exploited and homebrewed to high heaven at this point it's pretty easy to run burnt games and anything you can think of on there or even emulators if you look into it there's a big community for it i won't be talking about it today but it is a thing if you want to look into it but it does lead to me talking about the most important thing about the playstation 2 not the console itself not the dvd player not the massive amount of sales but the gigantic game library and the unending amount of classics for this system why not a couple of pictures and then go home anybody you recognize here nah no i don't hang out with animals man what i don't know which one he's one cunning devious devious raccoons rarity for everyone [Music] no console is complete without a great selection of games and the playstation 2 is no exception and man are there ever a lot of games we're talking over 3 800 game titles released for the ps2 with over 1.5 billion copies sold obviously with that many games you're gonna have a lot of shovelware or in other words terrible games pumped out for a quick buck but we also have a ridiculous amount of classic titles seriously it would take me a full hour just to talk about some of these games so i'll just mention a few don't be offended if your favorite game is not here these are just ones i could think of tony hawk pro skater 3 final fantasy burnout shadow of the colossus guitar hero kingdom hearts 1 and 2 ratchet and clank gran turismo 3 and 4 jack and daxter god of war okami silent hill 2 metal gear solid 2 and 3 gta 3 vice city and san andreas dragon quest resident evil 4 the sly cooper trilogy simpson's hidden run prince of persia devil may cry 3 persona 4 spider-man 2 and dozens upon dozens more these are just some of what are considered to be the best gaming has to offer and they're all found on the playstation 2. there are so many great games on this system seriously go look up best games for ps2 and you'll see completely different titles on each list of course with a common few but there's just so many games for the platform that everyone has a different opinion on the best of the best and that's awesome for me my favorites for the ps2 have always been the sly trilogy specifically sly 2 band of thieves it still remains my second favorite game of all time right behind skyrim i won't go into it much but it was a stealth based game where you'd run around many open worlds doing various missions for someone under 10 years old that had never really experienced anything with an open world it blew my mind i'm sure i played the sly cooper games the most on the ps2 but there are lots of other titles i enjoyed those are just uh some of the ones we owned my family collected quite a few over the years uh there's there's more trust me there's more nhl5 maybe kind of an obscure title but i played a lot of nhlo 5 as a kid i think i liked it so much because it had my favorite hockey player marcus nazlan on the front of it oh and of course i can't forget my favorite racing game of all time gran turismo 4. it came out in 2004 was probably the reason my dad got the ps2 in the first place and improved on gran turismo 3 and was one of the best looking games graphically to be on the ps2 it's also unique in that it supports up to 1080i in resolution if you have the right setup one of the very few games to do so on the ps2 most games play at 480p a resolution that looks pretty good on old tvs but pretty darn bad on modern ones hooking up the ps2 to my 65-inch 4k tv isn't exactly a pleasant experience and graphics on the ps2 are hard to judge nowadays a lot of the more realism based games are just not going to look very good anymore and that's because we've progressed so far in that department but what really hurts it more than anything is the lack of high definition even 720p feels like a big jump over this this right here being shown is from my actual ps2 slim by the way recorded via capture card games are still mostly easy to find for this console in wide abundance on the used market and in mom and pop video game stores the console was so popular most games are dirt cheap to pick up nowadays unfortunately there's no way to play these games on ps5 at least yet although some select games are available to stream on playstation now or able to be purchased and downloaded through the playstation store but there's no backwards compatibility beyond the very first playstation 3 which could play ps2 games but that feature was quickly removed and even my own fat ps3 isn't backwards compatible it's really unfortunate that there's no official option to play ps2 games in high definition without resorting to emulation at least assuming the game you want to play hasn't been re-released on a better system now there is a really good ps2 emulator and with it you can upscale games to higher resolutions and nowadays that's probably the best way to play ps2 games but it's so much nicer to play these games on an actual console hopefully sony will eventually bring some kind of backwards compatibility we all know the ps5 can emulate the ps2 no problem streaming with playstation now is literally streaming and so that's a pretty bad way to play and seeing how the vast majority of original xbox and xbox 360 games are available on xbox one and the new xbox it's pretty sad to see that sony hasn't shown the same support for their old games it's hard to make excuses for the ps5 hopefully they do something about it at least it plays ps4 games i guess let's quickly look at the playstation 2 dualshock 2 controller it's easy to mistake for the ps3 controller or would be if not for the wire as without it it's practically identical it's got basic rumble functionality and it looks quite similar to the original ps1 controller just with analog sticks and it's basically identical to the first dualshock controller that came from the ps1 later i don't have too many complaints here i do think the controller is a bit uncomfortable for long periods of time as it is quite small but generally speaking it does the job and it does it well the triggers don't slowly push in like they do on newer controllers but instead are just basic buttons that you tap but beyond that playstation controllers haven't really changed a whole lot at least up to the dual shock 4 controller of course now we have the dual sense controller which is not only the best controller i've ever used but it also looks quite a bit more unique as you can see here still though despite being nearly 21 years old the ps2 controller holds its own the playstation 2 is a remnant of another era it sold so well with so many games and while it has very little relevance 21 years later it's remembered by those who played it as what it is one of the greatest video game consoles of all time there's a reason it's sold so well and it's not just the dvd player it's a fantastic machine with an amazing lineup of games and there's no doubt in my mind that i'll always love my ps2 it's such a joy to pull it out and set it up sometimes me and my brother will just play a multiplayer game on it for a moment for a brief moment when playing the ps2 it almost feels like you're back in the early 2000s experiencing games just like you did when you were younger then you snap out of it and end up going back to your ps5 but hey the ps2 is still a pretty fun time the graphics and resolutions might be a bit rough but the gameplay is still very solid and there's a good chance there'll never be another console that matches what the ps2 accomplished but that's coming from me someone who grew up with the ps2 and is clearly quite fond of it so i want to hear from you did you ever have a ps2 here's a good question for today uh what was your favorite game for the playstation 2. it doesn't have to be an exclusive at all it could just come during that era there are just so many fun games from that time i kept remembering different ones as i was writing the script for this video like of course i love the sly cooper trilogy but there's others too like yeah socom 2 or the simpsons hit and run or burnout 3 takedown you get the picture so many great games and choosing only one as a favorite isn't easy but good luck and comment it down below if you found this nostalgic trip through the playstation 2's life interesting maybe hit that like button and consider subscribing for more content just like this you can follow me over on twitter and instagram at 91 underscore tech if you'd like to keep up with that all being said thank you so much for watching i really do appreciate it i'm josh from 91 tech and i will see you all next time [Music] you

Channel: 91Tech

Views: 268,524

Keywords: playstation, playstation 2, sony, ps2, ps5, ps2 vs ps5, ps2 review, review, 2022, in 2022, 2022 review, ps2 2022, ps2 in 2022

Id: 4_epo8nIY78

Length: 22min 36sec (1356 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 22 2020