PlayStation 2

• 1. Introduction

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  The PlayStation 2 sold 160 million units worldwide, a number so large it nearly triples the combined sales of every rival console it competed against. On the 4th of March 2000, more than 10,000 people queued across Tokyo to get their hands on it. Some had started waiting four days before launch day. All one million launch units sold out over that first weekend. One Japanese man took his own life after failing to purchase one. The question the rest of this documentary will answer is how a video game console became one of the most successful consumer electronics products in history, what drove that extraordinary demand, and why it kept selling for more than a decade after it first went on sale.

• 2. Two Gold Medals

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  Chris Deering, then-president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, described Sony's ambition with a pointed analogy: winning two gold medals in back-to-back Olympics. Neither Nintendo nor Sega had ever managed consecutive console victories, and Sony's own leadership was gripped by a degree of trepidation about whether they could repeat the original PlayStation's success.

  The original PlayStation, released in 1994, had become the first computer entertainment platform to ship over 100 million units. It had dethroned Sega and Nintendo in the global video game market through a combination of refined development kits, large-scale advertising campaigns, and strong third-party support. Sega, feeling the pressure of declining market share and significant financial losses, launched the Dreamcast in 1998 as what the source describes as a last-ditch attempt to stay in the industry. Within two weeks of its launch, the Dreamcast had sold over 500,000 units.

  Sony officially denied they were building a successor console even as the press reported in early 1997 that one was in development. Ken Kutaragi, known within the industry as "the Father of the PlayStation", had reportedly begun working on a second console around the time of the original's launch in late 1994. By the time Sony was ready to talk publicly, they had something significant to show.

• 3. The Emotion Engine

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  On the 1st of April 1999, Sony and Toshiba established a joint venture in Nagasaki Prefecture to manufacture the PlayStation 2's central processor. Sony Computer Entertainment held a 49 per cent stake in the new company, formed specifically to ensure a steady supply of the chip and avoid the production difficulties that had plagued rivals such as Sega and NEC.

  The chip was called the Emotion Engine. It delivered 6.2 gigaflops at 300 MHz, which was twice the speed of the leading PC processors at the time. Kutaragi, who had championed the processor, envisioned it as enabling gameplay that was more lifelike and emotionally resonant. He had enough influence within Sony by this point that he could push through decisions that company leadership had once resisted, including his insistence on including a DVD player in the console. That decision followed Kutaragi witnessing a demonstration of the Nuon, an enhancement chip developed by VM Labs that added game support to commercial DVD players. He saw a different possibility: a game console that could also replace a standalone DVD player.

  At a chip design conference, the Emotion Engine's architecture was met with scepticism from some experts who doubted it could be manufactured at scale. Sony ultimately invested over one billion dollars in production during the console's first two years. Phil Harrison, then-head of Worldwide Studios, acknowledged the doubts that had surrounded the chip at that early stage.

• 4. The DVD Advantage

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  Shuhei Yoshida, the former Worldwide Studios president, recalled that during the Japanese launch period, the best-selling title was not a game. It was a DVD of The Matrix, released in 1999. Standalone DVD players were still expensive at the time. The PlayStation 2 offered comparable functionality at a significantly lower price point.

  Ray Maguire, then-managing director of Sony Computer Entertainment UK, noted that although the DVD feature was acknowledged in marketing, the focus in most markets remained on games. In Southern Europe, however, where gaming was less prevalent, the DVD capability was promoted more heavily. In Spain, this strategy expanded the installed base of video game hardware into households that might not otherwise have bought a console.

  Software sales at launch in Japan were initially low precisely because many consumers had purchased the machine for its DVD capabilities, not for the eleven game titles it launched with. Those titles, which included Ridge Racer V and Tekken Tag Tournament, were described at the time as "underwhelming". By the 31st of March 2000, the PlayStation 2 had sold its entire inventory of 1.4 million units in Japan, driven substantially by its role as an affordable DVD player.

• 5. Launch Chaos

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  The United States launch on the 26th of October 2000 generated 250 million dollars in American sales on its first day, beating the 97 million dollars the Dreamcast had made on its own launch day. That figure masked serious problems. Sony had reduced the initial US shipment from one million units to approximately 500,000 due to supply constraints and manufacturing issues with a new, smaller version of the Graphics Synthesizer chip. Technology journalist Michael Gartenberg remarked that "you could not get a PlayStation 2 in the US in that first holiday season".

  Electronic Arts had sold 40,000 copies of Madden NFL 2001 before the console even launched. Rockstar Games saw early success with Midnight Club: Street Racing and Smuggler's Run, both released in 2000. Rockstar's Sam Houser called the launch the "beginning of a new era" for the video game industry, even as the console remained largely sold out in the United States until March 2001.

  The European launch on the 24th of November 2000 brought its own difficulties. Sony allocated only 80,000 preorders to the European market despite having previously identified it as their largest PlayStation territory, with 28 million original PlayStation units sold there compared to 27 million in North America and 17 million in Japan. The BBC's consumer programme Watchdog criticised the £299 price point as part of a "Rip-off Britain" segment. Many consoles reportedly failed to work on Christmas Day. Early online resale attempts reached asking prices of up to £1,500, though most units ultimately sold for closer to £500.

• 6. Killing the Dreamcast

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  Sega had sold 6.5 million Dreamcast consoles over a period of 22 months. Sony managed to ship 10 million PlayStation 2 units in under 15 months, with sales continuing to accelerate. The financial pressure on Sega became unsustainable. Sega chairman Isao Okawa made the decision to exit the hardware business entirely. The Dreamcast was discontinued on the 31st of March 2001.

  On that same day, Sony announced that over 10.6 million PlayStation 2 units had sold worldwide. Microsoft entered the gaming sector with the Xbox in November 2001, and Sony executives recognised the scale of the threat. Internally, they were aware that Microsoft held significantly greater financial resources. SCEE's Chris Deering took a cautious approach. The Xbox, however, struggled outside North America due to Microsoft's US-centric strategy.

  Sony's response centred on third-party relationships. They offered reduced platform fees, marketing support, and access to advanced development kits to attract exclusive titles. Kutaragi personally advised that Sony should not dominate more than a third of its own software market, reasoning that holding back would help avoid alienating the third-party developers whose games were central to the platform's appeal. By October 2002, the PlayStation 2 had sold 40 million units worldwide.

• 7. Library and Longevity

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  Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, released in 2004, is the best-selling PlayStation 2 game of all time with 17.33 million units sold. It belongs to a library that eventually exceeded 4,000 titles and reached cumulative software shipments of 1.54 billion copies. Franchises that launched on the console include God of War in 2005, Ratchet and Clank in 2002, Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy in 2001, Kingdom Hearts in 2002, and Devil May Cry in 2001.

  Manufacturing was officially discontinued on the 4th of January 2013, giving the console a production run of nearly thirteen years. Sales in the fourth quarter of 2012 reached 1.6 million units, part of 5 million sold that year, which actually surpassed the previous year's figure of 4.1 million. Even at that late stage, the console was still shifting units at a rate that would have been considered healthy for a much newer machine.

  New games continued to be released after the hardware stopped being produced. The last game released for the system was Pro Evolution Soccer 2014 in the United Kingdom on the 8th of November 2013. Repair services for the system in Japan ended on the 7th of September 2018 due to a shortage of parts. In February 2024, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan confirmed on the Official PlayStation Podcast that total sales had reached 160 million units worldwide, a figure that was not officially corroborated by Sony itself until eight months later when it appeared on the PlayStation 30th Anniversary website.