PlayStation 2

PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 alongside its Slimline predecessor.
Developer(s)	Sony
Release Date(s)	Japan March 4, 2000 North American October 26, 2000 Europe November 24, 2000 Australia November 30, 2000 Sourth Korea February 22, 2002 India August 13, 2003 China December 20, 2003 Egypt 2003 Nigeria 2008 PSX Japan December 13, 2003 PlayStation 2 Slim Europe October 29, 2004 Japan November 3, 2004 North America November 2004
Price(s)	$299
Colors	Black
Units Shipped	Worldwide 153.19 millionNorth America 50 million Asia 25.42 million Europe 48 million
Best-selling game	Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas 17.33 million sold

The PlayStation 2 (プレイステーション2, Pureisuteshon Tsu) is a video game console developed by Sony and released initially on March 4, 2000 for Japan. The system was released in other regions during the autumn of 2000, and in following years, in smaller regions in Asia and Africa. As the name suggests, the PlayStation 2 is the successor to Sony's PlayStation console.

The PlayStation 2 holds the title of "best-selling video game console," having sole over 150 million units throughout its first 11 years of release. Today, the massive game library of over 10,000 titles for the PlayStation 2 still grows as developers continue to develop their games for the console.

History

The PlayStation 2's development began in 1999. Since Sega's Dreamcast system was already released in stores, the PlayStation 2 had competition upon its initial release. The PlayStation 2 also had various manufacturing errors which led to the system's launch being delayed. The system was designed to be not only backwards compatible with the PlayStation, but also designed to read DVD discs as well as CDs.

The PlayStation 2 and the Dreamcast fought each other on the market for the initial year of the PlayStation 2's life cycle. However, the PLayStation met two new rivals on the markets in Nintendo's GameCube and Microsoft's Xbox consoles. The Dreamcast was discontinued on January 31, 2001, and all production of the console was shut down by 2002. This left the other three consoles in a three-way race until 2006 with seventh generation video game consoles.

In 2004, Sony released a redesign for the PlayStation 2. This model named the "PlayStation 2 Slim" was to replace the original model of the PlayStation 2. The slimmed version of the console, however, met a poor launch. While the demand for the PlayStation Slim was extensively high, the console reached shipping issues which led the console to be released shortly after what was expected it to be.

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Technical specifications

• CPU: 64-bit "Emotion Engine" clocked at 294.912 MHz (299 MHz on newer versions), 10.5 million transistors
  • System memory: 32 MB Direct Rambus or RDRAM
  • Memory bus Bandwidth: 3.2 gigabytes per second
  • Main processor: MIPS R5900 CPU core, 64-bit, little endian (mipsel).
  • Coprocessor: FPU (Floating Point Multiply Accumulator × 1, Floating Point Divider × 1)
  • Vector Units: VU0 and VU1 (Floating Point Multiply Accumulator × 9, Floating Point Divider × 1), 32-bit, at 147.456 MHz.
    • VU0 typically used for polygon transformations optionally (under parallel or serial connection), physics and other gameplay based things
    • VU1 typically used for polygon transformations, lighting and other visual based calculations (Texture matrix able for 2 coordinates (UV/ST))
      • Parallel: Results of VU0/FPU sent as another display list via MFIFO (E.G. complex characters/vehicles/etc.)
      • Serial: Results of VU0/FPU sent to VU1 (via 3 methods) and can act as an optional geometry pre-processor that does all base work to update the scene every frame (E.G. camera, perspective, boning and laws of movement such as animations or physics)
  • Floating Point Performance: 6.2 GFLOPS (single precision 32-bit floating point)
    • FPU 0.64 GFLOPS
    • VU0 2.44 GFLOPS
    • VU1 3.08 GFLOPS (with Internal 0.64 GFLOPS EFU)
  • Tri-Strip Geometric transformation (VU0+VU1): 150 million polygons per second
    • 3D CG Geometric transformation with raw 3D perspective operations (VU0+VU1): 66-80+ million polygons per second
    • 3D CG Geometric transformations at peak bones/movements/effects (textures)/lights (VU0+VU1, parallel or series): 15–20 million polygons per second
    • Actual real-world polygons (per frame):500-650k at 30fps, 250-325k at 60fps
  • Compressed Image Decoder: MPEG-2
  • I/O Processor interconnection: Remote Procedure Call over a serial link, DMA controller for bulk transfer
  • Cache memory: Instruction: 16 KB, Data: 8 KB + 16 KB (ScrP)
• Graphics processing unit: "Graphics Synthesizer" clocked at 147.456 MHz
  • Pixel pipelines: 16
  • Video output resolution: variable from 256×224 to 1920×1080 pixels
  • 4 MB Embedded DRAM video memory bandwidth at 48 gigabytes per second (main system 32 MB can be dedicated into VRAM for off-screen materials)
    • Texture buffer bandwidth: 9.6 GB/s
    • Frame buffer bandwidth: 38.4 GB/s
  • DRAM Bus width: 2560-bit (composed of three independent buses: 1024-bit write, 1024-bit read, 512-bit read/write)
  • Pixel configuration: RGB: Alpha:Z Buffer (24:8, 15:1 for RGB, 16, 24, or 32-bit Z buffer)
  • Dedicated connection to: Main CPU and VU1
  • Overall pixel fillrate: 16×147 = 2.352 Gpixel/s (rounded to 2.4 Gpixel/s)
    • Pixel fillrate: with no texture, flat shaded 2.4 (75,000,000 32pixel raster triangles)
    • Pixel fillrate: with 1 full texture (Diffuse Map), Gouraud shaded 1.2 (37,750,000 32-bit pixel raster triangles)
    • Pixel fillrate: with 2 full textures (Diffuse map + specular or alpha or other), Gouraud shaded 0.6 (18,750,000 32-bit pixel raster triangles)
  • GS effects: AAx2 (poly sorting required), Bilinear, Trilinear, Multi-pass, Palletizing (4-bit = 6:1 ratio, 8-bit = 3:1)
  • Multi-pass rendering ability
    • Four passes = 300 Mpixel/s (300 Mpixels/s divided by 32 pixels = 9,375,000 triangles/s lost every four passes)
• Audio: "SPU1+SPU2" (SPU1 is actually the CPU clocked at 8 MHz)
  • Sound Memory: 2 MB
  • Number of voices: 48 hardware channels of ADPCM on SPU2 plus software-mixed channels
  • Sampling Frequency: 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz (selectable)
  • Output: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround sound, DTS (Full motion video only), later games achieved analog 5.1 surround during gameplay through Dolby Pro Logic II
• I/O Processor
  • I/O Memory: 2 MB
  • CPU Core: Original PlayStation CPU (MIPS R3000A clocked at 33.8688 MHz or 37.5 MHz)
  • Automatically underclocked to 33.8688 MHz to achieve hardware backwards compatibility with original PlayStation format games.
  • Sub Bus: 32-bit
  • Connection to: SPU and CD/DVD controller.
• Connectivity:
  • 2 proprietary PlayStation controller ports (250 kHz clock for PS1 and 500 kHz for PS2 controllers)
  • 2 proprietary Memory Card slots using MagicGate encryption (250 kHz for PS1 cards, up to 2 MHz for PS2 cards)
  • 2 USB 1.1 ports with an OHCI-compatible controller
  • AV Multi Out (Composite video, S-Video, RGsB (SCART and VGA connector†), YPBPR(component))
  • RFU DC Out
  • S/PDIF Digital Out
  • Expansion Bay for 3.5" HDD (Network Adaptor required, SCPH-10xxx to 5xxxx only)
  • Ethernet port (Slim only)
  • PCMCIA for PCMCIA Network Adaptor and External Hard Disk Drive (early models only)
  • FireWire (SCPH-10xxx to 3xxxx only)
  • Infrared remote control port (SCPH-5000x and newer)

Accessories

DVD Remote Control

The DVD remote control for the PlayStation 2 was designed similarly to regular DVD remotes, however, the controller featured standard PlayStation 2 buttons as well. The controller was initially designed with an infa-red receiver for wireless control; the receiver was plugged into one of the system's controller ports. Slimline versions of the PlayStation 2, however, featured an integrated IR port instead for easier usage of the remote.

EyeToy

The PlayStation 2's EyeToy accessory was initially manufactured by Logitech, however in later years, the product was manufactured by Namtai. The EyeToy is a webcam and digital camera device that can be plugged into the PlayStation 2. The device is used to take pictures and record video, and several games were designed specifically to be used with the EyeToy.

Microphones

The PlayStation 2 had two separate microphone accessories released. As new games were developed, rhythm games were introduced, using newer models of microphone accessories. Sony's Singstar and Harmonix's Rockband series both use microphones, in both wired and wireless versions which were plugged into the PlayStation 2's USB port.