In September of that year, in time for the launch of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (the best-selling game during the 2004 Holiday season), Sony revealed a new, smaller PS2 (see Hardware revisions).
Due to its thinner profile, it does not contain the 3.5" expansion bay, and therefore does not support the internal hard disk drive but due to the presence of USB 2.0 ports an external USB Hard disk can still be used, and now uses an external power supply, like the Gamecube.
V7 and V8 are also similar, and V9 (model number SCPH-50000/SCPH-50001) added the Infrared port for the optional DVD Remote Control, removed the widely unused FireWire port, added the capability to read DVD-RW discs, and a quieter fan.
Although external USB 2.0 enclosures are affordable the lack of internal hard disk has implicated a problem for users with perhaps little knowledge of the software required to enable the external disk functionality.
Since the V12 version had already been established for this model, there were some disputes regarding these sub-versions.
As a result, although Sony and Nintendo both started out late and although both followed a decentralized model of online gaming where the responsibility is up to the developer to provide the servers, Sony's efforts made PS2 online gaming a big success.
It was not until late 2001 that the Microsoft Xbox became the second console with (non-standard) USB and DVD support.
Available in November 2004, it is smaller and thinner than the old version and includes a built-in Ethernet port.
Many analysts predicted a close 3-way matchup between the PS2 and its soon-to-be-released competitors Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo GameCube, noting that the PS2's graphics were inferior but that it had the advantage of a head start, and had a wide assortment of games of every genre (Xbox's strength was in its hardware; GameCube was the cheapest of the 3 consoles).
One of them includes the old EE and GS chips, and the other contains the newer unified EE+GS chip, otherwise being identical.
The PS2 launch seemed unimpressive and gaffe-prone, compared to the well-planned launch of the Sega Dreamcast, which was making a genuine attempt to woo developers and which had better launch titles.
These included a PCMCIA slot instead of the Expansion Bay (DEV9) port of newer models.
V3 has a substantially different internal structure from the subsequent revisions, featuring several interconnected printed circuit boards.
With a price of $299.99 per console, Sony made gross sales of roughly $153,000,000.
