PS2's opening day console sales eclipsed the previous record of 225,000 made by the Sega Dreamcast in 1999.
Later, Sony gained steam with new development kits for game developers and more PlayStations for consumers.
Another major selling point over the Dreamcast was the PlayStation 2's ability to play DVDs, which gained it a presence in electronics stores which did not formerly sell video game consoles.
Available in November 2004, it is smaller and thinner than the old version and includes a built-in Ethernet port.
This led to further shortages, and the issue was compounded in Britain when a Russian oil tanker became stuck in the Suez Canal, blocking a ship from China carrying PS2s bound for the UK.
It is backwards compatible with older PlayStation (PS1) games, allows for DVD Video playback, and will play PS2 games off of cheap CD-ROMs or higher-capacity DVD-ROMs.
To this day, the PS2 holds the record for the most consoles sold in a single day as well as the record for most consoles sold in launch day in America.
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.
