The PlayStation 2 was such a hot item after its release that it was near impossible to find one on retailer shelves, leaving those wanting a PlayStation 2 to either wait or purchase the console online at sites such as eBay, where the console was being sold by many people for twice and sometimes five times as much as the manufacturers listed price.
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.
These included a PCMCIA slot instead of the Expansion Bay (DEV9) port of newer models.
V0 did not have a built-in DVD player and instead relied on an encrypted player that was copied to a memory card from an included CD-ROM (normally, the PS2 will only execute encrypted software from its memory card, but see PS2 Independence Exploit).
For some consumers this is in fact a limitation, especially for the fans of titles such as Final Fantasy XI, which requires the use of this peripheral, and prevents the use of the official PS2 Linux kit.
Currently, most people just use V12 for both models, or V12 for the old model and V13 for the newer one.
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.
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.
