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.
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.
When it was released, the PS2 had many advanced features that were not present in other contemporary video game consoles, including its DVD capabilities and USB and IEEE 1394 expansion ports.
Yet, the PS2 initially sold well solely on the basis of the strength of the PlayStation brand and its backwards compatibility, selling over 900,000 units in the first weekend in Japan.
The PS2 also supports PS1 memory cards (for PS1 game saves only) and controllers (the PS2's Dual Shock 2 controller is essentially a slightly upgraded PS1 Dual Shock).
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.
Sony has also made a PVR/DVD burning consumer device that plays PlayStation 2 games called the PSX.
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.
