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).
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.
It is widely believed that Sony has abandoned support for the hard drive.
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).
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.
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.
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.
Warning: include($_GET[p]_include_path.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/ling7/domains/ps2research.com/public_html/php-bin/Find.php on line 2
Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '$_GET[p]_include_path.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php:/php/includes:/home/lingling/domains/php') in /home/ling7/domains/ps2research.com/public_html/php-bin/Find.php on line 2
Warning: require_once(LingBasics.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/ling7/domains/ps2research.com/public_html/php-bin/Find.php on line 3
Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening required 'LingBasics.php' (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php:/php/includes:/home/lingling/domains/php') in /home/ling7/domains/ps2research.com/public_html/php-bin/Find.php on line 3
