It is widely believed that Sony has abandoned support for the hard drive.
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.
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.
Available in November 2004, it is smaller and thinner than the old version and includes a built-in Ethernet port.
Not only did Sony roll out the PS2 online adapter in late 2002 to compete with Microsoft, several online launch games were first party titles such as SOCOM US Navy SEALS in order to show that Sony was supporting this feature actively.
The PS2 hardware can read both compact discs and DVDs.
Sony also advertised heavily as well and it had the advantage of being supported by Electronic Arts.
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).
In preparation for the launch of a new, slimmer PlayStation 2 model (SCPH-70000), Sony had stopped making the older PS2 model (SCPH-5000x) sometime during the summer of 2004 to let the distribution channel empty out stock of the units.
PS2's opening day console sales eclipsed the previous record of 225,000 made by the Sega Dreamcast in 1999.
There are also some disputes on the numbering for this PS2 version, since there are actually two sub-versions of the SCPH-70000.
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.
