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.
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.
V0 was a Japanese model and was never sold in Europe or the US.
Hardware sales remained strong until 2004 saw the console apparently approaching saturation point.
The new V12 model was first released in black.
In September 2004 Sony unveiled the third major hardware revision (V12, model number SCPH-70000).
It is widely believed that Sony has abandoned support for the hard drive.
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.
