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However, the release of several blockbuster games during the 2001 holiday season pushed the PS2 far in front even as the Xbox and GameCube made their impressive debuts.
One of them includes the old EE and GS chips, and the other contains the newer unified EE+GS chip, otherwise being identical.
It also has a different lens and some compatibility issues documented by Sony for earlier PS2 games.
The ability to play DVD movies allowed consumers to more easily justify the PS2's relatively high price tag (in October 2000, the MSRP was $300) as it removed the need to buy an external DVD player (indeed, it could be said that the success of the DVD format was partly due to the PS2's ability to play DVDs, as the format seemed to appeal more to consumers after the console's launch).
Although external USB 2.0 enclosures are affordable the lack of internal hard disk has implicated a problem for users with perhaps little knowledge of the software required to enable the external disk functionality.
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.
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.
