Sony PlayStation 2

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Sony PlayStation 2
Manufacturer:	Sony
Alternate Names:	PS2
Announced:	April 1999
Release date:	JP: 4/March/2000 NA: 26/October/2000 EU: 24/November/2000 AU: 30/November/2000
Initial Price:	JP: ¥39,800 NA: {{{naprice}}} EU: {{{euprice}}} AU: {{{auprice}}}
Discontinued:	Still in Production

Other games available (temporary link)

The Playstation 2 is the successor to the popular Sony PlayStation console, developed by Sony. It was released in Japan on 4th March 2000 and in the United States on 26th October 2000. Europe and Australia followed on 24th November and 30th November 2000 respectively. It has been rumoured to be a difficult platform to develop on but has sold the largest number of consoles of its generation. This may be partly due to the same reasons as the original Playstation, firstly the Sony name which is recognisable to a broad section of the population and is regarded particularly highly by 'casual' gamers as it is seen as sophisticated, cool or safe rather than arguably nerdy like Microsoft or supposedly child-oriented like Nintendo. Secondly, a minimalist design which fits in with 1990s design tastes. Thirdly, a broad range of games, particularly ones that are relatively simple to get in to, such as 'Singstar', or that give the freedom to do what you want, especially activities that would be illegal in real life, such as those allowed in the 'Grand Theft Auto' series. Fourthly, backward compatibility with previous Playstation games will be of particular interest to the space-conscious (ie those who aren't children). Another possible reason is the ease of illegally pirating games.

Contents 1 Specifications 2 Trivia 3 Games 4 Websites 5 See Also

Specifications

The specifications of the PlayStation 2 console are as follows, with hardware revisions:

• CPU: 128 bit "Emotion Engine" clocked at 294 MHz (later versions 299 MHz)
  • System Memory: 32 MB Direct Rambus or RDRAM (note that some computers use this type of RAM)
  • Memory Bus Bandwidth: 3.2 GB per second
  • Main processor: MIPS R5900 CPU core, 64 bit
  • Co-Processor: FPU (Floating Point Multiply Accumulator × 1, Floating Point Divider × 1)
  • Vector Units: VU0 and VU1 (Floating Point Multiply Accumulator × 9, Floating Point Divider × 1), 128 bit
  • Floating Point Performance: 6.2 GFLOPS
  • 3D CG Geometric Transformation: 66 million polygons per second (1)
  • Compressed Image Decoder: MPEG-2
  • I/O Processor interconnection: Remote Procedure Call over a serial link, DMA controller for bulk transfer
• Graphics: "Graphics Synthesizer" clocked at 150 MHz
  • DRAM Bus bandwidth: 48.0GB per second
  • DRAM Bus width: 2560 bits
  • Pixel Configuration: RGB:Alpha:Z Buffer (24:8, 15:1 for RGB, 16, 24, or 32-bit Z buffer)
  • Maximum Polygon Rate: 75 million polygons per second (1)
  • Dedicated connection to: Main CPU and VU1
• Sound: "SPU1+SPU2"
  • Number of voices: 48 hardware channels of ADPCM on SPU2 plus software-mixed channels
  • Sampling Frequency: 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz (selectable)
• I/O Processor
  • CPU Core: Original PlayStation CPU (MIPS R3000A clocked at 33.8 MHz or 37.5 MHz)
  • Sub Bus: 32 Bit
  • Connection to: SPU and CD/DVD controller.
  • Interface Types: 2 proprietary PlayStation controller ports, 2 proprietary Memory Card slots using MagicGate encryption, Expansion Bay (DEV9 or PCMCIA on early models) port for Network Adaptor, Modem and Hard Disk Drive, IEEE 1394 (2), Infrared remote control port (2), and 2 USB 1.1 ports with an OHCI-compatible controller.

• Disc Media: DVD-ROM (CD-ROM compatible) with copy protection. 4.7GB capacity, a few are DVD-9 (8.5 GB)

(1) Polygons per second under ideal circumstances (e.g. no texturing, lighting, or vertex colors applied). Some criticize these figures for being unrealistic, and not indicative of real-world performance. The true polygons per second figure with full textures, effects etc. is around 13 million.

(2) IEEE 1394 removed in SCPH-50000 and later hardware versions, and Infrared remote port added.

Trivia

• The PlayStation 2 sold 630,552 consoles during its first weekend on sale inJapan.

Games

A full list of PlayStation 2 games documented on GamerWiki can be found at the Sony Playstation 2 category.

Alternatively, a manually created list is also available - this is to be deprecated, so please add any further games to the games to be added page.

Websites

See Also

other possible headings:

Versions (different versions of the hardware, e.g. Master System I & II)
Peripherals (notable peripherals unique to the system)
Magazines (dedicated magazines)
Emulation (how to emulate this system)

This article uses source material obtained from Wikipedia
The original article can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playstation_2

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