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PlayStation 2 Timeline, From Launch to Present

Posted by simoniker on from the riding-the-sony-pony dept.

Decaffeinated Jedi writes "GameSpy has posted a timeline charting the history Sony's PlayStation 2, the third part in a series previously covered on Slashdot that includes similar retrospectives for the Xbox and for GameCube. The timeline traces the PlayStation 2's history from its initial boom, through its period as 'a repository for bad sports games, giant robot games, and other disappointing releases,' and up to the console's revitalization by such games as Gran Turismo 3, Metal Gear Solid 2, Devil May Cry, and Grand Theft Auto III." How has the PlayStation 2 measured up to your expectations?

14 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. Timeline? I saw no timeline. by DaZedAdAm · · Score: 5, Funny

    So where exactly was this timeline? It looked to me much more like a 5 page list of dated events. They seemed to have missed out on a very important part of the timeline....the LINE.

  2. Incorrect number? by Slashdot+Insider · · Score: 4, Informative
    Sony's weekly 100,000-unit shipments only further agitated the market. Though PlayStation 2 units were readily available in Japan, the console remained virtually sold out in the United States through March, 2001.
    IIRC that number was eventually cut down to 50K/week before getting cut down even further to 25K/week. The massive 0.25um 300mm^2 chip in the blasted thing probably didn't help Sony meet shipment targets.
  3. Not that great. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How has the PlayStation 2 measured up to your expectations?

    Poorly.

    The hardware is better than the Playstation 1, sure, but because it was so difficult to make games for, the first generation of titles barely looked any better than Playstation 1 titles. They had higher resolution, slightly better textures - but that's about it.

    And even the games that make the best use of the hardware today still aren't very good from a technical standpoint. The Playstation 2 can't even do anti-aliasing and trilinear filtering. Something that a bottom-of-the-range 3Dfx graphics accelerator could easily do in 1998. I mean, look closely at Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast. Nothing on the Playstation 2 has ever come close to looking that clear, crisp and vibrant - including the native PS2 Soul Calibur 2 release.

    And the best Playstation 2 titles just look kind of average in comparison to the best on Xbox and Gamecube. Splinter Cell and Crimson Skies on Xbox both look amazing. The best PS2 titles look.. well.. merely okay underneath all the rendering artifacts and lack of high-quality models and textures.

    The PS2 has the best controller, best memory cards, best sleek case design. But it also has the worst technology - worst video hardware, worst processor, worst CD-drive (that is really noisy!) and worst load times.

    A textbook triumph of marketing over technology.

    1. Re:Not that great. by TechnoPops · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A textbook triumph of marketing over technology.

      The thing you seem to forget is that Sony was first. Yes, compared to Xbox and the cube, the PS2 hardware seems kind of lame, but the PS2 was also the first out the gate... with over a year of lead time. Sony set the bar, and MS and the Big N naturally aimed over it.

      --
      "Each time you smile, it'll only last awhile. Life may be scary, but it's only temporary."
    2. Re:Not that great. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The thing you seem to forget is that Sony was first.

      Um... you're forgetting about Sega's Dreamcast? It was the first console with "real" 3D hardware (after the Nintendo 64) and even had a built-in modem.

      It had specs similar to the Gamecube - even though it reached the market way before the PS2 did, Sony's marketing destroyed it. This was part of the problem though - the Dreamcast was perceived by the public as a late-comer to the previous generation - not as a machine way ahead of it's time. I almost think that if they'd delayed and released it later (just before the PS2) Sega probably would have had some form of long-term success with the Dreamcast.

    3. Re:Not that great. by k_187 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Good point, but saying that the dreamcast and gamecube's specs were similar is just silly. The Dreamcast has a 200 mHz SH4 + PowerVR II graphics. The Gamecube has a 485 mHz PowerPC derivative (I believe its real similar to the 750 G3s that used to be in ibooks) + a custom designed Art-X (now Ati) chip. There's other differences in there, how sound is done, system ram make up etc. The gamecube is much more powerful than the dreamcast was. Although the Dreamcast did compete very well on graphics compared to the PS2. Its just that like you said, Sony's hype machine killed the non-hardcore gamer enthusiasm for the dreamcast, which happened to have the best launch ever at the time.

      --
      11 was a racehorse
      12 was 12
      1111 Race
      12112
    4. Re:Not that great. by kisrael · · Score: 4, Interesting

      and what matters in a console isn't the hardware, it's the software.
      For my money, the software isn't that hot either.

      I have all 3 systems, started with the GC. Now that Xbox has GTA3 and GTA:VC for it, I have fewer reasons than ever to want to keep the PS2. There are some genres were the PS2 is the best, but it's notably so-so at some stuff I like, for instance splitscreen multiplayer. (Stupid multitap) I know some people really think it has a super terrific library, but I think in the end, all 3 systems end up having about the same # of "really great" games, and the "really great" gams on PS2 don't interest me as a gamer as much as the other 2 systems.

      --
      SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
  4. Never had Any Expectations ... by Mad_Fred · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For some reason, I've never felt any draw to the PS2 itself as a console. The Gamecube is cool (and these days ridiculously cheap too) and the Xbox ... well, the fact that I bought one says it all I think ... Guess the specs appealed to the geek in me and the games I wanted were available.

    But the PS2, nope. Never any attraction. And that's despite the fact that I've played several great games on a friend's unit over the years. It's just never felt purchase-worthy. And I don't think it will even if it drops to 'Cube prices, but I'm always toying with the idea of picking up a 'Cube just to play Zelda and Metroid.

    Perhaps it's simply that the PS2 has a lot of good and great games, just nothing that's a total drool-causer for me. Especially not drool-causers that don't show up on the other consoles if you're just a little patient ...

  5. More powerful? Ahem... by bishiraver · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Both systems were more powerful than PlayStation 2.
    This statement amuses me. The Xbox is built on an 800mhz celeron processor. The Gamecube utilizes a powerpc based processor. The only reason graphics on the playstation 2 look sub-par, is because it only has 4mb of video memory. The actual cpu, video processing units, and sound processing units are much more powerful than either the Gamecube or xbox. One vector unit of the PS2's emotion engine, for example, can perform Just over a GFLOP. This is immensely better than the X-box (my dual pentium3 800mhz machine cannot even perform a GFLOP), though I'm not sure about the gamecube - I assume it probably doesn't do as well, either. Of course, this performance is only utilizing one of the vector units - there are two. 2GFLOPS (even though they proportedly are capable of 6.2) is nothing to be ashamed of.

    As was said before, the actual logic units of the playstation2 are well beyond both the xbox and the gamecube - the simple fact is, that the video memory does not hold nearly as many pretty textures, and cannot do anti-aliasing very well (mainly because of the lack of memory). If they had utilized something like 64mb or 128mb of memory, the system would have smoked either one of the other systems. The major problem with the emotion engine in floating point calculations, is that it only performs at 32-bit precision, not 64-bit. Of course, neither do the numerous pentium3 (And 4) based beowulf clusters out there.
    1. Re:More powerful? Ahem... by NanoGator · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "The actual cpu, video processing units, and sound processing units are much more powerful than either the Gamecube or xbox."

      No, they're not. You're comparing the main processors of the GC and XBOX to the PS2's graphic chip. The GC and XBOX both have seperate graphics chips, and the results wipe the floor with the PS2. The RAM bottleneck for that system is a good chunk of the reason why the graphics are blurry, no doubt about that. However, the GC and XBOX both have nifty little hardware graphic features (anti-aliasing, texture compression, etc) that the PS2 has to do in software.

      The XBOX and GC are both decidedly more powerful than the PS2, they also have technology that's a year newer.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    2. Re:More powerful? Ahem... by bishiraver · · Score: 5, Informative

      No, the emotion engine (made up of vector units and central processing unit) is seperate from the graphics synthesizer, which has a memory bandwidth of 48 gigabytes/sec. The Geforce3 (similar to the graphics chip in the xbox) has approximately 7.36 GB/s of memory bandwidth.

      Unlike what was said in another post, the PS2 -does- do trilinear filtering - Along with "Texture Mapping, Bump Mapping, Fogging, Alpha Blending, Bi-...Linear Filtering, MIPMAP, Anti-aliasing, and Multi-pass Rendering".

      The problems, of course, are that the emotion engine and graphics synthesizer require a PhD in mathematics and computer science to be able to code for them, so their potential has barely been reached - even by Sony's own programmers.

    3. Re:More powerful? Ahem... by xero314 · · Score: 4, Informative

      This is where any programer or person with any technical knowledge begins to laugh. The Vector Units of the PS2 are not it's graphics engine. These units are general purpose vector units. Yes it is true that in typical game design one of the two VUs is dedicated for Graphics processing, this is not only not required nor is it always done.

      There is a reason that more than one major US university has a project to use a PS2, or PS2 cluster, for scientific computing, and none have atempted this with an xbox (not sure about the game cube, which also has decent vector procssing) . The power and flexibility of the VUs is the reason why PS2 games have better AI and Physics (when comparing the best of console games, all systems have their crappy games). The fact that the VUs are not dedicated to graphics processing is why PS2 graphics are not what they could be, because most developers, especialy american developers, have never programed on such a system. But as I have said before Lazyness is no reason knock a system.

      The real ignorance is shown with statements about the PS2s RAM bottle neck. If you ever looked at the arcitecture of the PS2 you will see it was built for high process Multimedia. It is capable of moving it's entire main memory store in a single cycle to any one of it's processing units. The key is keeping the pipeline full. Typical programing has been done by filling large memory stores, cache, and letting it tricle out to the processing units. Do your self a favor and research the technology before you try and talk about it.

  6. It surprises me. . . by M3wThr33 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    For as many failed units that Sony throws out, it still amazes me when people associate the word Sony with Quality.

    1. Re:It surprises me. . . by NanoGator · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "For as many failed units that Sony throws out, it still amazes me when people associate the word Sony with Quality. "

      I worked at a video game retailer when the original Playstation was launched. From that Sept to just after XMAS, for every 100 PS's we sold, we got roughly 20-25 back defective. This was in the whole district, not just the store I was in. I can't imagine this was limited to just Kansas City.

      Funny thing is, people actually deny that the original PS had this many problems. Even our competitors bitched about it.

      --
      "Derp de derp."