Late this summer, Sony will release its brainchild product dubbed PlayStation2.
This is a follow up to its predecessor PlayStation1. If you are familiar with
the video game entertainment market, its usual that a company releases a new
console every 4 to 5 years. The Playstation2 is expected to revolutionize the
video gaming industry in ways never imagined before. Who would have thought we
would be able to watch DVD's on our video game player? Soon this summer we will
be able to. How about connecting to the net and going online to play a buddy or
just any competitor in California? Feel like downloading some mp3's? The new
PlayStation2 will let you do all these things and more. PlayStation2 will offer
a variety of different ways of using their machine. Not only can you play
revolutionizing games, but you can shop through your computer. Sony will offer
in 2001 a connection to the Internet in which you can just surf the web. As I
have mentioned, Sony has formatted the PlayStation2 to able to play DVD videos
along with its games. One of the greatest things about the PlayStation2 is that
you can play all your old Playstation1 games on it! Finally! After years and
years of this backwards compatibility being in the dark, it is now possible with
the PlayStation2. Not only your old games, but even your old controllers, memory
cards and wires are going to be fully compatible with the system. The
PlayStation2 is expected to beat out its predecessor in every way including the
books. Playstation1 accounted for 40% of all of Sony's profits in 1998. As of
the first weekend of sales in Japan, Playstation2 had sold 980,000 units. All in
one weekend! The lone fairly new competition that will be on the market before
Playstation2 is the Sega Dreamcast. This was released in 1999 and has sold 4
million units since its release. Figure 4 million units in 52-weeks and then
look at PlayStation2's numbers in Japan on one weekend. Playstation2 will be
extremely succesful because of it almost cult like following. In a recent study,
a conclusion was made that 1 in four homes have a Playstation. That is close to
25 million units sold in the US alone. This all adds up to the 70 million units
total sold in the world. And now the product is just more sellable with the DVD,
Internet, and backwards compatibility available. Specifications Product Name:
PlayStation2 Suggested Retail Price (Japan) 39,800 Yen ($370) Available: March
4, 2000 (Japan) Accessories included: "Dual Shock"2 analog controller
High capacity 8MB Memory Card PlayStation2 Demo Disc AV Multi Cable AC Power
Cord Dimensions: 301mm (W) x 178mm (H) x 78mm (D) (12" x 7" x 3")
Weight: 2.1 kg (4 lbs. 10 oz.) Media: PlayStation2 CD-ROM, DVD-ROM PlayStation
CD-ROM Formats supported: Audio CD, DVD-Video Interfaces: Controller Port (2)
Memory Card Slot (2) AV Multi Cable Output (1) Optical Digital Output (1) USB
Port (2) I.Link (IEEE1394) (1) Type III PCMCIA Card Slot PlayStation®2 Basic
Specifications and Features CPU 128 Bit "Emotion Engine™" System
Clock Frequency 294.912 MHz Main Memory Direct RDRAM Memory Size 32MB Graphics
"Graphics Synthesizer" Clock Frequency 147.456MHz Embedded Cache VRAM
4MB Sound SPU2 Number of Voices 48ch plus software Sound Memory 2MB IOP I/O
Processor CPU Core PlayStation CPU+ Clock Frequency 33.8688MHz or 36.864MHz
(Selectable) IOP Memory 2MB Disc Device CD-ROM and DVD-ROM Device Speed CD-ROM
24 times speed DVD-ROM 4 times speed