2’s launch in Japan, it seemed the console could do virtually anything.
PlayStation 2 must certainly have felt like a weapon of mass destruction to Sony’s rivals when it was
unveiled in Japan 20 years ago today. PS2 saw off Sega’s Dreamcast, selling $250m (£200m) worth of kit in
its first day compared to the Dreamcast’s $95m. And it would trump Microsoft’s more technically advanced
Xbox. The PS2 ultimately shifted 155 million units worldwide against Xbox’s 25 million (and Nintendo
GameCube’s 22 million).
20 years on, it remains the best-selling console of all time. That achievement is even more impressive
considering the next four highest-selling games devices are all cheaper hand-held machines from Nintendo
(the DS is in second place, followed by the GameBoy). The PS2 re-shaped the face of gaming, home
entertainment and even popular culture.
“It was a big game-changer,” says Richard Lee Breslin, editor of gaming website Push Start Play. “Going
from the PS1 to PS2 really took it to the next level. Two of my favourite games from the PS1 were Silent Hill
and Metal Gear Solid.
“But Silent Hill 2 on PS2 was really something else. It was a massive leap in the quality of visuals. And while
Metal Gear Solid 2 wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, it really excelled in terms of gameplay, not to mention
Metal Gear Solid 3 that soon followed. Both Silent Hill 2 and Metal Gear Solid 2 set a benchmark in story-
telling for videogames.”
Games were already part of the mainstream in 2000. But it was PS2 hits such as Grand Theft Auto III and
Call of Duty that confirmed gaming’s evolution from a pastime, largely for kids and teenagers, into a
juggernaut more lucrative than movies or music. The age of the blockbuster video game was also the age of
the PS2.
“It offered a new level of visuals, gameplay, and story-telling as it gave developers even greater tools to tell
their story. And not only in-game. I also remember being blown anyway by the FMV [full motion video]
cut-scenes,” says Breslin. “Don’t get me wrong, I loved the N64 and it told some great stories. But with the
PS2 game being on DVD and not on a cartridge, I felt so many aspects of a game’s overall quality
benefited.”
One surprise, as we look back, is just how obscure the origins of the PS2 and its predecessor, the original
1994 PlayStation, remain. The sense among many gamers is that the Sony hive-mind willed these
extraordinary devices into existence from its bunker-style HQ in Tokyo’s Minato ward. And, hey presto,
there they were on our shelves.
I don’t think there was anything that the staff pushed back on and told Kutaragi couldn’t be done
In fact, the PlayStation story is the story of one man and his vision. As with Apple and the maverick Steve
Jobs, the PS2 and its forerunner were essentially the product of the force of will of a singular individual, Ken
Kutaragi – known to his underlings as “Crazy Ken”.
Kutaragi had joined Sony as an engineer in its digital research labs in his twenties. By the early Nineties,
when he was in his forties, he had become convinced gaming was the next big growth area for tech. He
pushed his bosses towards an alliance with the king of the industry, Nintendo.
His big idea was for Sony to produce an accessory for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. There
was a sense in the early 1990s that the SNES was limited by Nintendo’s reliance on game cartridges. These
had a relatively puny capacity, maxing out at around four megabytes. The hot new trend was the CD-Rom,