industry standard with its vibrating “dualshock” controller, was redefining gaming. There was the ethereal
Ico, the gaming-as-philosophical-treatise Shadow of the Colossus, the incredibly realistic Grand Turismo 3:
A-Spec. Oh, and Grand Theft Auto III, a game about stealing cars and shooting people in the face. As the
PS2 sold and sold, so did the games – in 2004 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas broke all records in moving
21.3 million copies, of which 17.3 million were for the PS2.
Some technologies serve their purpose and are forgotten. Then there are those so perfectly of the moment
that they become woven into the cultural fabric. Examples include the original Volkswagen Beetle, the Sony
Walkman, the Apple Macintosh, the indestructible Nokia 3310. To this club we must also add the PS2,
which remained in production until 2013. It was only two years ago that Sony announced it was ending its
PS2 repair programme. By then, its place in the annals of era-defining tech was assured.
“The most impressive thing about PS2 was that it did have a personality, despite its total ubiquity,” says
Welsh. “Maybe it wasn’t as quirky as GameCube or Dreamcast, but one thing Sony has always excelled at is
promoting creativity with image-defining in-house games, like Ico. That encouraged others in turn to take
risks, and you found all sorts of amazing, off-the-wall stuff on PS2, from Katamari Damacy to Frequency to
Rez to Manhunt. These all redefined what games could be in one way or another. The game that really
defined the console was Grand Theft Auto III, though. Sony still owes Rockstar a few beers for that one.”