Late this summer, Sony will release its brainchild product dubbed PlayStation2.This is a follow up to its predecessor PlayStation1. If you are familiar withthe video game entertainment market, its usual that a company releases a newconsole every 4 to 5 years.
The Playstation2 is expected to revolutionize thevideo gaming industry in ways never imagined before. Who would have thought wewould be able to watch DVD's on our video game player? Soon this summer we willbe able to. How about connecting to the net and going online to play a buddy orjust any competitor in California? Feel like downloading some mp3's? The newPlayStation2 will let you do all these things and more. PlayStation2 will offera variety of different ways of using their machine. Not only can you playrevolutionizing games, but you can shop through your computer.
Sony will offerin 2001 a connection to the Internet in which you can just surf the web. As Ihave mentioned, Sony has formatted the PlayStation2 to able to play DVD videosalong with its games. One of the greatest things about the PlayStation2 is thatyou can play all your old Playstation1 games on it! Finally! After years andyears of this backwards compatibility being in the dark, it is now possible withthe PlayStation2. Not only your old games, but even your old controllers, memorycards and wires are going to be fully compatible with the system. ThePlayStation2 is expected to beat out its predecessor in every way including thebooks.
Playstation1 accounted for 40% of all of Sony's profits in 1998. As ofthe first weekend of sales in Japan, Playstation2 had sold 980,000 units. All inone weekend! The lone fairly new competition that will be on the market beforePlaystation2 is the Sega Dreamcast. This was released in 1999 and has sold 4million units since its release.
Figure 4 million units in 52-weeks and thenlook at PlayStation2's numbers in Japan on one weekend. Playstation2 will beextremely 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 to25 million units sold in the US alone. This all adds up to the 70 million unitstotal 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: March4, 2000 (Japan) Accessories included: "Dual Shock"2 analog controllerHigh capacity 8MB Memory Card PlayStation2 Demo Disc AV Multi Cable AC PowerCord 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 PlayStationCD-ROM Formats supported: Audio CD, DVD-Video Interfaces: Controller Port (2)Memory Card Slot (2) AV Multi Cable Output (1) Optical Digital Output (1) USBPort (2) I.Link (IEEE1394) (1) Type III PCMCIA Card Slot PlayStation®2 BasicSpecifications and Features CPU 128 Bit "Emotion Engine™" SystemClock Frequency 294.912 MHz Main Memory Direct RDRAM Memory Size 32MB Graphics"Graphics Synthesizer" Clock Frequency 147.456MHz Embedded Cache VRAM4MB Sound SPU2 Number of Voices 48ch plus software Sound Memory 2MB IOP I/OProcessor 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-ROM24 times speed DVD-ROM 4 times speed
