« Sorry About That! | Main | Review : WarioWare,Inc. Mega Party Game$ for Gamecube »
Contemplating The Sony Pstwo : Size Does Not Matter
There is a very credible rumor-slash-crazy-Internet theory that Sony is developing a re-designed smaller cheaper to produce version of the PS2. The single thing that helped add on to this theory is when Sony applied for a copyright on the name PStwo for a videogame system. That is a capital "PS" then a lower case "two"with no spaces.
This makes sense for a number of reason. Just about every super successful videogame system has had a smaller redesigned model of it that extended it's life, lowered the hardware cost and fixed design issues. The Atari 2600, Nintendo NES, SNES, Gameboy, Sega Genesis/Megadrive, Sega CD, TurboGrafx-16/ PC Engine and the Playstation all had hardware redesigns and I think it is about time that the Playstation2 gets it's due.
Sony is building some huge chip plants and investing billions on developing the next generation of media chips. It only makes sense that they will be able to combine the chips of the PS2 and come up with a smaller motherboard that can be made at a lower cost. Sony recently announced their plans to have PS2 software on the shelves of the world's game stores until 2010 and they do not plan on dropping the PS2 format once the Playstation3 and the Playstation Portable hits the market.
Sony already has made some changes to the PS2 over the years. The first Japanese version had the DVD drivers on a memory card and it did not have the internal hard drive bay. Then they came out with the US/international model that we know and love. Then they made a minor revision recently that gave the PS2 a quieter fan and the ability to play CD-RWs and a plethora of writable DVD discs
The PStwo will not be an upgrade to the hardware's technical performance and it will have just the same graphical capability of the older PS2 but there will be some real changes and improvements.
Here is what I am hoping Sony has in store for the Pstwo.
Quieter Fan : One thing that I freaking hate about the PS2 is the noise of the fan. It sounds like a vacuum cleaner and it makes watching a DVD bothersome because the room is being filled with this hum. When a design uses less chips it needs less power and does not require a freaking big cooling unit to suck in air over the hot circuits. I am not using my PS2 as a DVD player anymore because of the loud ass fan.
Price Cut : Since a smaller design needs less chips they can get the hardware costs down. We might expect the PStwo at $125 or the magical price point of $99. I have a kick ass Apex DVD player for $40 so it is not to far out to think that they might price the PStwo at a hundred bucks.
Network adapter Since it looks like they are serious about the network adapter and online game play it would be sweet if the Pstwo would have the network adapter built in.
Hard Drive Bay Since Final Fantasy XI is finally out in the US we can finally get a PS2 hard drive in the US of A. FF11 Needs the HD Bay so I doubt that Sony will take it out.
Or
No Hard Drive bay I bet they could get it really small and cool if they left out the internal hard drive bay.
No Game and DVD Region Coding A nerd can dream. I know it is unlikely but I hope that the PStwo hardware will me much easier to play imported games on.
CD-RW and DVD Rewritable Disc Reading Because my bootleg Gamera DVD-Rs skip and lock up in my PS2.
Black I betcha it is going to be Black and have blue lights.
Front Power Switch Who was the freaking moron who thought it would be a good idea to put the power switch in the back of the unit so you have to reach around to find it? Bad hardware designer.
Keep the USB Ports You know for keyboards, mice, EyeToy headsets and other interesting devices.
New Operating System It will probably have a new OS and I hope that the new one will finally remember I like my textures smoothed on my PSOne games without having to manually set it every freaking time. Plus I think the interface to the PS2 preferences could be simpler and I am sick of the sound of the crashing surf.
Web Browser Please Please Please! I hope that Sony finally will bring out some of the web browsers and email programs that are out in Japan for the PS2. I know they do not want kids surfing for porn on their PS2 but that does not mean that the rest of us in the USA should never be able to surf the web with their freaking Playstation2. Yeah I know there is always Mozilla for PS2 Linux
MP3, JPG and Mpeg supportIt is pretty cool that I can burn a CD-RW full of JPEGs, MP3s and MPEGs and enjoy them on my cheap little Apex DVD player. It would be a shame if Sony did not include some of the PSX's multimedia format reading powers on the Pstwo.
This is just cheerful speculation and your guess is almost as good as mine. I betcha that we will see the PSTwo at the E3 trade show this summer.
Jake at April 7, 2004 
Games
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.8bitjoystick.com/cgi-bin/mtype/mt-tb.cgi/582
Comments
even though i like my ps2 as it is, i so hope they bring out another version in PSone style. the PSone just looks absolutely tight. i also wish they give it blue light but i like the white body design more. maybe the lan adapter will look like the one for dreamcast and gamecube, just plug it under or sideways to the ps.
mp3 and mpeg support....hmmm x-box what?! :P
j/k. but if for real some of these funcionalities would be built in this PStwo it would turn out to be, for now, the best take-with-you-multimedia-system imho.
let's just hope for it.
ps: gamera rocks ;)
Posted by: mordred at April 7, 2004 2:58 AM
Jake,
Did you see this article in Time Magzzine this week on the impact of games?
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040412-607837,00.html
Posted by: bob at April 7, 2004 6:35 AM
There's no speculation about it: Sony confirmed long ago that they're working on a slimmed-down PS2. They just never gave a date for its release.
I'm very doubtful we'll see it at E3. It doesn't make sense to release it now. The PSOne was released *after* the PS2, to keep sales of the lower-end hardware. I expect the same thing to happen with the PStwo.
Posted by: jason at April 7, 2004 7:01 AM
Sony dropped the price of the Playstation and released the PSOne well before they brought the PS2 to the US if I do remember. I doubt they will keep the PS2 at a higher price point than the Xbox and I hope to see the PStwo at E3.
I never have really loved analogy that compared videogames to Hollywood. I think the mediums and the markets are quite different and it is "Apples and Oranges"
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at April 7, 2004 8:36 AM
I bought a PS2 on release day and after a few weeks of play was not impressed (Dreamcast fanboy). The current lineup has a lot more games I'd be interested in playing though. I ended up selling my PS2 on eBay that X-mas when there was a shortage and trippled my money.
If they did re-release it at 99, I'd definately pick one up.
I just picked up a NGPC and 7 games last week. You were right, this little guy kicks major ass.
Posted by: Kevin at April 7, 2004 9:55 AM
Well the first generation PS2 games seriously sucked. I mean Fantavision? You do not want that as a launch title.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at April 7, 2004 10:19 AM
I'm considering getting a PlayStation2 soon. Is the fan that annoying when you are playing games?
Posted by: Trent at April 7, 2004 10:48 AM
The PS2s that come with a bundled Network Adapter has a quieter fan than the first US PS2s. It is there but you notice it more when watching a DVD.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at April 7, 2004 11:05 AM
"I ended up selling my PS2 on eBay that X-mas when there was a shortage and trippled my money."
I remember that. And I remember wishing I had ten PS2s to sell. :D
A slimmer PS2 sounds cool, although it still wouldn't convince me to buy one unless it had a good DVD player (unlike the current PS2). I guess I'm just more of a Gamecube and Xbox guy.
Posted by: Jonathan Bennett at April 9, 2004 10:34 AM
Weeeeeell, although I'm an XBOX fan thru and thru, I will admit, the PS2 has got some sickly stonking games for it! :D
I recently bought the Silver PS2 from a friend and I'm loving it! I remember buying the PSone the day it came out simply because it looked cute... so no doubt I'll do the same with PStwo :D
--- Just don't take out the HD-bay Sony!! If it can't play FFXI, heh, count me out :D
Posted by: Sabin1981 at April 17, 2004 1:34 AM
I think they need to make the PStwo a top loader. Please make it a top loader!!!
Posted by: VVega77 at April 19, 2004 1:35 AM
I just hope they redesign the horrible AV out cable, I've had to replace mine three times since they get loose and start to effect visual performance. (screen flickers) Maybe it's just me, but I had the same problem with my original PlayStation.
Posted by: InsaneDavid at April 20, 2004 2:55 AM
Hey man, What's up? It's Ian from AIS. I just remembered your website, and I figured I'd post.
If they make the PStwo as small as the PSone, I'd like it to be able to take the PSone LCD screen. If it doesn't then I hope that Sony makes one that you can get as part of a package like how they did with the PSone. I remember having to wait forever for them to release that screen, and when they did, the price difference between a screen and a system with a screen was only $20. I ended up getting the screen and system combo, so I actually have 2 PSone's. I know I'll be compelled to buy a PStwo, but for me the whole draw is portability. No LCD, no dice.
Yeah, I agree that it has to be a top loader. Front loaders always make me nervous. My PS2's are at knee height and I've almost had someone obliterate them because they left it open and weren't paying attention when they walked by it. Front loaders also take up more space and are next to impossible to clean. I always have to bust out the canned air on my Xbox and PS2 when I get stupid disk read errors. Stupid shitty Xbox DVD drives!
I hope they leave the bay out, or make a caddy to hold a hardrive in if you really want it. My Japanese PS2 doesn't have a HDD bay, instead it has a PC card slot(you know like on laptops) they had a completely different HDD for that model. It sat next to the PS2 vertically and made it look like a PS2 TOOL(developers kit) I remember when I worked at Suckerpunch, they had assloads of that kind of HDD. Sony sent them, and that's the only way to test the HDD on a PS2 TOOL. The never used them(for obvious reasons) and I soooo wanted to snag one! Back then I wanted to play FFXI really bad, now I could play it on my puter if I wanted too. For some reason I have no real desire to. I guess BF is more my slice of pie.
The space for the HDD would just make the PStwo bigger and not as portable.
Did you know that PS2 has a standby mode? You just hold the reset button in until the green light turns red. The power switch on the back is just for when you unplug it, and I guess it's also a hard reset.(never had to do that if I recall)
Argh...I'm blathering on.
Boy am I tired...
Posted by: Salmonaxe at April 20, 2004 4:49 AM
Sony thinks tray loaders are l337, so they didn't put together a top loader. I've always loved top loaders for consoles. Oh, and you damn well know (I hope) that there's a particular brand of Xbox DVD drives that suck. Honestly I've seen more PS2 drive issues, but they seem to stem from random defects in their production more than any single revision of hardware. Whereas with the Xbox, you KNOW which drives suck - the Thompson drives.
Anyway, some good news and some bad news. Good news: It's small as hell. Built-in ethernet. Bad news: Sure as hell doesn't look like a top loader to me. Very slim, doesn't look like the HD bay is gonna be there? Also, PSU is now "external" which I assume means wall wort style (big DC adapter). It's just a minor annoyance to find more plug space in my console-crowded area. Also, price is the same, although its obviously cheaper to produce.
Posted by: Alex at September 21, 2004 6:49 AM
LOL apparently you didnt research very well, alex
it does have a top-loading bay
great pics here:
http://www.engadget.com/entry/3744286874239486/
read http://www.us.playstation.com/pressreleases.aspx?id=227
for more info
Posted by: Jordan at September 22, 2004 8:01 PM
Nah, I didn't research at all. I just saw the first pics of it, which sucked. Put it together with what I read, and it looked like a tray loader. But its not. It's a funny top loader, they've got tons of pics now. That thing better have a good latch/release. I hope they drop the price sometime in the near future, but I doubt it'll come down until they really need to lower it. It would make it attractive to people who want to use it as a portable if the console itself cost less. I guess that's one advantage of using DC power, it makes it easier to power with a car adapter.
Posted by: Alex at September 23, 2004 1:51 PM
Yeah it does sort of look like a tray loader but they went with the pop top.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at September 23, 2004 10:25 PM
