The PlayStation 2 Ceases Shipping In Japan, Begins Well-Deserved Victory Lap

Kotaku: "We've joked about its refusal to die before, but today, finally, the console begins its march into the history books. Having sold over 150 million units since its release in 2000, the PlayStation 2 has today ceased shipping to Japanese retailers, meaning once remaining stock is gone, it's gone."

[Godchild1020]

The PlayStation 2 had an amazing run and it brought joy to over 150+ million users in the world.

A moment of silence for the king of HOME consoles.

[decrypt]

So what do people who want to play their old games do now when their PS2 dies?

[Godchild1020]

They can buy a used one from Ebay, Craigslist or Amazon. I'm not sure what stores are in Japan. They could also import one from another country. Sony stopped shipping them in Japan, but they never mention anywhere else.

If you are in the US, you can still get them from any location, new or used. http://us.playstation.com/w...

[KangarooSam]

Damn, if only someone invented backwards compatibility. Or emulators. Or buying one of the 150+ million others PS2s (minus 1).

[IAMERROR]

uhhh tough luck? They buy a used working one? Just like every other discontinued system in history.
lol

[GribbleGrunger]

You mean those that are already eager for the PS4 or the 360? Oh, they'll complain that the PS2 is gone. Just to verify: This is ONLY in Japan. If I was a betting man I'd have a few bob on Sony doing this to help bump the sales of the Vita and PS3.

[wishingW3L]

PS2 are known to have unreliable lasers so buying used is not an option. My PS2 slim is just 1 year old and sometimes the discs don't spin and the loading are like really long. BC is extinct so the only way to play the games would be through emulation.

But one can't be real on N4G because the fanboys will take away your bubbles and flood you with disagrees. On this site the comments with the most disagrees are often the ones you should believe the most.

[DeadlyFire]

Even if only in Japan its the start of the shutdown for PS2 production as PS3 or PS4 production takes over those factories in 2013.

[Qrphe]

@wishing

The used fat one I got earlier this year was hacked and running backups from the hdd. I'm still playing games too, so many!!!!!!

[darthv72]

No offense sony but you could have retired (the hardware) when the ps3 was released.

That doesnt mean game development would have to stop for it. Games generally continue to get released even after the hardware stops flowing.

i retired my PS2 when I got my 80gb BC PS3 simply because I would still be able to play my PS2 games on the new system.

sony, you have your reasons for doing things but that doesnt mean they are the right ones. Bad decisions are bad decisions and while you had great success with the ps2 platform...the bad decision was to continue to promote it instead of putting more marketing effort into your new flagship successor.

Eh...that last part is my own POV in regards to it being a bad decision but sony had made some straight up bad decisions with the best intentions.

And since this is geared towards the "hardware" I make no disparaging remarks to the library of games. They are, if not one of, the best library of games ever released. So much diversity for any type of player.

[P_Bomb]

@darth
I don't know man. I have a hard time grieving a console that did 150 million in sales. Don't see it falling anywhere remotely close to the Sony "bad desisions" pile. They were selling more PS2s than 360s in Japan, why would they stop shipments of guaranteed money?

When MS killed off the first XBox, they also killed off game development for it. PS2 still had games in the pipeline. Supply and demand. Still had new AAA games being released for it 2006 and beyond like GOW2 and Okami.

As to your promotion peeve, I haven't seen the PS2 truly promoted since a couple years ago at E3 and that was more Tretton stat padding than "check out these new PS2 games". Even the PS1/PS2 classics on PSN have been anemic at best.

I retired my PS2 catalogue when I got my PS3 too, but it wasn't until late 2007. The PS3 didn't really start selling until MGS4 and the subsequent price drops and Slim models. I think Sony's faux pas was more pricing themselves out of the market in the beginning and playing catch up on services like PSN which didn't even have in-game messaging/XMB at the time. Their competition imo was more from MS and Wii's lower price points. MS' year head start made almost everything a timed exclusive on the XBox, and cheaper to play multiplats.

[RumbleFish]

Just play it on PC (PCSX2).

[darthv72]

of removing my foot from my mouth in the previous statement.

I am just stating that had sony retired the ps2 sooner it could have lead to more marketing push for the ps3.

I see from the disagrees above that i phrased it wrong. But no matter as now sony can proceed full steam ahead with their current projects.

on a side note, the timing to stop production of anything is a risky one. It took nintendo several years after the SNES to put the NES out to pasture.

We know both sony and nintendo share the same values in long production runs but what about MS? They dropped the xbox after the 360 came out but would they be as abrupt again with their next system?

[Outside_ofthe_Box]

***"So what do people who want to play their old games do now when their PS2 dies?"***

The answer to that question is the answer to this question: So what do people who want to play their newly purchased PC game do now when they don't meet the system requirements?

[BlmThug]

Still the king of kings in my heart with the playstation one a close second. I salute you both sir for bringing me immense gaming pleasure :')

[ConstipatedGorilla]

For me, my fav was SNES, but I was born in 79. Lots of great systems through the years and PS2 was definitely among the best. Sad to say goodbye.

[torchic]

this is not the end, it's still being sold/shipped in other territories.

[GraveLord]

King of all consoles, not just home.

[shutUpAndTakeMyMoney]

Ps2 is the king indeed!! Also ps4 confirmed!!

[Awesome_Gamer]

Best Console Ever.

[wishingW3L]

.............

http://i.imgur.com/GMtbx.gi...

[Tetsujin]

I still need to finish that game, one of the best I've ever played.

[RandomDude655]

What a thrill..........

[majiebeast]

12 years of bringing gamers joy. Lets hope the ps3 also brings gamers joy for 12 years.

[gumgum99]

I personally hope it lasts even longer just as PS2 lasted more than 1 year longer than PS1. The PS3 has the potential to last at least an extra 2 years or so past its 10th anniversary.

[wiiulee]

lol begins victory lap..who were they competing with....isnt that generation over...but ps2 was a great system that sold a bunch....wii won this generation and i fully expect wiiu to win the next despite haters

[oriononer]

define win.

[Godmars290]

This gen was a total mess.

Pretty close to one anyway.

[Silly gameAr]

You sound like a bit of a hater yourself. Sounds like you're trying to shrug off what Sony accomplished with the PS2.

[torchic]

I don't get how you can hate on the PS2. ranks up there as one of the best things if not the best thing that has ever come out of Sony, a company which has made many great products, many great innovations.

[BlaqMagiq24]

Butthurt much?

[Blank]

Okay this is a ps2 article im not gonna diss the wii because I respect it but I dont respect insecure punks like you go praise the nintendo articles and leave us the people that respect gaming away from your negative flame baiting

[blackblades]

Why cease it, its still selling right and on another note is that a sign for the next system to be coming.

[torchic]

it would be ridiculous to have PS2/PS3/PS4 all on the market at the same time. in my country PS2 still gets a lot of coverage which obviously eat into PS3 sales. and it doesn't help that EA still makes FIFA for PS2.

like in some shops you see brand new versions of Final Fantasy X/X-2/XII, Grand Theft Auto III/SA/VC, GT4 etc. stocked very well and still somewhat flying off the shelves.

I've been calling it for a while. I thought they'd do it sometime during the 1st half of 2013, but it seems like they want to slowly phase it out. I also think that at E3 Sony will kill the PS2 for good while price cutting the PS3 (or just introduce the 12GB worldwide). sad, but it needs to happen for sake of the PS3/PS4/Vita

once Vita gets a sizable library, the PSP will go too but that might take a few years.

[rainslacker]

Eventually you have to make way for new things. Factories have to be freed up to do other things. They may not sell enough anymore to make enough revenues to make it worth it. The system has sold well past it's intended shelf life. They don't want to have 3 systems on the market, and want people to get the PS3 before the PS4 gets announced. They want to get the 3rd party developers still making games on it to move on to the PS3 or PS4. They don't want to spend the money on support for it anymore. So many reasons why something could be discontinued. It was bound to happen eventually.

[gumgum99]

You know what this means, guys the announcement of the PS4 is imminent. The PS1 was discontinued not long after the announcement of PS3 a year later, so it makes much sense for the PS2 to finally be put to rest. You can only have so many systems in production, and with its numbers dwindling steadily year-on-year, the phase which has begun was inevitable. It had a good run.

Good bye, old friend. (this isn't the end for me, however. There are sill plenty of games on the PS2 I have yet to finish before I put it to rest.)

[yewles1]

By that logic, don't expect a PS4 announcement until 2014, considering the PS1's swan song curtain call was a year before E3 2005...

[GreenRanger]

Best console EVER!

[Tetsujin]

I'd vote PS1 over PS2 in terms of best console, they actually were "the" console for me to leave Nintendo for a more mature gaming experience outside Goldeneye and Conkers Bad Fur Day.

[Godmars290]

Crap! I actually need to buy a spare!

That or get an emulator.

[Conzul]

I hope Sony does an uptier model of the PS4 that can has PS3 and PS2 Backwards Compatibility. They could call it a Limited Edition/Legacy Edition and run it around $600-$700.

[Godmars290]

People say that then forget how most sites piled on with complaint articles. Used it as the basis for bias that's still going on.

Nevermind that Sony wants/needs to sell to the general consumer.

[rainslacker]

@Godmars

The difference would be that it would be marketed to those that actually wanted that feature, so those that didn't care about it wouldn't have to bear the cost burden.

Truly whatever Sony does is going to get hate, so why not at least try to make the consumer happy. It wouldn't even have to be something that lasts through the entire life of the console, as most people buying them now aren't worried about BC.

I don't see it happening, but what Conzul suggested would be a day one for me.

[Godmars290]

And that's still the thing: where Sony marketed the PS3's features, someone else was saying they weren't needed.

It didn't matter that the Xbox saw an HD-DVD add-on early in its life or made several changes to compensate for shortcomings in DVD space, much of the same crowd which touted such as innovation still say that Blu-ray isn't needed. There's also a podcaster who went out of his way not to buy a $500 PS3 who spent $2000 to do it.

Things have just gotten stupid, so don't expect Sony to make a high feature product while asking a high price for it. They've already been taught that horrible lesson with the PS3.

[rainslacker]

I see what your saying. Early in the PS3's life they included those things because I think they believed it was expected. Or they saw the cost benefit for people picking up a new system to choose a PS3 over a PS2, or they saw the potential to make money from PS2 software for early PS3 owners.

Despite what all the press, and some others were saying, the BC feature was good for consumers that wanted it, and realistically wasn't the main reason the PS3 was priced so high. That had more to do with the Cell and Blu-Ray, but when it came time to cut costs, it was about the only big line item that could be removed without causing incompatibility.

The situation that Conzul describes though is a bit different. It's not forcing a higher priced model because of the extra hardware, and lets the consumer decide. Sites and fanboys will still hate on it, and say how it needs to be in all the SKU's so it's really a no win situation for Sony, and in the end it's really the consumers that lose out. As such it would be better for Sony to keep consumer interest in mind, and not worry so much about what the haters will say.

I wholeheartedly agree with you though that things have just gotten stupid.

[YoungPlex]

One of my favorite consoles ever made, it changed gaming and had some of the best titles ever created. I just wish that Sony focused on all the great Japanese games that made the PS2 the best selling home console ever to see the light of day... Ico, Shadow, all the FF, Valkyrie Profile 2, etc, even games like Red faction, Time Splitters, and GTA were so evolutionary... Everything was great on there!

[Sgt_Slaughter]

The PS2 is in the Top 5 Systems of All Time now. It's up there with the NES, Gameboy, Genesis, and DS.

[downwardspiral]

Goodnight sweet prince. It was an epic journey.

[knifefight]

Is it still in production in other territories? I've already got a PS2, but I'm just curious if this has happened in other places as well.

[r21]

PS2 had so many variety of games, it will be missed but not forgotten :'D

[Kingthrash360]

****pauses ps Vita (sine mora)**** .......moment of silence as I pour out a lil liqueur .............................. .........thank you for the memories ps2.......***** un-pause****

[KonaBro]

You did good.

[microgenius]

sony still produces it for middle east and third world countries
the old warrior never dies

[MultiConsoleGamer]

Forever a champion.

[Lucreto]

RIP PS2

It has had a good long run now.

I wonder when Sony will announce the PS4? I think a tease at CES would be nice. Since Microsoft not there this year it would give Sony a good platform for it.

[sitharrefus]

RIP PS2 You will never be forgotten you will live on for centuries.

[Hingle_Mcringleberry]

Meh, mine died years ago after 2 and a half years because of shoddy hardware(dvd lens stopped reading) and lax warranty policy.
As far as backward compatibility goes, I couldn't give a rat's hind quarters, I bought a PS3 to play new games.

[BlaqMagiq24]

Then why did you comment on here if you don't like PS2 or BC compatibility?

[ElementX]

I never owned a PS2. I was a PC gamer back when that came out, I did own a PS1 and I have PS3 though.

[Kingthrash360]

Sucks for you... Always emulators tho.

[ElementX]

I was a PC gamer at the time

[specialguest]

I owned a ps1 and skipped on console gaming during the ps2 era. I became a pc gamer. I later went back to console gaming and bought a ps3 during launch month. There are certain ps2 games that are now classic i regret not experiencing back when it was fresh and amazing though.

[GamersRulz]

a TRUE legendary home console, the greatest of all time.

[Darth Stewie]

Long Live The King!

[freezola75]

The Ps2 demise.. erie. Because I had took a break from gaming when the Ps2 first arrived.

I had a friend who was dating this Japanese chick.. she brought him a PS2 before it had came out here in the states.

The first game that I saw was Kessen. My jaw dropped, I had to have one of these!

Loved Nintendo but I felt they were losing me with not that many mature games available. I mean they had some but due to life's quagmires affecting me at the time, my interest in gaming kind of faded til I saw a Ps2 in action.

I come from a long line of gaming folks and working in the game shops so I've seen just about all of the consoles out there at the time.

Finally got a Ps2 in '02 and it literally brought me back to my childhood love!

I haven't looked back or stopped gaming since.. Thanks Ps2, since then, I have never stopped playing, NEVER.

Long Live Play!

P.S. one of my favorite games was Rise To Honor. That was an amazing fighting game! Super Jet Li fan and that game was so fun and a bit ahead of it's time.. peace

[josephayal]

I still have a working fat ps2, That fat ps2 is about 12 or 13 years old now

[ceballos77mx]

Me too I still boot it up on sometimes to play some twisted metal black, had no problems with it only the control's busted.

[taijutsu363]

Lol its funny I just bought a fat PS2 yesterday! Gotta get my FFs, KHs, Okami, Viewtful Joe, etc., on!

[StrawHatPatriot]

Don't forget your MGS's, your GTA's, and your other indie/diverse genre games that we lack nowadays.

[taijutsu363]

True that!

[Tzuno]

Ps3 is a shame compared to Ps2(games).

[Imalwaysright]

^^ This

[wishingW3L]

Even the Xbox 360 and Wii are a shame compared to the PS2 when it comes to games so I don't know what's your point here.

[izumo_lee]

Still a very proud owner of the PS2 slim & it will always find a place near my TV.

The PS2 ushered some of the greatest games in the industry & the way it has lasted this long is a testament to the PS2's design and the way it was accepted in the homes of all kind of gamers.

I salute you PS2 may it finally find the peace it deserves. PS2 you have served us well.
http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[younghavok]

The PS2 was a shoddy peice of hardware, everybody I know who had one had to get an extra one because the laser stopped reading their titles. I doubt over 150 millions people actually owned a new console. With that said however, the software is what defined the PS2, and it had that in spades. That was a generation of exclusives and PS2 had by far the best of that generation. The hardware sucked without a doubt, but a console is defined by its software imo so rest easy PS2 and thanks for the great titles

[ceballos77mx]

The same can be said about this generations consoles (especially the Xbox).

[meganick]

Well, not really the Wii. The failure rate on that is quite low.

[rainslacker]

You must be a lightning rod for bad luck then. The PS2 fail rate was less than 10%, which is within industry standards for tech devices.

[wishingW3L]

the failure rate of the PS2 was pretty high and Sony got sued for DRE in various occasions. The disc drives of all PS2s (phat and slim) are pretty unreliable even in the newest models.

And is not just that, new PS2s have compatibility issues with 90% of every 3rd party peripherals and it has problems reading old games like Star Ocean 3 too. And believe me, I know about this since I play more retro games than current gen games and was forced to stop playing Star Ocean 3 because the games freezes all the time and the same with Dragon Quest 8.

And between the phat and slim the phat PS2 are the better ones but not by much.

[rainslacker]

I can't really speak to the new PS2, I know the original slims had a issue with the fuse controlling the laser bios would blow with even the slightest surge in power from the laser, but it was fixed on the first revision of slims.

However, having repaired many systems, I can say that 99% of the ones I repaired were obviously misused, and more than half of those just needed the lens to be cleaned.. However, the actual fail rate of the system was less than 10%. People always say it was much worse than it was because most people that didn't have problems probably aren't going to comment on it.

As far as Sony getting sued, that particular lawsuit was only applicable to the first 2 models of the system(possibly 3, can't remember when they went to the single system board). It wasn't because of an extraordinarily high fail rate, it was due to an extraordinarily high charge for repairing the devices that were affected.

It's not to say that some of the later models didn't have problems, as they did and I did repair them, but with so many systems out on the market it is normal to have those that fail.

[Tetsujin]

Another anti Sony article from Kotaku, will they ever give up?

OT

I'll wait for an official word from Sony stating that all production ceases to exist in ALL territories before I give the final farewell. It was a dark day when the PS1 was officially retired, and it will be a dark day when the PS2 is also completely retired.

[meganick]

I'm confused. How is this article Anti-Sony??? It's just a paragraph that says Sony is discontinuing production of the PS2 in Japan. Seriously, your comment hurt my brain.

[Treian]

R.I.P. PS2.

[isyourhouseonfire]

Considering the PS3's market share was dwindling as early as 2008.. I'd say yes, its definately time for the PS2 to be officially phased out.

[Smokingunz]

Congratulations sony on the ps2! It was a great system! One of the best.

[ceballos77mx]

Played mine until I switched to Xbox (wich is amazing), then on this one changed from Xbox to PS.

I want news on the next consoles.

[Kratoscar2008]

My PS2 died last year and i was able to get someone to repair it, i will be more careful from now on. Next step restore my PS1.

Long live the PS2!

[XabiDaChosenOne]

*salute

[AngelicIceDiamond]

All great leaders will have to come to an end sometime.