Playstation 2 announced!

Today, September 13, Sony has officially announced the PSX 2 (that's the official name now) and information regarding it.

The specs are as follows:

Product Name: Playstation 2
Suggested Retail Price: 39,800 Yen (Approx $368)
Available : March 4, 2000 (Japan), Fall 2000, US and Europe

Accessories Included: "Dual Shock 2" Analog Controller, High Capacity 8 Meg Memory Card, Demo Disc, AV Multi Cable, AC Power Cord.
Dimensions: 301mm (W) x 178mm (H) x 78 mm(D), (12"x 7" x 3")
Weight: 2.1 Kg (4 lbs. 10 oz.)
Media: Playstation 2 CD-Rom, DVD-Rom, Playstation CD-Rom
Formats Supported: Audio CD, DVD-Video
Interfaces: Controller Port (2), Memory Card Slot (2) AV Multi Cable Output (1) USB Port (2) Optical Digital Port (1) I.Link(IEEE394) (1) Type III PCMCIA Card Slot

Hardware Specs:

CPU 128 Bit "Emotion Engine(TM)"

System Clock Frequency: 294.912 MHz
Main Memory: Direct RDRAM
Memory Size: 32MB

Graphics "Graphics Synthesizer"
Clock Frequency: 147.456Mhz
Embedded Cache VRAM: 4MB

Sound SPU2
Number of Voices: 48 Channels + Software
Sound Memory: 2MB

IOP I/O Processor
CPU Core: Playstation CPU+
Clock Frequency: 33.8688MHz or 36.864MHz (Selectable)
IOP Memory: 2MB

Disc Device CD-Rom/DVD-Rom
Device Speed: CD-ROM 24 X Speed
DVD-Rom 4 X Speed

The PSX 2 will be used as a platform to distribute Internet-Based eletronic distribution of digital content in 2001. You will be able to buy Hard Disks from SOnyto and store this downloaded information and use them as an 'Add-on' to your existing software.

Editor's Thoughts: As expected, the PSX2 will debut a full year after the Dreamcast and is a much stronger unit hardware-wise. However, Sony pushing the DVD drive before its affordability being viable jacks up the price of the Machine to a full $100 over Dreamcast's opening Price, and which now makes it being 2x the price of the DC at least when it debuts in 6 months. Another interesting thing is that since the Dual Shock controller will be part of the package, a new controller design is not happening. Is this a good thing? Also, the speed of the CPU is about 50%faster than the DC's but that is actually a smaller step forward than what was expected, given that they had a whole year to outpace the DC. On the other hand, it does have a huge amount of memory to draw on, so in real life applications, it should be able to beat the DC by a good margin. As for the graphics card, it's very skechy but it is clocked faster than the OEM 3D-Cards that are available for the PC, but the amount of RAM that is alloted to the Graphics card will most likely limit its performance. The sound card looks very promising. and its 2meg RAM hints that it will have a good wavetable in it ;). As for the Net-Based approach, this should come to as no surprise to most people that has been following up on the news, but it is interesting to note that this will not be available until the year after the debut of the PSX2, which hints that the hardware and the software needed for this venture is not ready yet.

Here are some of the most noteworthy titles that will be available for Sony's new system and as you can see, 3 of them are RPGs:

- Star Ocean 3
- Jade Cocoon 2
- Popolocrois 3
- Street Fighter EX3
- Gran Turismo 2000
- Bomberman 2001
- Tekken Tag Tournament

A new Resident Evil, Ninja Gaiden and Gradius games are also said to be in the works.

Here is a picture of what the Playstation 2 looks like.

Date Updated:
September 13th, 1999

Time Updated:
7:47 PM

WooJin Lee