25 Years Ago Today: A PlayStation Shopping Frenzy - But Would Microsoft's Xbox Make It Obsolete?

25 years ago today on Slashdot...

Hemos linked to a site called Joystick101 describing the crowd camping out to buy the limited number of just-released PlayStation 2 consoles (and games). "500,000 lucky members of the American gaming public are sneaking a few minutes of playing Madden 2001, Tekken, or Ridge Racer V before school or work..." wrote Joystick101. That same day CmdrTaco posted reports PS2s were selling for over $1,000 on eBay. And then Timothy updated that post to note someone saw one selling for $5,000.

But there was a third PS2 link posted on October 26, 2000... Hemos wrote a post titled "The PS2 — A Betamax In the Making?" — linking to an article by Mark Pesce (co-inventor of VRML and, in 1993, an Apple consulting engineer). "Microsoft promises Xbox will deliver ten times the performance of the PS2," Pesce wrote, noting Microsoft had partnered with Intel and "upstart video-chip developer Nvidia": The strangest thing about this battle of giants is that Microsoft has become a champion of open standards, encouraging developers to write Xbox titles without requiring them to pay any licensing fees. In comparison, Sony charges a minimum of $25,000 for access to the documentation and technology of the PlayStation2, plus a hefty license fee on every game sold. In the video-game industry, the Big Three — Sony, Nintendo, and Sega — sell the hardware at a loss (the PS2 costs nearly the $300 it will retail for) and recover their investment in the stiff licensing fees paid by game developers for the "key" that allows their software to work on Sony's platform...

Having committed an astounding $500 million to market the Xbox next Christmas, it's clear that Microsoft doesn't mind taking a short-term loss to ensure an eventual win. If Sony's not careful, this could turn into "Betamax, the Sequel." Twenty years ago, Sony tightly controlled the titles made available for its technically superior videocassette player — specifically, no adult content — and found themselves quickly locked out of an incredibly lucrative market for adult and family content. If Sony keeps a tight grip on the PS2, they may actually help Microsoft create the new VHS. But even if Sony loses this round (and no one wants to wager which way this battle will turn), they've already set their sights on the PlayStation3, to be released five years from now. Sony promises it will be a thousand times faster than the PS2.
Ironically, Pesce's warning about possible threats to the PS2's longevity was published by online magazine Feed-- which seven months later went out of business.

And this week it was announced that even Microsoft's Halo Campaign Evolved will now be coming to PlayStation 5, with Slashdot publishing six PlayStation-related stories in just the last three months in 2025.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader crunchy_one for suggesting a "25 Years Ago" Slashdot post.

Thank You

[crunchy_one]

I very much appreciate the ACK.

VRML

[dwater]

I remember Floops :)

Then M$ did the dirty on Nvidia

[evanh]

Nvidia got pissy, leaving AMD to make the terms. Which was probably beneficial for both. M$ needed brought to heel, especially back then.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

Microsoft got shafted by Nvidia. The high failure rate of the Xbox 360 was mostly Nvidia's fault.

The PS2 was the best selling console for a long time. The Xbox didn't gain much traction in Japan, so as well as missing out on that market, if you like Japanese games it's not a great platform.

Re:

[evanh]

You might be thinking of the Xbox360. Nvidia wasn't playing with M$ by then.

The Nvidia complaint was simple enough, M$ had forced Nvidia to lose money on their GPU supply.

Re:

[Waccoon]

Ever see the inside of a 360? It's an insanely stupid design. The DVD drive is laying directly on top of GPU heatsink with virtually no room for airflow. My guess is, somehow, they stress-tested the prototype without a disc spinning in the DVD drive, so they didn't account for the extra heat output by the drive. Later models of the 360 had extra heat pipes for the GPU, but used the same full-sized DVD drive, case design, and fan tunnel. Absurd.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

It was a flaw that affected a lot of laptops as well, including pretty much every HP manufactured for a few years. The GPU got so hot that the repeated heating and cooling cycles eventually caused the motherboard and/or chip to flex, and the BGA interface to fail. A temporary fix was to apply some pressure to the chip when it was cold, or more permanently you could reball it.

Re:

[Ryanrule]

I made money fixing 360s. just had to take it apart and bake the mobo for a bit.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

Yeah, we used to do something similar with failed laptops. Stopped doing it after a while because the fix often only lasted a few months. Told people to claim on their consumer rights due to a design defect. The local PC World got quite upset with us.

Console Envy.

[Smonster]

I paid a deposit six months before the PS2 released at a Software Etc. downtown. The day it came out there was a huge line for a mall store. Maybe 150 people camped out before opening. At opening, they asked anyone who had paid a deposit to come to the front of the line. They then called out a name and asked for ID. They let them in the store. I was next. After I got mine, they told me that was all they had and they were going to make the announcement they were sold out in five minutes to give me time to get out of there. Turns out they were the only two consoles the entire state for the next several months. I felt like a rockstar. Thought about selling it, but the envy from my friends was worth every penny I didn’t make. Plus you know, it was freaking awesome system at the time. You could even dual boot with Linux.

Re:

[doesnothingwell]

You could even dual boot with Linux.

I had one for my kids and this was a selling point. I don't buy sony anymore.

I had a PS2

[registrations_suck]

I don't really remember, but I'm sure I got it after the initial frenzy.

I was never a gamer. Then I was visiting my brother and he showed me GTA3 running on a PS2 and I thought it was the funniest shit I had ever seen. I never saw a video game like that before!

When I got home, I got a PS2 and Vice City. It was the only game I had for a very long time, but it was enough.

San Andreas killed it for me though. I just couldn't get into it. I'm probably just a racist.

Eventually I got one of the Bauldur's Gate gam

Re:

[alvinrod]

As much as I fondly remember the PS2, it's the original PlayStation that I have the most nostalgia for. The move to disc-based storage and the massive increase in capacity that developers had access to lead to some incredible games, especially in the JRPG space.

The PS2 was a good console, but GTA was a big part of that. There were certainly plenty of other good titles, but the GTA trilogy were the killer app. A lot of people bought a PS2 to play that series. If you wanted to play them again, you can pick

Re:

[registrations_suck]

I have a nine year old now. I'd like to play the Baulder's Gate game with him, on our 98" TV, with minimal investment.

Don't really want to buy a windows box just for that purpose. Even if I got one for free, overall, I think it would be more trouble than it's worth.

I really wish you could get Gauntlet II for something like AppleTV. Just upgrade the graphics to HDMI resolution, find a way to get two players at once on there and don't touch anything else. That would be awesome.

Re:

[newcastlejon]

Nostalgia is a hell of a thing. Not so long ago I fancied playing the original Medievil again, so I download a disc image, fire up an emulator then realise that I'd forgotten the draw distance on PS1 games was about six feet. I still played it, but it wasn't quite the experience I remember.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

San Andreas killed it for me though. I just couldn't get into it. I'm probably just a racist.

You should play GTA V to find out. It does have a black guy in it, but it also has two white guys including a meth head.

I had one in London

[mhocker]

When GTA 3 came out, I was living in a nice area of London and I had a friend visit from North America. He had plans to see all the sights and do all the things but in the end we sat in my basement and played GTA for a week straight. No regrets on either of our parts.

PS2 was the last old school console

[drinkypoo]

You might say it was PS3, because Cell, but most early titles mostly ran on the PPE and used the SPEs only for graphics, which is a lot like today's systems. The PS2's architecture was super interesting, being made out of multiple weird MIPS cores glued together with an ordinary one, and in weird ways. That generation is also obviously notable for being where the writing went up on the wall for highly custom consoles, with the PC-based Xbox. Even though Microsoft themselves built a fairly interesting consol

Dreamcast rulz, PS2 droolz

[Stormwatch]

Dreamcast was the best system of that generation and deserved a lot more success, I will die on this hill.

the hype, the hype!

[cdmn1]

to this day I still cannot grasp the ridiculous amount of hype around the PS2 before launch, you had to be there to experience it, it's like the PS2 could cure both cancer and AIDS, it crushed the competition while the only available game at launch (in my area) was Fantavision a sort of fireworks simulator. It took a while but it actually became a solid system a few years later.