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> The PlayStation 2’s library is easily among the best of any console ever released, and even if you were to narrow down the list of games to the very best, you

> The PlayStation 2’s library is easily among the best of any console ever released, and even if you were to narrow down the list of games to the very best, you’d be left with dozens (more like hundreds) of incredible titles. But the PS2 hardware is getting a bit long in the tooth Besides the library, the PS2 is the most successful video game console of all time in terms of number of units shipped, and it stayed on the market for over ten years, featured a DVD drive, and at one point was positioned by Sony not just as an entertainment appliance but as a personal computer, including their own official PS2 Linux distribution. In a more perfect world, this would have: (a) happened with a hypothetical hardware platform released after the PS2 but before the PS3, with specs lying in between the two: a smidge better than the former, but not quite as exotic as the latter (with its Cell CPU or the weird form factor; whereas the PS2's physical profile in comparison was perfect, whether in the original form or the Slim version), which could have: (b) resulted in a sort of standardization in the industry like what happened to the IBM PC and its market of clones, with other vendors continuing to manufacture semi-compatible units even if/when Sony discontinued it themselves, periodically revving the platform (doubling the amount of memory here, providing a way to tap into higher clock speeds there) all while maintaining backwards compatibility such that you would be able to go out today and buy a brand new, $30 bargain-bin, commodity "PS2 clone" that can do basic computing tasks on it (in other words, not including the ability to run a modern Web browser or Electron apps), can play physical media, and supports all the original games and any other new games that explicitly target(ed) the same platform, or you could pay Steam Machine 2026 prices for the latest-gen "PS2" that retains native support for the original titles of the very first platform revision but unlocks also the ability to play those for every intermediate rev, too.

delaminator 9mo ago
> and at one point was positioned by Sony not just as an entertainment appliance but as a personal computer with their own official PS2 Linux distribution. to avoid EU import taxes
- deleted 9mo ago
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- deleted 9mo ago
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joshu 9mo ago
it was a dreadful, useless computer, even then
- nick238 9mo ago
  Unlike the PS3 which the US Air Force bought 1,760 and clustered into the 33rd most powerful** at the time. (**Distributed computing is very cheat-y compared to a "real" supercomputer which has insane RDMA capabilities)
  - mywittyname 9mo ago
    We had clusters of them in university too. If all you needed to do was vector math, a dedicated vector processor with eight cores that are capable of running as fast as the extremely wide bus could feed them with data is the way to do it. You couldn't buy anything close to it's capabilities (for that specific task) for the money. I remember the course we used them in being hard as hell, and the professor didn't really have any projects prepared that would really push the system.
  - ktm5j 9mo ago
    From what I understand (may be wrong) this is exactly the reason that they stopped allowing Linux installs on PS3s. People were buying them just for this purpose. However, the consoles were sold at a discount because Sony expected users to buy games, controllers, etc. If someone bought a PS3 alone, without anything else then Sony lost money.
    - ChoGGi 9mo ago
      It coincidentally happened around the time this came out. https://web.archive.org/web/20110106074158/http://psx-scene.com/forums/f6/geohot-here-your-ps3-root-key-now-hello-world-proof-74255/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110106074158/http://psx-scene.... Then they sued him. There's a bunch of archived links on his Wikipedia page.
- pwdisswordfishs 9mo ago
  "it was a dreadful, useless computer, even then" So you don't dispute the thesis that the hypothetical general-purpose machine described in the comment would have needed to have been been better than the PS2?
anonymous908213 9mo ago
> (a) happened with a hypothetical hardware platform released after the PS2 but before the PS3, with specs lying in between the two I would argue strongly that the weak hardware is why the PS2, and other old consoles, were so good, and that by improving the hardware you cannot replicate what they accomplished (which is why, indeed, newer consoles have never managed to be as iconic as older consoles). You can make an equally strong case that the Super Famicom is the best console of all time, with dozens of 10/10 games that stand the test of time. I think the limitations of the hardware played a pivotal role in both, as they demanded good stylistic decisions to create aesthetically appealing games with limited resources, and demanded a significant level of work into curating and optimizing the game design, because every aspect of the game consumed limited resources and therefore bad ideas had to be culled, leaving a well-polished remainder of the best ideas in a sort of Darwinian sense. > (b) resulted in a sort of standardization in the industry like what happened to the IBM PC and its market of clones, with other vendors continuing to manufacture semi-compatible units Unlike the PC market, the comprehensive list of "other vendors" is two entries long. Is it a more perfect world if Nintendo manufactures knockoff Playstations instead of its variety of unique consoles? I don't think so.
- JoeyJoJoJr 9mo ago
  This might be a nitpick, but I could probably only count 5-10 SNES games that would be considered 10/10 IMO, and not many that I think are worth sinking decent time into these days, compared to something like Burnout Revenge - a great game but certainly not a 10/10 game. Still, I do find the SNES library, and 16bit games in general, quite astounding from a creative and artistic perspective, but not so much from a player’s perspective.
  - anonymous908213 9mo ago
    A Link to the Past, Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island, Kirby Super Star, Donkey Kong Country 1-3, Super Metroid, Megaman X series, Dragon Quest series, Final Fantasy series, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound... just off the top of my head, are all very much worth playing today.
pjmlp 9mo ago
As owner of PS2 Linux distribution and related hardware, it was sort of ok. Sony intended it to be the evolution of Playstation Yaroze, fostering indie development, instead people used it mostly to run emulators on the PS2, hence why the PS3 version lost access to accelerated hardware for graphics. PS2 Linux had hardware acceleration, the only difference was that the OpenGL inspired API did not expose all the capabilities of a regular DevKit. Community proved that the development effort wasn't worth it. The XBox arcade and ID@XBox programs have also taken these lessons into account, which is why you only see everyone running emulators on rooted XBoxes, not the developer mode ones. The market of IBM PC clones only happened because of an IBM mistake, that was never supposed to happen, and IBM tried with the PS2 / MCA to take their control back, but the Pandora box was already open, and Compaq was clever with the way they did reverse engineer the BIOS.
BrtByte 9mo ago
Ironically, what you're describing is kind of happening now, just in software
Izkata 9mo ago
> featured a DVD drive Wasn't it also among the cheapest DVD players on the market back then?
- larrik 9mo ago
  Yes, it was like the same price (close enough) as a regular Sony DVD player, which was nuts. There were cheaper off-brand DVD players, of course. You did have to buy a remote separately, though, unless you wanted to use the game controller (which had a cord).
  - prmoustache 9mo ago
    Back then, unless you were using a projector, the screens weren't that big so we seated clother to the screens. Besides there isn't that much operation you need to do with a DVD. Appart from volume control (which was set on the TV/speaker system command), you would just need a pause when you wanted to go for a pee so no big deal to only have the corded controller.

delaminator 9mo ago

> and at one point was positioned by Sony not just as an entertainment appliance but as a personal computer with their own official PS2 Linux distribution. to avoid EU import taxes

deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]

joshu 9mo ago

it was a dreadful, useless computer, even then

nick238 9mo ago
Unlike the PS3 which the US Air Force bought 1,760 and clustered into the 33rd most powerful** at the time. (**Distributed computing is very cheat-y compared to a "real" supercomputer which has insane RDMA capabilities)
- mywittyname 9mo ago
  We had clusters of them in university too. If all you needed to do was vector math, a dedicated vector processor with eight cores that are capable of running as fast as the extremely wide bus could feed them with data is the way to do it. You couldn't buy anything close to it's capabilities (for that specific task) for the money. I remember the course we used them in being hard as hell, and the professor didn't really have any projects prepared that would really push the system.
- ktm5j 9mo ago
  From what I understand (may be wrong) this is exactly the reason that they stopped allowing Linux installs on PS3s. People were buying them just for this purpose. However, the consoles were sold at a discount because Sony expected users to buy games, controllers, etc. If someone bought a PS3 alone, without anything else then Sony lost money.
  - ChoGGi 9mo ago
    It coincidentally happened around the time this came out. https://web.archive.org/web/20110106074158/http://psx-scene.com/forums/f6/geohot-here-your-ps3-root-key-now-hello-world-proof-74255/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110106074158/http://psx-scene.... Then they sued him. There's a bunch of archived links on his Wikipedia page.
pwdisswordfishs 9mo ago
"it was a dreadful, useless computer, even then" So you don't dispute the thesis that the hypothetical general-purpose machine described in the comment would have needed to have been been better than the PS2?

anonymous908213 9mo ago

> (a) happened with a hypothetical hardware platform released after the PS2 but before the PS3, with specs lying in between the two I would argue strongly that the weak hardware is why the PS2, and other old consoles, were so good, and that by improving the hardware you cannot replicate what they accomplished (which is why, indeed, newer consoles have never managed to be as iconic as older consoles). You can make an equally strong case that the Super Famicom is the best console of all time, with dozens of 10/10 games that stand the test of time. I think the limitations of the hardware played a pivotal role in both, as they demanded good stylistic decisions to create aesthetically appealing games with limited resources, and demanded a significant level of work into curating and optimizing the game design, because every aspect of the game consumed limited resources and therefore bad ideas had to be culled, leaving a well-polished remainder of the best ideas in a sort of Darwinian sense. > (b) resulted in a sort of standardization in the industry like what happened to the IBM PC and its market of clones, with other vendors continuing to manufacture semi-compatible units Unlike the PC market, the comprehensive list of "other vendors" is two entries long. Is it a more perfect world if Nintendo manufactures knockoff Playstations instead of its variety of unique consoles? I don't think so.

JoeyJoJoJr 9mo ago
This might be a nitpick, but I could probably only count 5-10 SNES games that would be considered 10/10 IMO, and not many that I think are worth sinking decent time into these days, compared to something like Burnout Revenge - a great game but certainly not a 10/10 game. Still, I do find the SNES library, and 16bit games in general, quite astounding from a creative and artistic perspective, but not so much from a player’s perspective.
- anonymous908213 9mo ago
  A Link to the Past, Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island, Kirby Super Star, Donkey Kong Country 1-3, Super Metroid, Megaman X series, Dragon Quest series, Final Fantasy series, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound... just off the top of my head, are all very much worth playing today.

pjmlp 9mo ago

As owner of PS2 Linux distribution and related hardware, it was sort of ok. Sony intended it to be the evolution of Playstation Yaroze, fostering indie development, instead people used it mostly to run emulators on the PS2, hence why the PS3 version lost access to accelerated hardware for graphics. PS2 Linux had hardware acceleration, the only difference was that the OpenGL inspired API did not expose all the capabilities of a regular DevKit. Community proved that the development effort wasn't worth it. The XBox arcade and ID@XBox programs have also taken these lessons into account, which is why you only see everyone running emulators on rooted XBoxes, not the developer mode ones. The market of IBM PC clones only happened because of an IBM mistake, that was never supposed to happen, and IBM tried with the PS2 / MCA to take their control back, but the Pandora box was already open, and Compaq was clever with the way they did reverse engineer the BIOS.

BrtByte 9mo ago

Ironically, what you're describing is kind of happening now, just in software

Izkata 9mo ago

> featured a DVD drive Wasn't it also among the cheapest DVD players on the market back then?

larrik 9mo ago
Yes, it was like the same price (close enough) as a regular Sony DVD player, which was nuts. There were cheaper off-brand DVD players, of course. You did have to buy a remote separately, though, unless you wanted to use the game controller (which had a cord).
- prmoustache 9mo ago
  Back then, unless you were using a projector, the screens weren't that big so we seated clother to the screens. Besides there isn't that much operation you need to do with a DVD. Appart from volume control (which was set on the TV/speaker system command), you would just need a pause when you wanted to go for a pee so no big deal to only have the corded controller.