The 2002–2005 PlayStation 2 era was peak for me. As I didn’t own one, my exposures were reserved to flicking through glossy game magazines, visiting my friend’s house to play on his, and my sister’s then-boyfriend owning one and sneaking a few minutes on GTA: Vice City. Living off the scraps of other people’s PS2 experiences was my style at the time.
I did own a PlayStation during this period and enjoyed every minute of it but the PS2 was the epitome of an upgrade. For me, Sony set the benchmark higher than Nintendo did between the Super Nintendo and the Nintendo 64 because it felt like a cultural improvement that aligned with the age of its users. The PS2’s monolithic design, a sleek black tower of futuristic sophistication, spoke to me and heralded a new epoch of gaming. Is that hyperbole? Absolutely, and I stand by it. That’s how gaming felt back then. It’s influence eclipsed that of Microsoft’s new Xbox and Nintendo’s GameCube (RIP Dreamcast, sorry you couldn’t join the party by this time) and the game catalogue was ridiculously large.
I think the fact that I could describe my experiences of the console when I didn’t own one at the time1 demonstrates how powerful Sony was at the time. By the end of the period in question, the PlayStation was only 10 years old compared to Nintendo’s NES at the ripe old age of 22 and Sega’s Dreamcast being discontinued for 4 years. And to think there were still games being released for the PS2 until 2013 with Pro Evolution Soccer 2014. You’ve gotta have something about you to withstand so many changes in an industry, including those coming from within your own house, and I respect that.
Sadly, video game stalwarts like that are withering under the constant pressure of money, greed, and ineptitude. In terms of home consoles, I’ve not felt as strongly about anything as much as the PS2, even from a distance. The Nintendo Switch came close (I actually ran a successful crowdfunding music series for one) and I’ve spent way more time with it thanks to Pokémon but the vibes weren’t the same. It was just a hybrid handheld/home console to me where the PS2 represented something more in my head. Perhaps nostalgia played a part or I romanticised most of it through rose-tinted glasses but I don’t see myself looking back wistfully at many of the post-Iwata Nintendo consoles. Sony, on the other hand, did something special with the PS2 and I’ll always remember that.
- I finally got a PS2 in 2010; a preowned silver model for £20 which was a bargain then and remains so today given the ever-increasing market ↩︎