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PSX 2 Online's PlayStation 2 FAQ
Uploaded 11.14.99
Article By Chris
Media Source: PSX.IGN.COM
How much will it cost?
In Japan the PlayStation2 will be around 39,800yen. ($360-$370). A US price has yet to be announced. A safe bet will be $300 even.

What exactly do they mean by backward compatible?
Since the PlayStation 2 (PS2) will be able to play original PlayStation (PSX) games, and use existing PSX peripherals, its is considered to be backwards compatible. The PS2's I/O (input/output) processor which basically is the main processor of the original PSX, allows the PS2 to use this processor to provide backwards compatibility with every PSX game. While the PS2 will have its own custom peripherals, such as controllers, memory cards, etc., it will also allow you to use your current PSX peripherals, even the elusive Pocket Station. To prove this even further, on March the 2nd, 1999, the PSX2 tech demos where being controlled by a standard PSX dual shock controller. And no it WILL NOT enhance existing PSX games.

What does the PSX2 look like?

How many controller ports will the system have?
The PlayStation2 will have 2 controller ports, but you will be able to hook up your exsisting multi-tap, that you have for your PSX, to the PS2.

What is it called?
The official name is the PlayStation2. You may often also hear it referred to as the PSX2, or Ps2.

When is it coming out?
In Japan the PlayStation2 will be released on Saturday, March 4 of the year 2000. A specific US release date has not been released yet. SCEI has went on the record to say that that the PlayStation2 will be released in fall of 2000 for the US.

Okay all of this is good and great but who is making the games?
Official Japan Publishers/Developers

Acclaim Japan Ltd.
Arc Systems Works Co Ltd.
Artdink Corporation
Aruze Corp
Ascii Corp
AskCo Ltd
Asmik Ace Entertainment
Astroll Co Ltd
Athena Co Ltd
Atlus
Bandai Co Ltd
Banpresto Co Ltd
Bullet-Proof Software
Capcom
Chun Soft Co LTD
Compile Corp
Data East Corp
Dazz Co Ltd
Ecseco Development Ltd
Eidos Interactive KK
Electronic Arts-Square KK
Enix
Entertainment Software Publishing
Escot Corp
From Software
Fujikic, Inc
Gaga Communications
Gasto
Genki Co Ltd.
Gust Co Ltd
Hakuhodo Inc.
Hands On Entertainment Inc
Heartbeat Inc.
Hect Co Ltd
Hudson Soft Co Ltd
14 Corp
Idea Factory Co Ltd
Imagineer Co Ltd
Irem Software Engineering
Jaleco Ltd
Jorudan Co Ltd
Kadokawa Shoten Publishing Co Ltd
Kaga Tech Co Ltd
Kodansha Ltd
KOEI Co Ltd.
Konami Co Ltd
Locus Co
M2 To Inc
Magical Company
Mainichi Communications Inc.
Media Factory
Media Works Inc
Mitsui & Co Ltd
Namco Limited
Nihon Syscom Co Ltd
Nippon Inchi Software Inc
Openbook9003 Inc
Pioneer Ldc
Riverhillsoft Inc
Sammy Corporation
Seta Corporation
Shoeisha Co Ltd
Shogakukan Production Co Ltd
SNK Corp
Sony Computer Entertainment Inc
Sony Music Entertainment (Japan)
Spike Co Ltd
Square Co Ltd
Starfish Inc
Success Corporation
Sun Corporation
Sunrise Interactive
T&E Soft Inc
Taito Co Ltd
Tecmo Ltd
Titus Japan KK


Official US Publishers/Developers
3DO
989 Studios
Acclaim
Eidos
Electronic Arts
GT Interactive
Midway
Naughty Dog
Psygnosis
Sony Computer Entertainment America
Take Two/Rockstar
Working Designs

Are there any games?
A-Train 6 (Artdink Corporation)
Flower Sun And Rain (Ascii Corp.)
Panic Surfing (Ascii Corp.)
Billiards Master (Ask Co Ltd.)
Sidewinder Max (Asmik Ace Entertainment)
American Arcade (Astroll Co Ltd.)
Pro Mahjong Kiwame Next (Bandai Co Ltd.)
Onimusha (Capcom Co Ltd.)
Street Fighter EX 3 (Capcom Co Ltd.)
Powerstone 2 (Capcom Co Ltd.)
The Next Resident Evil (Capcom Co Ltd.)
Lakemasters EX (Dazz Co Ltd.)
Battle Of The Ghat (Ecseco Development Ltd.)
The Next Tomb Raider (Eidos Interactive KK)
X-Fire (Electronic Arts-Square KK)
BBD 2000 (Enix Corp)
Bust A Move 3 (Enix Corp)
Exotica (Enix Corp)
Fighting QTs (Enix Corp)
Sonnette (Enix Corp)
Star Ocen 3 (Enix Corp)
Armored Core 2 (From Software)
Eternal Ring (From Software)
Bakuyru 2 (Fujikic, Inc.)
Jade Cocoon 2 Story Of The Tamamayu (Genki Co Ltd.)
Fly High (Gust Co Ltd.)
Boody Roar 3 (Hudson Soft Co Ltd.)
Bomberman 2001 (Hudson Soft Co Ltd.)
AI Igo 2001 (I4 Corp)
AI Mahjong 2001 (I4 Corp)
AI Shogi 2001 (I4 Corp
Sky Surfing (Idea Factory Co Ltd.)
Wild Wild Racing (Imagineer Co Ltd.)
1 On 1 Government (Jorudan Co Ltd.)
Tetsuman Menkokaiden (Kaga Tech Co Ltd.)
Kessen (KOEI Co Ltd.)
Mahjong Taikai III (KOEI Co Ltd.)
Shin-Sangokumusou (KOEI Co Ltd.)
Soldnerschild (KOEI Co. Ltd.)
Drum Mania (Konami Co Ltd.)
Gradius III and IV (Konami Co Ltd.)
Jikkyou Pawafuru Puro Yakyo 7 (Konami Co Ltd.)
Jikkyou World Soccer 2000 (Konami Co Ltd.)
Mahjong Yaroze (Konami Co Ltd.)
Reiselied (Konami Co Ltd.)
The Next Metal Gear (Konami Co Ltd.)
FX Pilot (Locus Co)
Tuning Car Race Game (M2 TO Inc.)
Magical Sports Catch Bass Club (Magical Company)
Magical Sports Koshien2000 (Magical Company)
Magical Sports Pro Golder (Magical Company)
Todai Shogi Shinkenbisha Dojyo (Mainichi Communications Inc.)
500 GP (Namco Limited)
New Ridge Racer (Namco Limited)
Tekken Tag Tournament (Namco Limited)
World Neverland 3 (Riverhillsoft Inc)
ide Yohsuke No Majan Kazoku 2 (Seta Corporation)
Perfect Golf (Seta Corporation)
Boku To Maoh (The King and I) (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)
Dark Cloud (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)
Den-Sen, Fantavision (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)
GT (Gran Turismo) 2000 (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)
IQ Remix (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)
Popolocrois III (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)
Splash Dive (Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.)
L'Arc-en-Ciel (TBC) (Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc.)
Tenchu 2(Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc.)
WRC (Spike Co Ltd.)
The Bouncer (Square Co Ltd.)
Shanghai 5 (Sun Corporation)
Street Mahjong Trance Majin 2 (Sun Corporation)
Panzer Century G Breaker (Sunrise Interactive)
3D Golf (T&E Soft Inc.)
Go By Train! (Taito Corporation)
Choro Q HG (Takara Co Ltd.)
Ninja Gaiden (Tecmo Ltd.)
Unison (Tecmo Ltd.)
Roadsters Trophy 2000 (Titus Japan KK)
Robocop (Titus Japan KK)

Exactly what are the Official Specifications of this system?

CPU:
  • 128 Bit "Emotion Engine"
  • System Clock Frequency: 300 MHz
  • Cache Memory Instruction: 16KB, Data: 8KB + 16KB (ScrP)
  • Main Memory Direct
  • Rambus (Direct RDRAM) Memory Size: 32MB
  • Memory Bus Bandwidth: 3.2GB per Second
  • Co-Processor FPU (Floating Point Unit)
  • Floating Point Multiply Accumulator x 1,
  • Floating Point Divider x 1
  • Vector Units VU0 and VU1
  • Floating Point Multiply Accumulator x 9,
  • Floating Point Divider x 3
  • Floating Point Performance: 6.2 GFLOPS
  • 3D CG Geometric Transformation:
  • 66 Million Polygons per Second
  • Compressed Image Decoder
  • MPEG2
Graphics:
  • "Graphics Synthesizer"
  • Clock Frequency: 150MHz
  • DRAM Bus bandwidth:
  • 48GB per Second
  • DRAM Bus width: 2560bits
  • Pixel Configuration: RGB:Alpha:Z Buffer (24:8:32)
  • Maximum Polygon Rate: 75 Million Polygons per Second
Sound:
  • "SPU2+CPU"
  • Number of Voices ADPCM: 48 channels on SPU2, plus definable, software programmable voices programmable voices
  • Sampling Frequency: 44.1 KHz or 48 KHz (Selectable
IOP:
  • I/O Processor
  • CPU: Core PlayStation (current) CPU
  • Clock Frequency: 33.9MHz or 37.5MHz (Selectable)
  • Sub Bus: 32 Bit
  • Interface Types: IEEE1394, Universal Serial Bus (USB), communication via PC-Card (PCMCIA)
Disc Device:
  • CD-ROM and DVD-ROM
Okay all those numbers sound nice, but how many will there actually be and how much will I be able to see, on-screen?
The official number of polys that the PS2 is said to be able to produce is 75 million. NOTE* This number doesn't take into effect that the texture maps, filtering, and lighting have yet to e done. Will all the special shiny effects in place expect that 75 million to drop to, 10-20 million, which is still a lot more than the DC's 1-2 million. Once we have to take into consideration physics, artificial intelligence, audio, and other processor-intensive effects, which will probably take the poly count down to around 10-12 million polygons per second, and believe me that's nothing to be sad about.

What kind of special visual effects will the PS2 be capable of?
The PS2 will feature all of the usual special effects such as, mip-mapping, bi-linear filtering, anti-aliasing, texture-correction, and Z-buffering. Its also believed that the system will be able to handle Bezier surfacing, which is a technique that decides how many polygons are needed to make an object have smoother surfacing. This technique also assists in allowing the object to use as many or as few polygons as the system can handle at that precise moment. Game developers will be able to easily insert Bezier-surfaced CG models into the PS2 code and have the system render the object in real-time.

 

How does the PS2 fare against the DC, N64 and the original PSX?
Polygon Power
  • PlayStation 2: Around 20 million polygons per second.
  • Dreamcast: Around 3 million polygons per second.
  • Nintendo 64: Around 150,000 polygons per second.
  • PlayStation: Around 360,000 polygons per second (lacks comparable effects)
Main Clock Speed
  • PlayStation 2: 300MHz
  • Dreamcast: 200MHz
  • Nintendo 64: 93.75MHz
  • PlayStation: 33.86MHz
Memory
  • PlayStation 2: 32MB Direct Rambus RAM
  • Dreamcast: 16MB (plus 8MB Video RAM, 2MB Sound RAM)
  • Nintendo 64: 4MB (+parity) Rambus D-Ram (expandable to 8MB)
  • PlayStation: 2MB (plus 1MB Video RAM, 512kb Sound RAM)
Memory Bus Bandwidth
  • PlayStation 2: 3.2 GB/s (Gigabytes per second)
  • Dreamcast: N/A
  • Nintendo 64: 500 MB/s (Megabytes per second) or about 0.5 GB/s.
  • PlayStation: 132 MB/s (Megabytes per second)
Will it use CDs or DVDs?
The PlayStation 2 will come with a DVD drive. This drive is capable of reading CD-formatted discs, as well as DVD-formatted discs. Sony also made a special laser that capable of reading both DVD, and CD. PS2 games most certainly come on DVD discs. Sony has said that all games will be played of off regular CD's until a game calls for the need of a DVD disc. Also a spokesman for Sony said that the PSX 2 will play DVD movies and music.

Will it have a modem?
No the PlayStation2 will not ship with a modem. In 2002, Sony in conjunction with Sun Microsystems, will have finished a broadband network, where you will be able to play online, download anything from games, music to movies!

So what if it can use the old peripherals, the question is will it be of any use?
Yes, the old PSX peripherals will have a use. The PS2 has complete backwards compatibility. Now the real question is will you be able to use your existing PSX peripherals with the next-generation games!!! As an educated guess I'd say no you wouldn't be able to use those old peripherals because of the soul fact the new PS2 will be using more advanced technology. For example, the PS2 might be using the memory stick. The memory stick holds 1200 more times info than the current memory card. Since the games of the future will use this technology, you can't expect them to work the same way or even at all with dated technology. The same can go with controllers. Now on the vice versa side of things SOME PS2 peripherals might be compatible with the PSX. I believe as long as you play PSX games on the PS2 you will be able to use PS2 controllers and memory sticks. But the catch is you won't be able to use your stick or controller in your current PSX system.

Is it more than a console?
Yes PS2 is more than a gaming system. As a matter of fact it could be defined as a DVD player, a music player, or maybe even a future PC. The PS2 has the ability to mold and change its colors into a diversity of things. Only time which will it also become. So far it's a game machine, DVD, and CD player.

How long has it been in development?
The PS2 has been in development since the moment after the PSX was launched!!

Will Sony enhance the current specs of the system?
They most likely will improve or add things to the system in many ways before the launch. Most likely yes, I think they want to keep us on our toes, and not allow us to become bored with the system before it comes out!

The PSX has had almost every kind of game possible! How can they get any better?
Well 1st of all beside the spectacular graphics that it will be capable of! Expect better physics and AI. Games like RE probably won't need any loading times when you go into another room. Clipping, draw-in, and slowdown will be nonexistent or miniscule.

Is it REALLY 128BIT?
YES, the PS2, and the Dolphin are really 128bit, unlike the Sega DreamCast, which is really 64bit.

What do developers think of the PSX2?
"All sentences under this, that are in quotes, are direct quotes from the developers themselves"

Some developers are optimistic - "It'll be a pain in the ass for PC people," another engineer told NGO, "but those of us with lots of PlayStation experience will be fine. It's got its challenges, but every system does."

Some developers expected the PSX2 to be - "God in a box."

Will it use the memory stick or not?
Yes, The PS2 will ship with a new 8MB memory stick. Tthere has also been rumors that Sony's zip drive may also be a candidate and a hard drive.

Will it be hard to develop for?
The PSX2 won't be easy to develop for. Its sports multiple processors which was one of the many reasons the Saturn failed. The PSX2 will be a struggle for PC porters, but for those who have PSX dev. Experience should be at home. There are a lot of middle ware tools for the PSX2

 

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