The PlayStation 2 (プレイステーション2, Pureisutēshon Tsū, officially abbreviated PS2) is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan. Its primary competitors were Sega's Dreamcast, Microsoft's Xbox, and Nintendo's GameCube.
The PS2 is the best-selling console of all time, having reached over 150 million units sold as of January 31, 2011. This milestone was reached 10 years and 11 months after the system was released in Japan on March 4, 2000. Further, Sony said it had 10,828 titles available for the system and that 1.52 billion PS2 titles had been sold since launch. In late 2009, with developers creating new games and the console still selling steadily a decade after its original release, Sony stated that the life cycle of the PlayStation 2 will continue until demand ceases. The console was succeeded by the PlayStation 3 in 2006.
Directly after its release, it was difficult to find PS2 units on retailer shelves due to manufacturing delays. Another option was purchasing the console online through auction websites such as eBay, where people paid
