PS2 Hard Drive (Sony Playstation 2)

Member Name: Martial

Product:	Sony Playstation 2
Date:	02/01/02 (9367 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Downloads, Improves certain games performance, massive capacity

Disadvantages: cant save games onto it, Cost

The arrival of the European PS2 Hard Drive is still some way off, as it was only released in Japan midway through last year, and currently retails at around ¥18,000 for the internal version, and ¥19,000 for the external. The American release is thought to be early 2002 and if all goes smoothly we should be seeing it on our shelves sometime next autumn.

Although the price has not yet been announced for the English version, it will probably be around £120, an expensive upgrade for anyone and it is likely that only the serious gamers will be interested

The hard drive is sure to sell well with Final Fantasy fans however, as you can pre-load parts of the game onto your hard drive to improve running speeds, making the game more enjoyable to play. However this does takes some time, to build up the extensive cache will take your PS2 roughly 12 minutes and the effects in the game will be minimal with only a few seconds difference at most whilst loading cut-scenes. (There are several other games that already support this feature including: Capcom Vs SNK: Millionaire Fighting 2001, Atelier Lilie and A-Train 2001). Unfortunately the game itself cannot be saved onto the Hard Drive and you must still rely on your trusty 8Mb memory card to keep track of your progress.

Another major release for the PS2 is the modem, supporting both the standard 56k connection and a broadband service, it is unclear whether the British version will make use of Cable or ADSL as BT (ADSL) is having trouble getting the system to work. The modem retails in America at approximately $40 and comes bundled with Netscape browser and several other programs for instant messaging and streaming audio/video.

Currently the Playstation 2 is bought mainly buy gamers, but with the ability to play DVD movies and soon to surf the web with a large Hard Drive available for downloads, Sony hopes to broaden it’s market, making the Playstation 2 a useful accessory in every household.

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