Thoughts: Sony stops production of PlayStation 2

(Selling 150 million units, the PS2's dominance is unchallenged and writ in the pages of history forever. Sony, in this way, has been immortalized.)

The best-selling console of all time and the console that really defined my mid-gamer generation, is about to meet the great bin of heaven. Sony is officially, after 13 years, calling it quits with their PS2 console and is stopping production. People have rumored that the PS4 is coming out next fall and if so this may be a way to free up resources so that Sony can ramp up production and be prepared for the imminent launch next fall.

This may not be huge for retro gamers but for the children of the late 80's, like myself, we grew up on the NES, SNES, Sega, and Playstation. This is our bread and butter. To finally see it put to rest is a bittersweet moment showing that our consoles have grown up just as we have.

The PS2 also did something the PS3 wasn't able to, which is completely dominate the gaming market and create such a powerful successor that people rarely talk about the PS1 nowadays. It was such a strong step up graphically and had so many titles that to not buy one was selling yourself short as a gamer.

Sony even released a popular slim model which is currently available on Amazon for $135 dollars. That's an amazing price point to enjoy 11,000 plus titles of some of the greatest gaming moments in history. I'll definitely treasure my PS2 slim a bit more knowing that they've finally stopped production and maybe go back and play some of my favorite games from those days.

 Final Thoughts

As a final point, the loss of the PS2 shows us the important of backwards compatibility. When we pay for a game, we want to be able to play it for the next 20-30 years, and maybe longer. Consoles will not last that long, at least not with the hardware we have now, and so the only way to keep their legacy alive is to do what Nintendo is so good at; amazing backwards compatibility.

Sure there are Roms and Emulators that can bring back those memories, but what about those of us that kept the discs of our favorite games and maybe, just maybe, want to see them with GREAT graphics and Amazing new hardware on our new televisions, in the living room, on our PS3 or PS4? What about us?

This news, besides giving us nostalgia, should be a united call from all gamers to console developers that we want our games to stay with us for at least 2 decades. Humans live on average for 8 decades, and they get nostalgic for games around 6 decades. If you could shave down those 6 decades where we are older and nostalgic, to 4 decades, maybe we could move on easier or appease ourselves with roms and emulators.

At the end of the day, we love our games. That's what makes us gamers; a love, and a passion for Gaming. Nothing more. Nothing less.