Sony to release PS2 hard drive in March for $99

Yeah.

Quote:

The long-awaited $99 drive will come preloaded with the Square Enix Co. Ltd. online role-playing game "Final Fantasy XI," allowing users to play against both other PS2 owners and PC-based competitors.

Sony said it plans to load the 40-gigabyte hard drive with other games and game demos as well, although it did not announce those titles.

Rather than just use the hard drive for games, though, Sony said the drive would also include a media player that will let users play MP3s and view photos.

Awesomely cool.

Finally! Mind you, that probably means a third quarter 2005 release for Australia.

Hmm, MP3's eh?

I hope that means game companys will alow us to provide our own soundtrack, a-la X-Box.

Sweet!

I think you can find the harddrive online already with the linux package if you look on ebay. It has been out for a while, but it is kinda expensive if you get the linux package.

Awesome!

Whoa, that's freaking sweet...

Thanks for the info Jimmy, my brother in-law will love to hear this.

Bad-Arse.

99 dollars? that doesnt sound too bad.

Yeah, considering it will come preloaded with FF11, demos, and possibly some other games.

Very good deal!

Quote:

Originally posted by Klostrophobic
Yeah, considering it will come preloaded with FF11, demos, and possibly some other games.

Very good deal!

FF11 is the suck though.

Although so is FF10, FF9, FF8........

You guys should have gotten the Linux Kit when it came out! (:

40GB HDD
Broadband Adaptor
USB Keyboard / Mouse
VGA/RCA video adaptor (video graphics adaptor video adaptor? ... (: )
Linux for PS2 DVDs

It's not really great for using as a Linux computer, but it was a good buy for the hardware.

Oh wait, is this the US or Japanese release date?

I can play Divx and MP3's on my chipped PS2, with that reality mediaplayer software. I just forgot about it because I never use the damn thing.

Does the VGA adapter work with normal games?

Quote:

Originally posted by Race Idiot
I can play Divx and MP3's on my chipped PS2, with that reality mediaplayer software. I just forgot about it because I never use the damn thing.

Does the VGA adapter work with normal games?

Heh heh, unfortunately no. It's a completely different signal. But it's cool to have (:

My favorite part of the kit, odd as it is, is the USB keyboard and mouse. They have the PS2 branding on them. Probably the only in the world, I imagine. And they're nice quality. The mouse is even a two button with a wheel.

Quote:

Earlier this year, at the industry's E3 trade show, Sony demonstrated a version of the AOL Internet service running on the PS2 and House said that, with the release of the hard drive, an AOL for PS2 would be out "definitely within the course of next year."

Oh ****.

And it looks like that's the American release.

Also where the hell will the HDD be plugged in? USB socket? Firewire socket? The expansion bay? (Although wouldn't that stop the use of the network adapter).

I hope that when they release the HDD kit they will end-of-life the classic PS2. A new kit that includes the network adaptor and hard drive kit would be a great boost for PS2 games - the developers would be more inclined to write games which take advantage of both. And a 40GB hard drive is AMAZING.

PS2 - $150
HDD - $100
NIC - $50

That would take it back up to $300 ... but I bet they could sell it for $250 and make some mad cash. Especially if it had good media software to read files off of networked computers. Man, I'd buy two for my house! (:

Quote:

Originally posted by Race Idiot
Oh ****.

And it looks like that's the American release.

Also where the hell will the HDD be plugged in? USB socket? Firewire socket? The expansion bay? (Although wouldn't that stop the use of the network adapter).

the way it works in the Linux kit version is that the network adaptor actually sticks on the back of the PS2 using the expansion port's plug and has a plugin for a standard EIDE hard drive which slides into the PS2 expansion bay.

In case you guys couldn't already tell how excited I am about this ... here's just another post to add to my list in this one thread.

Links:

http://www.rpgamer.com/news/Q3-2003/091703a.html

http://news.com.com/2100-1040-250608.html?legacy=cnet

http://ps2.ign.com/articles/402/402228p1.html?fromint=1

Quote:

Originally posted by LoudMusic
the way it works in the Linux kit version is that the network adaptor actually sticks on the back of the PS2 using the expansion port's plug and has a plugin for a standard EIDE hard drive which slides into the PS2 expansion bay.

Ahh, that sounds allright.

As long as I don't have to have a huge box allongside the PS2 with yet another wire coming out of it.