This page documents the major events of the PS2’s history.
1999
March 2nd: Sony announces the PS2 and reveals its hardware details.
April: Sony and Toshiba establish a joint venture to manufacture the PS2's Emotion Engine.
September 20th: The PS2 is officially unveiled at the Tokyo Game Show to around 1,500 journalists.
2000
March 4th: The PS2 is released in Japan.
March 7th: Japan's Trade Ministry deems the PS2 a supercomputer and prohibits exports of the console, requiring a special permit to be issued before Sony can start sales of the console in Europe and North America later in the fall.
October 26th: The PS2 is released in North America.
November 24th: The PS2 is released in Europe.
2001
January 11th: GameShark for the PS2 is announced.
March 23rd: Sony has shipped more than 10 million units worldwide.
May: Linux Beta Version is released in Japan.
September: The Messiah modchip is announced, the first modchip allowing for backup and import discs to be played on the PS2 without the use of swap discs.
December 6th: The Messiah modchip is made available for sale. A lawsuit is filed by Sony against the manufacturer, quickly discontinuing production shortly after.
2002
January 28th: Sony wins its court case against the manufacturer of the Messiah modchip.
January 30th: Sony announces that the official Linux Kit for PS2 is set to be released worldwide.
February: Immersion Corporation sues Sony for patent infringement for the use of haptic technology (DualShock) in PlayStation and PlayStation 2 controllers.
February 13th: Sony unveils PlayStation BB (Broadband Navigator), a broadband service for the PlayStation 2 in Japan to be released in April.
March 23rd: PCSX2 emulator is released.
May: The Linux Kit for PS2 is released worldwide.
August 15th: Sony announces an online service for the PS2 together with a network adapter to be released in North America.
August 27th: The network adapter, along with Sony's online gaming service, is released in North America.
2003
August: The Swap Magic disc is released.
August 19th: Independence exploit is released.
October: The University of Wisconsin sues Sony for patent infringement, claiming that technology used to create the Emotion Engine infringes a patent filed by the university in 1986.
December 13th: The PSX is released in Japan.
2004
June: HDLoader is released for sale, allowing for games to be copied to and played from a hard drive.
September 21st: Sony announces the PS2 Slim.
September 22nd: Sony loses its case against Immersion Corporation.
October 29th: The PS2 Slim is released in Europe.
November 3rd: The PS2 Slim is released in Japan.
November 25th: The PS2 Slim is released in North America.
2005
March 27th: Sony is ordered to pay $90.7 million to Immersion and to halt the U.S. sales of PlayStation and PlayStation 2. Sony appeals the decision before the order goes into effect, allowing for sales to continue.
September 13th: Sony recalls 3.5 million AC adapters sold with the PS2 Slim due to potential issues of overheating.
November 10th: Sony reaches a settlement in the PS2 "disc read error" class action lawsuit, allowing those eligible a check for $25, a free game from a list, or a free or reduced cost repair of an affected system.
2006
March 8th: Sony loses the appeal against the Immersion v. Sony case.
2007
March 1st: Sony and Immersion settle the patent dispute, with Sony entering a business agreement with Immersion and paying them a total of $97.2 million, in addition to royalties.
August 27th: A 32MB modded memory card known as VAST is announced, promising features comparable to a modchip that can be used for running homebrew and backups. No further news about the product is released.
October 5th: Modchip seller Divineo is sued by Sony for over $9 million for the sale of modchips and HDLoader.
November: Memor32 modded memory card is released, containing the same described features as the original VAST. The Memor32's firmware would later be reverse engineered, and the findings would be used to create Free MCBoot.
2008
May 19th: Free MCBoot (initially known as FreeVAST) is released.
June 16th: ESR is released by ffgriever.
2009
September 23rd: Open USB Loader is released. The project would later become Open PS2 Loader.
2012
March 31st: Sony reports that more than 160 million units have been sold worldwide, making the PS2 the most sold game console of all time.
2013
January 4th: Sony discontinues the PS2 worldwide.
November 8th: Pro Evolution Soccer 2014 is released in Europe, the final game release for the PS2.
2014
March 1st: OPL Manager is released.
September 18th: PSX-Place is created.
2016
March 31st: Final Fantasy XI's online server, the last official online server on the PS2, is shut down by Square Enix.
April 4th: Sony shuts down the DNAS service.
2018
September 7th: Sony discontinues repair services for the PS2 in Japan.
2019
December 3rd: Fortuna exploit is released.
2020
April 19th: The MX4SIO memory card SD card adapter is announced.
June 27th: The FreeDVDBoot exploit is released by CTurt, allowing for homebrew and game backups to be ran from a DVD on unmodified consoles.
August 30th: FunTuna is released, allowing for Free MCBoot to work with the Fortuna exploit (also allowing FMCB to work with later incompatible Slim models)
2021
February 19th: OpenTuna is released, an open source implementation of the Fortuna exploit.
April 14th: The MechaPwn exploit is released. This exploit allows for region unlocking compatible models (SCPH-5000X consoles up to the SCPH-9000X).
2022
January 1st: ConsoleMods.org launches!
December 4th: PlayStation 2 Basic Bootloader is released by israpps.
2023
September 21st: PSBBN Definitive English Patch is released by CosmicScale, adding support for English and other additional features to PlayStation BB.
2024
December 8th: PSBBN Definitive English Patch 2.0 is released, adding large drive support.
2025
March 16th: OSDMenu is released by pcm720.
June 11th: ProtoPwn is released by pcm720.
December 18th: YetAnotherDVDExploit is released.
2026
April 25th: SNESticle, a Super Nintendo emulator from 2004 gets ported to the modern PS2DEV SDK.
May 6th: Memdusa exploit is released, allowing to launch homebrew utitilizing the online features of some games.
August 16th: dvrpwnd, the first custom firmware (CFW) for the PSX is released.
August 28th:
- The first release candidate of Project Titan Magenta Edition releases, a feature rich operating system.
- Ember, a new PS1 emulator is released.
September 2nd: Osdbits releases, a reverse engineered version of large parts of the PS2's OSDSYS.