The new hard drive expansion for Japan !

[BizioEE]

In Japan next week Sony will be releaseing that upgraded version of PlayStation 2, this expansion will allow gamers to plug in the hard disk drive unit and cnnect to the internet with the speed of broadband. The PS2\'s that were released in Europe and the United States already feature the expansion bay slot for the hard drive. Sony is planning to raise monthy production of PS2\'s this fall. It is aiming for shipping 20 million more units starting this business year that started on April 1 of this year!

a new VERSION, you mean with a HHDD expansion bay?? What so early? I thought this stuff wasn\'t due till the end of the year.

Ha ! Sony f*cked their own Japanese public IMO.
They should have had that version like us from start.
Now I know they will pay about the same for an \' external hdd\' as for the one that fits in the exp bay, BUT ;
they will feel kinda like Sega CD all over.  I mean it will feel as if they are buying a somewhat obsolete add on.
I saw a pic once of the Japanese ps2 with the ext. hdd;
imo it looked plain ugly.
Am I glad I live in Europe with my PAL ( lol) PS2.
Knotter8

Yup, the HD is pretty much destined to fail. Its a pretty simple rule with games: If it didnt come with the launch its never going to work. The only way it will work is if they package them with games that use them like Nintendo did with the ram expansion. But this isnt a 20 buck chunk of ram, its a $150 Hard Drive, so unless they up the price of a game to $200 they are never going to get enough of them out there to do any good.

Originally posted by AxL
Yup, the HD is pretty much destined to fail. Its a pretty simple rule with games: If it didnt come with the launch its never going to work. The only way it will work is if they package them with games that use them like Nintendo did with the ram expansion. But this isnt a 20 buck chunk of ram, its a $150 Hard Drive, so unless they up the price of a game to $200 they are never going to get enough of them out there to do any good.

More like a $50 harddrive according to Ken...   but still,  I will be interested to se how they will pull this off.   They will probably just start including it in all of thier systems, and perhaps offering with some initial games that use it.

Is it possible that software publishers will release games that support the hard drive for improved performance, but don\'t require it?  Will the technology permit that, or will it be either/or?

It seems that early adopters would be shooting themselves in the foot if they release software that requires the HDD.  BTW, I don\'t see why it has to cost $150.00.  I think they could produce a slightly lower-tech, lower capacity hard drive much less.

if it comes with the network card/modem it will probably sell well.

I remember someone saying the hdd is going to be 40gig.  If it is there is no way they will be able to sell it for only $50 and also inlcude the ethernet adapter.

40Gb was confirmed at Sony\'s annual PlayStation conference, so case closed (unless they decide to change it). The price is still a mystery to everyone, though...

For this HDD to be a success Sony would have to take a significant loss and practically give it away for free. Otherwise its DOA.

I wonder why they are using such a large hdd, I have a 30gig and 10 gig and have only used around 20 of it.  They must be thinking of loading games on to it for it to be that big.

You simply cant sell a 30 gig HD and a ethernet adapter for $50 bucks unless Sony is going to put themselves in the poor house to get it out. Sega\'s ethernet adapter is $40 alone and Sega is selling everything at a super low price. They might as well buy up Sega\'s supply of 32Xs and re-package them.

i\'ll bet every nay-sayer here that the HD/broadband adapter will not fail,it will be a run-away success. then i will laugh at you when this happens...wait for a moment so i can save your pathetic comments,then show them to you here on this forum when the units are in the majority of PS2 owners homes

And why would every gamer want it when it doesn\'t enhance games like the N64 expansion pak, which didn\'t exactly sell like crazy?

Originally posted by inteq
And why would every gamer want it when it doesn\'t enhance games like the N64 expansion pak, which didn\'t exactly sell like crazy?

well first you can\'t base your theory on other game companies because Sony doesn\'t run business like Sega or Nintendo....but remember most all the developers are behind Sony and then you take in account how madly PS2 sold. another thing,this does not enhance the games,it changes the games into a whole nother realm in a sense. pc gamers witnesssed this,able to play online and have extended versions of their games,this completely changed the way pc games executed. if you want a good example of a Sony\'s device changing the way we play games now,just check out the last controller for the PSX. it was not an original device of the PSX yet all games pretty much were developed to use it and just about every owner of the console had it. what is kind of funny,most everyone saying this will fail like the 32x or whatever,are not regular Playstation users / owners / supporters,most were / are persons who are formally Sega / Nintendo followers. that\'s how i see it....i\'d say more but i will save my laughter for those who say this will fail,in the end i win and then i will mock them even further in this forum