Scoop Images: Playstation 2 Launches In Japan

Sunday, 5 March 2000, 2:37 pm
Article: Alastair Thompson

Japanese gaming fans queue to be in to get one of the first Playstation 2s on the market.

After years of research and months of anticipation, PlayStation® 2 went on sale for the first time in Japan yesterday. New Zealand fans however are expected to have to wait till September before they get a taste of the most keenly awaited development in computer gaming history.

Santa Yamagishi, 22, proud owner of one of the first Playstation 2’s in the world to be sold.

Building on the success of the worldwide best-selling game console, Sony Computer Entertainment launched its revolutionary computer entertainment system, to a mass of anticipation in Japan.

It is designed to bring together movies, music and games to form a new world of computer entertainment.

Hardware shipments of the original PlayStation® have exceeded 70 million units. SCE anticipates selling one million PlayStation® 2 units in the first week of sales

You can follow the developments of the launch on http://www.playstation-europe.com/ps2/

Launch date for New Zealand and the rest of the world is expected to be in September / October 2000. PlayStation 2 will retail in Japan for approximately NZ $700. The New Zealand retail price is yet to be confirmed.

Meanwhile Reuters is reporting today that the playstation launch has caused some problems for Japanese police.

A sleepy games fan waits to get a playstation in Japan.

TOKYO -- Japan's PlayStation2 mania threatened to spin out of control on Friday as police asked store owners to disperse throngs that had lined up a day in advance to buy the hotly hyped new game machine.

Hundreds were camping out in Tokyo's Akihabara district, known as "Electric Town" for its plethora of consumer electronics shops, hoping to be among the lucky few to get their hands on Sony's PlayStation2 when it goes on sale on Saturday.

But by the afternoon, the crowd of patient fans, some of whom had been camping in sleeping bags since Thursday, had grown too much for some. Police asked store owners to disperse the crowds, but few were willing to leave.

© Scoop Media

Alastair Thompson

Scoop Publisher

Alastair Thompson is the co-founder of Scoop. He is of Scottish and Irish extraction and from Wellington, New Zealand. Alastair has 24 years experience in the media, at the Dominion, National Business Review, North & South magazine, Straight Furrow newspaper and online since 1997. He is the winner of several journalism awards for business and investigative work.

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