Buying a PS2

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cheepassmager

CAG Veteran
I'm going to be buying a used PS2 (and it's one of the old ones.) How likely is it that it will break, have disc read errors, or not be compatible with certain games (like GOW II) or accessories? The seller assured me it works fine. Are the PS2's made in 2001 basically the same as newer ones?

BTW, I'm paying about $80 for the system, controllers, and some crappy games. That's not overpriced at all, right?
 
I have the fat PS2 back from the 2001/2002 time frame and it only broke on me once back in the summer of 2003. Back then Sony fixed it up at no charge to me except for the shipping. I'm not sure if they still do the same now, but the system has been very reliable for me overall. :)
 
If you feel like going for a new ps2, you can get a silver slim PS2 bundled with Ratchet and Clank and Sly Cooper for $99 + tax & shipping at Microcenter online and B&M. Deal is for this weekend only.

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0276918


I don't know how many controllers (probably 2 total right?) and crappy games you're getting in the deal you mentioned, but regardless, I'd say you should go for a new one since the PS2 in question is 7 years old after all. Also, I'd say that the games you're getting in the microcenter bundle are top quality games.

Also, there's no reason to be worried about game compatibility of an old PS2. If anything, the older PS2 has more game capability than the slim PS2 because it has the expansion slot for the HDD which is absolutely required for FFXI and also enables some features in other games, like installs for faster load time.
 
It comes with a few good games (including Ratchet and Clank, MGS2 + 3, GTA3 and Vice City) so I think it should be a good deal. I'm glad to hear that read errors aren't too common.
 
[quote name='cheepassmager']It comes with a few good games (including Ratchet and Clank, MGS2 + 3, GTA3 and Vice City) so I think it should be a good deal. I'm glad to hear that read errors aren't too common.[/QUOTE]

um no the DRE is a problem, even if a people posted dont have any problems. The games are not bad but are easy to find. With a used system you dont know how much wear it already has. Spend the extra money for a new slim one.
 
[quote name='62t']um no the DRE is a problem, even if a people posted dont have any problems. The games are not bad but are easy to find. With a used system you dont know how much wear it already has. Spend the extra money for a new slim one.[/quote]

What 62t said.

I have 3 fatty's. The one that got the most use from little kids has the most disk read error problems. The other 2 don't have as much trouble with disk read errors, but they still have some problems. For instance, my best working fatty will play all games but has problems playing some blue backed dvds.
 
I had one of the old PS2s. I bought it in the summer of 2001 and it lasted until December 2006. I had some issues with some games that had little to no scratches not reading in my old PS2 about a year before it died. Also, I heard that playing DVDs can help kill the life on the older PS2s, I believe it affected the life on mine. I would advise buying a slim PS2 just because they are built better and people have had far fewer problems with them.
 
I think I bought my PS2 summer of 04? Fatty one. Still works today, but the later batches were supposed to be more reliable IIRC. $80 is not bad if you get a bunch of stuff with it. Any doubts might as well spend the extra $20 and get a slim bundle.
 
If you are up to the idea of setting it up with HD Loader (you'll have to look elsewhere for help with that), then the fat PS2 is the way to go. Installing and playing your games from the HDD is fantastic. Substantially reduces load times, plus it's fantastic to be able to pick from a menu of your games to play (and that keeps your originals pristine), and it pretty much negates any worries about being able to read game discs. I actually had a slim and "downgraded" to a fat PS2 in order to be able to do this (originally mainly to reduce load times in all of my DDR games, for which it has done wonders), and have been very happy with it. One negative about the fat versus the slim, though, is that the fat PS2 has a much noisier fan. If you can get a late-model fat PS2 you're better off in that regard, apparently. That's a SCPH-50001 model. I have a 39001 (or some such model number - I forget exactly offhand) and it is a bit too noisy for my taste, though not enough of an issue to make me want to go back to playing games from optical discs.
 
I got the fat one. It seems to work fine, but because I've never owned a PS2 before I can't compare it to the newer ones. One game doesn't work, but it's probably just scratched.
 
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