May 11th 1999: Sony formally presents its "second-generation PlayStation" at E3.
A few details are added to the presentation Kutaragi made in Japan, but not much. The unit is not playable.
September 9th: Sega launches Dreamcast in the United States for $199. Sales are initially strong, but they slow dramatically after the holidays.
February 18th 2000: Sony holds an event called "PlayStation Festival 2000."
A proprietary tradeshow after the fashion of Nintendo's Spaceworld/Shoshinkai shows, Festival 2000 gave Japan's elite publishers a chance to demonstrate the games they had planned for PlayStation 2. While Namco and Koei had good-looking games ready for launch, Capcom's "Onimusha," a game that would not be ready until that summer, stole the show.
February 28th 2000: PlayStation 2 is featured in the cover story in Newsweek magazine.
This was a milestone for Sony and the entire video-game industry. "Newsweek" magazine, one of the cornerstones of the mainstream media, was taking the launch of a video-game console so seriously that it merits a cover story.
March 4th 2000: PlayStation 2 goes on sale in Japan. Some stores have sold out through preorder, others open early and hand units out on a first-come, first-served basis. Along Akihabara, Japan's "Electric Town," stores with a few hundred units have lines of several thousand people. Sales begin at 12:00 a.m. and all PlayStation 2 console inventory is sold out before stores officially open at 10:00 a.m.
Sony had less than 1 million units to sell. Had there been 3 million units, they would have sold out. The Japanese launch of PlayStation was as close as video games may ever get to an event like Woodstock. People from around the world camped out, many for days, in the hope of going home with a PlayStation 2. One disappointed boy is said to have committed suicide by jumping from the top of a building in Akihabara. When a boy was robbed while bringing his PlayStation 2 home from the store, it made national headlines in Japan. The government of Japan declared PlayStation 2 a "super computer," and limited the number of consoles visitors could take home.
That the success of the PlayStation 2 launch was based solely on the popularity of the Sony brand as the launch lineup was universally panned. (Sony did not have any in-house games in that lineup.)
