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Who here still has a working launch (or near launch) PS2?

I'm not entirely sure when I bought my first PAL PS2, wether it was the beginning of 2001 or the end of 2000. My first two games on it was SSX and Dead or Alive 2. I also remember waiting what seemed like forever for Crazy Taxi.

I'm pretty sure it hadn't been on the market for more than four months, so I guess it was a near-launch console. It's been in use since I got it, and still work like new.

I also have a North American PS2 which I bought a week or two after the North American release of Final Fantasy X. I picked up both at the same time.

That too, works like a charm.
 
I got one, it can't read dvds anymore but I got others in my house so that's no problem. It's still works most of the time when gaming.
 
Launch day PS2 (26 October 2000). Only trouble I've had with it was dust on the lens. Fortunately I'd fliptop modded it (for homebrew...talk about disappointing) and cleaning the lens was a breeze.

Using it right now to play through GH3. Thinking about picking up PS2 Rock Band...
 
Does anyone know of a way to manually repair a slim ps2 like the fat one?

Really don't want to trade it in at Gamestop.
 
i have a working japanese ps2 that i bought in 2001...and i think it had been sitting on a shelf for a long time before that. i've heard on message boards that the early japanese units are relatively hardy

i had an american ps2 of similar vintage, but that broke twice, and i eventually replaced it with a slim ps2
 
My launch still works. It takes a bit longer to load the game in the browser after I put it in. I never got any DRE's, though.
 
I've got a US launch PS2, and it's still going strong. I don't use it very much, though, since I've got a 60 GB PS3 for the NA games, and a Japanese slim white PS2 for Japanese games. It's pretty only used for DDR.
 
Yeah I got one with a copy of Eternal Ring, still working like a charm. I put like thousands of hours with dvd watching on it as well the first two years.
 
Launch(pal) AND second-hand. Still working perfectly, and I've given and still give it a lot of punishment (I leave it on for hours on almost a daily basis).
Of course, about 1 year ago I took the safe route and installed an HDD on it. Should hold up until doomsday now.
 
I just retired my launch day PS2 about two weeks ago. It was not reading commercial DVDs, nor cds of any sort. It hung on for a long time, though. Quite a trooper.
 
uhh...to some extent.

It cant read the blue backs too well. It also has a habit of shutting down under heat (which can be quickly on a hot day). But it still works mighty fine.
 
I got mine at the midnight launch in the U.S. and its still going. It really struggles with PS1 games, but PS2 games run just fine. I haven't turned it on in several months and I wouldn't be surprised if it died in the near future.
 
I got mine at launch (didn't seem that hard to get, either). It worked perfectly for a couple years, and was DRE prone for about a year. I finally got the balls to figure out what was wrong with it -- and actually opened it up and did surgery on it. Actually pretty easy too. All it required was for a dial to be turned a couple times to re-level the lens.

It's worked perfectly ever since.
 
I swore all those stories about PS2s breaking, giving DREs, etc, were due to user abuse. I had purchased my PS2 at launch, and it basically stayed in the very same spot since I got it... never took it to a friends house, never moved it around, etc, and it always worked perfectly fine. That is until the day Gradius V came out, and my PS2 refused to read it (it was a Blue Back CD). Of course it was a common problem. I freaked out, but did some online research, and did the trick where you open up the PS2 and move the dial a few spaces. It worked. Then I traded that system into GameStop and bought a slim PS2 that served me until I picked up a PS3 at launch.
 
Ehn, the only abuse I ever gave my system was playing games on it. I guess putting Herdy Gerdy in the machine counts as a specific type of abuse, though.

I think I was just painfully unlucky after the first one though. The launch systems were definitely PoSs though. I was working at EB at the time and something like 3 out of every 5 launch systems came back. The shipments after the launch ones were pretty much fine though.
 
The manager of the nearest EB claimed that the return rate on launch window PS2s was greater than 50% in his district. When I expressed doubt about this, he showed me a fucking huge pile of returned PS2s.
 
I have a launch JPN PS2 and a launch US PS2- both alive and kicking. I should note, however, that the JPN PS2 has been used solely for bemani since its inception and now takes a good 20 seconds to recognize a disc once you've booted.

Other than that, I've had zero problems with either of them.
 
I have a US launch day PS2 that i bought at Toysrus on 10/26/00. It has worked flawlessly for 7 years but i recently retired it when i bought an 80 GB PS3 2 months ago in November 2007. I'll probably try to sell it soon.

This system was also my only DVD player until 2003.
 
Purchase Date: December 1 2000
Current Status: Operational (Although I gave it to my Nan in 2004 cause she loved to play Tekken so much and I wanted a slim, so its only ever pulled out about twice a year now.)
 
Launch US. Opened it once to adjust the voltage (IIRC), but otherwise working for the most part. Didn't have any real problems for a long time until GH2 came out.
 
Day 1 baby, and it's gotten a hell of a lot of play time due to my RPG addiction. The only sign of its aging is that the disk tray grinds more often than not when ejecting a disk. It's pretty much been put in cold storage, thanks to my 60 GB.
 
My parents do. From December of launch year. It doesn't work super great anymore, but with an occasional lens cleaning it gets by.
 
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