Originally Posted by JGordon
Do you mean "push the system" as in push it to its performance limits, or push as in advertise/have games that people want to buy? I'm hoping you mean the latter, because GTA:SA and GT4 are obviously sequels to games that were "must-have" items when PS2 was pretty new.
I meant the former. The PS2 until recently was relatively untapped in terms of processing power. Early games couldn't make use of the new programming involved with 2 vector units and only 4MB of video ram that was tied to the main processor much like cache. Very unusual hardware design that required an entirely new form of design. In the last year, they started getting it right, but it took like 3-4 years to get there
Originally Posted by JGordon
As far as the PS2 lacking support for 480p, and 16x9, back in 2000 I didn't know a single person who had a TV capable of displaying either of those modes. HDTV, LCDs, and plasmas were all either in their infancy or not yet on the market in any sort of reasonable quantity. I didn't know the DC had 480p support, but I also didn't know anyone who even wanted to hook up their console to a PC monitor or HDTV until a year ago. The PS2 would have had to be pretty prophetic to predict in 2000 what people would want from a console in 2005.
Not true. PS2s have the capability for progressive scan game playback and 16x9 monitor support in them, but it wasn't "enforced" or made practical. Implementation and design of the progressive engines and 16x9 were left up to the programming team to figure out. I much prefer the XBox's implementation of telling the system of the best your TV can handle, and having it autonomously do it's best to meet that with the game you're playing.