Sony Computer Entertainment will put an upgraded version of its PlayStation 2 video game on sale in Japan in mid May, the company said Monday. The new machine will be the first major upgrade SCEI has made to its hit gaming platform since it first went on sale just over three years ago.
The SCPH-50000 doesn"t add much to the gaming experience but it does improve on the unit"s ability to work as a DVD player. Whereas the current machine accepts only DVD-Video discs, at least officially, the new console adds support for the DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, and DVD+RW recordable and rewritable formats. It doesn"t support DVD-RAM.
"The current player can read some of those discs but it"s not stable," said Yoshiko Furusawa, a spokesperson for the Tokyo-based company. "We never officially supported them but now we do."