The Playstation 2 begins flying off shelves today, as Sony Computer Entertainment attempts to fill orders for the North American release.

The PS2 is the next generation console system from Sony, producers of the original Playstation.

Just as the original Playstation was based on the storage format standard of its time, the compact disc, the PS2 is based on the standard of storage media today: DVD, which supports both DVD and CD formats.

For its next generation gaming console, Sony has developed a system that will outperform any other system currently on the market. The heart of the PS2 console is the 128-bit Emotion Engine, which allows the PS2 to display advanced graphics using its capability of rendering 66 million polygons per second. Combined with its 3.2 GB per second bus bandwidth, this will allow the PS2 to display impressive graphics quickly. Add to this the system’s MPEG layer 2 decoding, and the true scope of the advancement over the original Playstation becomes apparent.

As far as sound goes, the PS2 doesn’t skimp on the performance factor. It supports both the Dolby Digital and DTS sound formats, which are commonly found on DVD movies, but have not been widely exploited in the video game market.

Perhaps the most unique feature that the PS2 incorporates is the complete backward compatibility with all original Playstation games. Making this gaming phenomena possible is the integration of the Playstation CPU as the I/O system processor for the PS2.

The controller for the PS2 will be a relative of the Dual-Shock Analog Controller, as it is called the Dual-Shock 2. The difference between the two is very simple; the Dual-Shock 2 will boast all of its buttons being analog, with the exception of the start and select buttons (the original only contained two analog joysticks). This will allow for greater interactivity between the player and the game.

A large list of games titles are being released with the launch.

The PS2 is available for a suggested retail price of $299.99.