The year 2000 was a mess. A beautiful, high-polygon, chaotic mess. If you walked into a Toys "R" Us or a Best Buy back then, you weren't just looking at boxes; you were witnessing a brutal civil war between the 32-bit ghosts of the past and the 128-bit monsters of the future. Honestly, looking back at gaming consoles available in 2000, it’s a miracle we made any decisions at all. You had Sega fighting for its life, Sony preparing to take over the planet, and Nintendo just... being Nintendo.
It was the bridge. One side of the year felt like the 90s. The other felt like the future.
📖 Related: Free Casino Slot Apps: What Most People Get Wrong About Winning
Most people remember 2000 as the "PlayStation 2 year." And yeah, that’s fair. The PS2 launch in October (for North America) was a cultural earthquake that shifted the tectonic plates of entertainment. But if you only talk about the PS2, you're missing the weird, desperate, and experimental energy that defined the era. We had the Dreamcast hitting its stride, the N64 refusing to die, and a handheld market that was about to get its first real shakeup in a decade.
The Dreamcast: Sega's Brilliant, Tragic Peak
Sega was already there. While everyone else was waiting for the hype train of the "Next Generation," Sega was already living in it. The Dreamcast had launched in late 1999, but in 2000, it was arguably the best console on the market. It was weirdly ahead of its time. It had a built-in 56k modem. You could literally crawl onto the internet and play Phantasy Star Online, which felt like black magic at the time.
The library was insane. In 2000 alone, we got Jet Set Radio, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, and Resident Evil - Code: Veronica. These games looked sharp. They used VGA adapters to output 480p signals that made the blurry textures of the previous generation look like ancient cave paintings.
But there was a problem. A big one.
Sega was bleeding cash. Even though the Dreamcast was a masterpiece of engineering, the shadow of Sony was too long. People were waiting. They were saving their pennies for the promised land of the "Emotion Engine." Sega tried to pivot, slashing prices and pushing aggressive marketing, but the momentum was stalling. By the end of 2000, the writing was on the wall, even if we didn't want to read it yet. The Dreamcast proved that being first doesn't mean you win; it just means you're the first one to get shot.
The PlayStation 2 Arrives and Breaks the World
October 26, 2000. That’s the date.
The launch of the PlayStation 2 wasn't just a product release; it was a riot. People were literally fighting in lines. Stores were getting tiny shipments—sometimes only 10 or 20 units—because of manufacturing shortages with the "Emotion Engine" chip and the DVD drive. If you actually snagged one, you were basically royalty.
Why was it such a big deal? Two words: DVD player.
Back then, a standalone DVD player cost roughly the same as a PS2. Sony basically gave you a high-end gaming rig and a home cinema hub for $299. It was the ultimate Trojan Horse. Even if you weren't a "hardcore gamer," you wanted a PS2 because it was the cheapest way to watch The Matrix in digital clarity.
The actual launch games? Kinda mediocre, if we’re being honest. Street Fighter EX3 and Fantavision weren't exactly system sellers. But it didn't matter. The promise of the hardware was enough. The backwards compatibility with original PlayStation games meant your library didn't disappear. That was a massive deal. It bridged the gap. By the time SSX and Tekken Tag Tournament hit their stride, the PS2 was an unstoppable juggernaut. It didn't just lead the gaming consoles available in 2000; it defined the decade.
The Old Guard: Nintendo 64 and PlayStation 1
You might think that once the "Next Gen" arrived, the old systems just vanished. Nope.
The Nintendo 64 was still kicking in 2000, and it was actually having a bit of a late-life crisis—in a good way. This was the year of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. That game was dark, stressful, and required the Expansion Pak just to run. It pushed the N64 to its absolute limit. Nintendo was also leaning hard into the "party game" niche. Mario Tennis and Paper Mario (in Japan) proved there was still plenty of life in those chunky cartridges.
Then you had the original PlayStation.
Sony didn't kill the PS1 when the PS2 came out. They rebranded it. The PSone—that tiny, rounded, adorable little white box—launched in 2000. It was cheap. It was reliable. And it had a library of thousands of games. It was the perfect "bedroom console." While the PS2 was the expensive centerpiece of the living room, the PSone was for the kids. It actually outsold the PS2 for a significant portion of the holiday season because it was actually available on shelves.
The Handheld Reality: Game Boy Color and the Neo Geo Pocket Color
Portable gaming in 2000 was a weird space. Nintendo owned it. Period. The Game Boy Color was the undisputed king, mostly thanks to a little phenomenon called Pokémon. Pokémon Gold and Silver hit the US in late 2000, and it was game over for everyone else.
SNK tried to fight back with the Neo Geo Pocket Color. It was a fantastic handheld. The "clicky" joystick was better than any D-pad Nintendo ever made. It had SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium, which is still one of the best portable fighters ever. But it didn't matter. Without the third-party support and the sheer cultural weight of Pikachu, the Neo Geo Pocket Color was discontinued in most markets by the end of 2000. It's a collector's item now, but back then, it was a footnote.
We also saw the WonderSwan in Japan, designed by the legendary Gunpei Yokoi (the father of the Game Boy). It was a cool piece of tech, but it never made the jump to the West. In the US and Europe, if you weren't playing on a Game Boy, you probably weren't playing on a handheld.
The Technical Specs: A Snapshot of 2000
To understand the massive leap that happened this year, you have to look at the raw power. We moved from Megahertz to Gigahertz thinking (almost).
🔗 Read more: Finding Every Spider Bot in Spider-Man 2: What Most Guides Get Wrong
- Sega Dreamcast: 200 MHz SH-4 CPU, 16 MB RAM. It was the first to give us "perfect" arcade ports.
- PlayStation 2: 294 MHz "Emotion Engine," 32 MB RDRAM. It could push 6.2 GFLOPS. That sounded like science fiction in 2000.
- Nintendo 64: 93.75 MHz VR4300. It was lagging behind, but its first-party optimization kept it relevant.
The shift wasn't just about speed. It was about storage. The industry was finally, painfully, leaving cartridges behind. The N64 was the last holdout. Everything else was moving to discs, which meant better music, FMV cutscenes, and much, much larger worlds.
Why 2000 Still Matters to Gamers Today
We often look at the history of technology as a straight line, but 2000 was a crossroads. It was the year that established the "DVD as standard" for home media. It was the year online console gaming took its first real baby steps. It was also the year that killed off one of the industry's biggest giants (RIP Sega hardware).
If you’re looking to collect or revisit gaming consoles available in 2000, you’re looking at the peak of "experimental" design. Developers were still figuring out how to use two analog sticks. They were still figuring out how to make 3D cameras behave. There is a raw, unpolished energy in games from 2000 that you just don't find in the hyper-polished, AAA-obsessed market of today.
Actionable Steps for Retrogaming Enthusiasts
If this trip down memory lane has you wanting to hook up a CRT and play some Crazy Taxi, here is how you should approach it:
- Check for Capacitor Leaks: If you're buying a Dreamcast or an original PS2, be aware that internal components like capacitors can leak over time. Look for "refurbished" units or be prepared to do some light soldering.
- The DVD Drive Issue: Early PS2 models (the "fat" ones) are notorious for "Disc Read Errors." If you're buying one today, the "Slim" models released later are much more reliable, though they don't have the same 2000-era aesthetic.
- Modern Displays: These consoles were designed for tube TVs. If you plug a PS2 into a 4K OLED, it’s going to look like a blurry mess of pixels. Invest in a dedicated upscaler like a Retrotink or use high-quality Component cables rather than the standard yellow RCA plug.
- Emulation as a Gateway: If you don't want to deal with old hardware, the emulation scene for 2000-era consoles is incredibly mature. PCSX2 (for PS2) and Flycast (for Dreamcast) can run these games at 4K resolutions, making them look better than we ever imagined they could back in the day.
The year 2000 wasn't just a turn of the millennium; it was the birth of the modern gaming landscape. We didn't know it at the time, but the consoles on those store shelves were setting the stage for everything we play now.