PlayStation 2 Hard Disc Drive unit details announced

Sony Computer Entertainment America today shared some of the specs for the Japanese PlayStation 2 Hard Disc Drive unit. The HDD will house an Ethernet connection and will conjoin with the Japanese PS 2 unit through the system's PC Card slot allowing for high-speed, broadband connectivity while offering increased storage space via the unit's large, yet unspecified hard disc.

The HDD will let users take advantage of high-speed connections such as DSL or CATV instead of relying on standard modem lines for downloading hefty digital media. In SCEI's vision, the device readies users for a future that it believes will offer a marriage of software based disc content and downloadable network data, such as new levels, characters, teams, courses, real-time multiplayer games, and so forth, truly extending the lives of existing limited-play titles. And SCEI has kept the future in its sights, focusing on the system's potential for expansion matched with its current ability to alter digital images, still and video as well as broadband video.

The unit could be escorting in the end of the days of disc swapping and managing multiple discs as well, due to the HDD's proposed, relatively massive storage space.

The HDD will ship in Japan this winter, although SCEI has yet to suggest a price. Information on the US hard drive, other than the fact that it will be internal, has not been announced.