PlayStation 2 Startup Towers at Equal Height

[breeseburger]

For those who don't know, the PS2 has a file called history, and it accesses the memory cards to track the amount of time you have spent on a save file, each tower represents a save file's time duration, if you remove the memory card, the towers will disappear, as it can no longer access the data your PS2 could access. On PC, you can modify this file and change the time duration on a save file, as it's just simple code (you change the numbers, the higher the number, the bigger the tower), this won't corrupt your save files, as 'history' is a separate file itself. It is crazy that Sony spent time to make such a unique startup that will go down in gaming history due to it. The towers can also be used to track how long you have played your PS2 for, obviously.

EDIT: I recently messed with the bios of PS2, the towers are originally formed when a new game has been inserted for the first time. Some bios track how many times you have played (earlier versions) and some track how long you have played (later versions).

[thephase]

That zoom in was actually really cool. I never knew that the cubes looked like that. It's a representation of data

[fatyoshi]

Damn those towers are insanely detailed when you look at them up close

[senorlechuga]

That zoom in with no PS2 logo or anything gave me a new type of anxiety

[Moonlow.]

The fact that they made the towers very detailed is so cool

[ArtieArchives]

0:13 At this point you know the game isn't going to load

[DJNeoncat]

Dude played every game for a symmetrical amount of hours.

[demonman]

This and the GameCube make me miss visual representation of data in gaming. It feels so sci-fi and futuristic but no company does it anymore

[Sonicfalcon]

they look like the future building in sci-fi anime OVAs from the 80s and 90s

[coolman]

This and the 7 spinning orbs/12 crystal rods in the Browser representing time & day of the week are genius design detail. Another reason why PS2 is the greatest console created

[transcendental_pie]

true gamer to have 126 games but one played the least

[SpeedLP]

A common misconception, and i read it here too again, is that the towers represent playtime, but thats actually wrong, they represent how often a game was started.

Yes the PS2 does have a real-time clock and games can use it, but the console itself is not tracking your playtime. The tower data is saved onto the memory card in a file called "YOUR SYSTEM CONFIGURATION", the name is misleading, the actual system config is on the console itself in a little flash memory, that file only contains the tower data.

When you delete the file, all towers are gone, now start a game, a small tower will appear. Now soft reset the console over and over again, so the game boots. The tower will grow bigger and bigger, no matter how long you have actually spent ingame. You can also see that the file on the memory card only gets modified when the game gets started and then never gets touched again.

[DamageMaximo]

This sound effect is incredibly powerful

[wigwagstudios]

if your ps2 does this you better check that it’s not gonna explode after being so full

[mercoro]

At one point looks like you're falling in the middle of a bunch of skycrapers.

[BBandLCat]

"Can not save game data, the memory card is full."

[adrianthesnowkoopatroopa]

Why are they so detailed...?! They look like something out of Halo with those textures!

[Danmarinja]

The start: “Woah that’s cool!”
The middle: “Hm, we’re getting kinda close”
The end: “LYLE WALE UP THEY HIT THE PENTAGON

[PoissontCB_OFICIAL]

I just found out when random towers are bigger that means that the memory card memory gets more full, and if it's at the max size and all towers at the equal size just like this, it means that your memory card is completely full.

[ricowolfdog]

Didn't know the towers had bumpmaps!