Nearly 20 years later, the PS2 is officially dead in Japan

Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan has announced that they will be officially ending their aftercare support services for their juggernaut PlayStation 2 console, effectively ending any and all support for the platform ever since it initially went out of production back in 2012. 

This comes from an article by IT Media that reports SIEJ is letting PlayStation 2 owners know that they had until August 31 to request any repair services before this particular service ceases to exist. Any systems that arrive after September 7 will be sent right back to the owner without any work done.

It goes without saying that this is an important (if not slightly melancholy) milestone for the best-selling game console of all time that few other systems have come close to in terms of sales. The PlayStation 2 was originally launched in Japan on March 4, 2000, followed by a North American launch on October 26 and a European launch on November 24 that same year. Sony recently announced the total lifetime sales of their PlayStation brand exceeded 500 million systems sold.