01
November 2000
PlayStation 2 arrives in Europe on November 24.
The Sony PlayStation 2 was released in the UK and across Europe on November 24, 2000. It originally launched at a retail price of £299.
release calendar card
Gaming History, One Month at a Time
GTM-2000-11
November 2000
November 2000: PlayStation 2 arrives in Europe on November 24.
PS2 arrivesDreamcast pressurePC golden ageUK shelves
Timeline archive
Select a year
2000 month drawer
Installed months are active; empty drawers are held for future exhibits.
Gallery 01
News
Five researched month markers or context notes.
02
November 2000
Counter-Strike becomes a boxed retail sign of mod culture becoming mainstream.
A period-context note for the month, written cautiously where the evidence is broader than one exact day.
platform notice
03
November 2000
UK high-street demand, preorders and shortages make hardware itself the month's central exhibit.
A period-context note for the month, written cautiously where the evidence is broader than one exact day.
shop-window label
04
Across 2000
PS2 anticipation changes how Dreamcast, N64 and PlayStation shelves are read.
A year-level context marker included to frame the month without claiming a new event happened on a specific day.
magazine clipping
05
Across 2000
PC gaming feels unusually strong through sims, RPGs, mods and online play.
A year-level context marker included to frame the month without claiming a new event happened on a specific day.
context plaque
Gallery 02
Releases
Eight notable releases, led by month-specific anchors where evidence supports them.
November 2000Windows
tactical shooter
Counter-Strike retail release
A mod becomes a boxed retail object and a LAN-cafe staple.
February 2000Windows
life simulation
The Sims
Maxis turns the domestic routine into one of PC gaming's strangest mass obsessions.
February/March 2000Dreamcast
survival horror
Resident Evil Code: Veronica
Capcom gives Dreamcast one of its showcase survival-horror objects.
March 4, 2000PlayStation 2
hardware launch
PlayStation 2 launch line-up
In Japan, the console itself is the exhibit: DVD playback, black plastic and next-generation gravity.
May 2000Nintendo 64
console FPS
Perfect Dark
Rare's spy shooter arrives late in the N64 life, dense with modes and memory-expansion ambition.
June 2000Windows
immersive sim
Deus Ex
Ion Storm makes the PC feel conspiratorial, systemic and full of locked doors with multiple answers.
June 2000Windows / Mac
action RPG
Diablo II
Blizzard turns clicking, loot and Battle.net into a long-term habit.
September 2000PlayStation / others
sports action
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
Skate culture, licensed music and score-chasing become a shared language.
Gallery 03
Hardware
Platform, buying and industry context for the month and its wider year.
PlayStation 2 reaches Europe
Sony's black console arrives with DVD playback, backwards compatibility and a sense of cultural inevitability.
Dreamcast fights on
Sega's machine remains beloved for arcade conversions, online experiments and a library with personality.
N64 enters its late period
Perfect Dark and Majora's Mask show how much was still possible on aging cartridge hardware.
PC gaming looks wonderfully untidy
The year's PC shelf mixes The Sims, Deus Ex, Diablo II, Baldur's Gate II, Counter-Strike and hardware upgrade anxiety.
Gallery 04
Magazine Covers
Reconstructed shelf markers for print and demo-disc culture.
2000
Edge
A reconstructed shelf marker for the magazine that made the new console generation feel clinical, expensive and inevitable.
2000
PC Zone
A UK PC shelf marker for Deus Ex, Diablo II, Counter-Strike, mods and the last loud years of beige-box culture.
Late 2000
Official UK PlayStation 2 Magazine
A reconstructed marker for the PS2 demo-disc era beginning beside the European console launch.
2000
Official Dreamcast Magazine UK
A Dreamcast-era marker for a machine still loved on the page while PS2 pressure gathered outside the frame.
Gallery 05
Online Life
How the network felt around the edges of play.
Dial-up culture
Online life still sounds like dial-up tones, message boards, IRC, GameFAQs, fan sites and magazine URLs typed carefully from print.
Servers and services
Counter-Strike makes the mod scene feel less like a side corridor and more like the main entrance for PC shooters.
Forums and files
Battle.net turns Diablo II into a nightly ritual of characters, loot and fragile connections.
Console online experiments
Dreamcast online remains a glimpse of a future that most UK living rooms are not quite ready to live in.
Gallery 06
What It Felt Like
A curator's narrative sketch of the month as lived culture.
01
The room
It felt like standing in two shops at once: one full of Dreamcast games, N64 cartridges and PC boxes, the other glowing with a PS2 you might not be able to buy.
02
The shelf
The future was black plastic, blue cases, DVD playback and screenshots that looked almost too polished for a bedroom television.
03
The conversation
On PC, the future was messier and more personal: installs, patches, graphics settings, Battle.net accounts and games that could swallow whole evenings.
04
The afterimage
For UK players, the month often depended on what had actually reached the shelf, what the magazines had already reviewed, and what an import advert claimed was possible.