I’ve never seen a blue disc but I’ve heard about them - and now I’m looking at an eBay auction that’s selling one, so I wanted a bit of background.
All I’ve seen is people reporting that sometimes their PS2s stop reading blue discs. So aside from that fact and the inference that they’re first-gen PS2 games, I know nothing. Is there anything more to the story or is that it? Any reason I shouldn’t consider buying a blue disc PS2 game? That’s not an indication of it being a knock-off, is it?
FOr the PS2, blue discs are Sony CD-ROMs, silver disks are Sony DVDs. There’s nothing inherently flaky about blue discs. Some PS2 drives are just borked from age or what have you and can’t read CDs anymore.
My slimline PS2 will read them just fine, but it is noticably noisier while doing so.
Most people I’ve heard of that have that problem can stand the PS2 on it’s side and they have no further problems with the blue disks. I myself have a PS2 that I bought in January 03 and have had no problems with any disks blue or not.
I’m actually hoping it breaks soon so I can justify a slim ps2 before they stop production to make the ps3. I really don’t want to pay $600 to play my games and I hate buying refurbished stuff from gamestop.
yurislave: why not sell your old one to gamestop to fund the new one?
I was kind of freaked out when I first saw the PS-One black disks. I didn’t know CDs could be black. Since then I have seen gold, blue, green, red, and purple.
I do not think the color of a CD or DvD matters at all.
Like someone said, the blues are CD’s, the silvers are DVD’s.
Anyway, I bought a used old-form PS2 in the Summer of '04, my first one, and by late last year it had lost the ability to play blue discs. When it started getting flaky on me with DVD’s it went out the door. The replacement slimline PS2 I got early this year couldn’t play blue-disc games at all to begin with - it got replaced too. The following PS2 was definitely slower with blue-disc games, and when THAT one crapped out, the one I just got today is a little slower too.
Four PS2’s in two years for me and they definitely inherently have some trouble with the CD-format games. I’ve never dropped any of my PS2’s either.
I bought my PS2 used back in '01 and I have yet to have a problem with it of any kind that’s game related. The only issue I’ve ever had is that it doesn’t correctly play some DVDs (only one I’ve actually the issue with is Brotherhood of the Wolf, though there are probably others).
When I sold my PS2 it had stopped reading Blue cds. It started slow and just got worse as time went by.
My PS2 stopped reading blue discs several years ago, and I dug around online about the problem. I came across a guide that gave instructions on how to adjust the trim POTs for the laser’s strength that would sometimes cure this problem. I did that, and since then, my PS2 hasn’t had any read problems.
So if you are the tinkering type, you can try that before replacing it with another one.
My PS2 could read the one blue-disc game I have: Ico, but it couldn’t read my Gran Turismo PS1 disc. It was much louder when playing the blue disc though, I think it spins CDs faster than DVDs.
I don’t think there’s anything flaky about the CD-ROM PS2 games, but every PS2 I’ve seen absolutely reads them differently than the DVD-ROMs. Either they’re noisier or less noisy, take longer to “access” or not as long, or it simply can’t read them at all even though it reads DVD-ROMs without a problem.
FWIW, that’s what happened with my first PS2, a Model 30001 (aka the shitty initial-USA-version model). It read everything fine, then it had problems with blue discs, then standing it upright worked, then it didn’t work, then I laid it flat again and it read many things fine, then it couldn’t read anything.
Whereas my new PS2, not the slimline but the old black box (Model 50001, aka the one that actually boasts great durability), still makes the occasional weird noise with CD-ROM games but has never given me a disc-read-error with anything.
curst: Don’t PC DVD drives do the same thing? They are spinning CDs at different speeds than DVDs, so you hear different noises? But then, most drives are quieter than the PS2 drive. (But the Dreamcast wins the decibel meter.)
Because gamestop buy prices are a total rip off. I’d list it on Ebay but there wouldn’t be much of a premium on that either. I’ll probably just use it until it dies and buy a new one somewhere.
I bought a copy of Ico for the PS2 (which was why this question came up in the first place). Turns out the copy I got was on a blue disc. It read just fine in my PS2, and I never had any issues with it. It seemed - without doing any testing whatsoever - that it was a bit noisier and slower, but after playing a while I honestly didn’t notice any differences.
Wow, I was just wondering about this yesterday when my brother’s ps2 failed to play Growlanser III. I made the bother of bringing my memory card to use a save, even. I was inconsolable.
I have recently purchased a Saturday Night Speedway game and when I opened it I noticed it was a blue disc and all it does is load to main menu and whatever I try to enter it loads for while and goes into Demo mode. Can’t play game at all on my ps2 slim. I wish I still had my original 1st gen console
That’s not because of the drive head…it wouldn’t read at all. Check for scratches, including on the label