Imagine dozens of engineers and designers at Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft headquarters, huddling and crowding over work benches. Amidst the stacks of pizza boxes and soda cans, the people in front of you part to one side or the other, and unveil the latest, uber-powerful consoles.

Fast forward to the launch of PS2. If you were one of the few people who managed to get your hands on one, you probably raced home and opened the box. Wow, compact and sleek design, stylin' black case, and WHAT?! TWO controller ports!!! Only two! Turn it around, maybe there are more on the other side... no, there aren't!!! Wahhh! I don't understand! Why, why!!! Yes, it's true. I didn't believe it at first either. I couldn't believe it. How could master engineers of technology, whose jobs are to design powerful consoles, omit putting two extra controller ports?

The truth is that there is no plausible explanation for Sony's design decision. None. Thinking about it is enough to make my head spin, as any sort of explanation (or excuse) simply crumbles into a million pieces. Sony certainly can't claim ignorance; Nintendo was the first company to introduce four controller ports on its Nintendo 64 five years ago.

An argument from the point of view of price also falls apart quickly too. Adding two controller ports would not raise the price as significantly as say, adding a DVD player to the PS2. Furthermore, you can use your original PS controllers with the PS2. This would have been a great selling point for Sony, having to only buy one extra controller to have four player capabilities. And I thought PS2 was designed to play games.

PS2 owners reading this are probably screaming Multitap! Multitap! (a peripheral that allows you to connect two more controllers to the console). Go ahead and spend more money on the already obscenely priced PS2. At least your wallet will feel lighter. What they are forgetting is that by adding four controller ports on the console, you are creating a standard right from the start. Game designers might not be willing to design a game with four players if only a certain percentage of the consoles have four controllers; it's just a waste of time and effort.

The scary truth is this: somewhere along the design of the PS2, someone must have brainstormed the PS2 with four controller ports. This means that at some point, the big wigs over at Sony must have rejected the idea, for whatever reason. This glaring omission makes me wonder about the console as a whole. Why would you invest your hard earned cash in a console and a company that missed something as obvious as this?

Sadly, I think that in the dead heat of a console war, Sony simply screwed up in regards with the controller layout. No one can determine the impact it will have on the PS2 in the years to come, but this flaw in the PS2's design cannot be overlooked by the industry, or by gamers.