Early fat models

Early fat models (SCPH-10000 – 39000)

The earliest fat PlayStation 2 consoles cover roughly SCPH-10000 through SCPH-39000. These are the launch-era machines and have a few quirks worth knowing if you're modding one.

The very first Japanese SCPH-10000 and SCPH-15000 used a PCMCIA expansion slot rather than the later rear expansion bay, and some early units include an i.LINK (FireWire) port. From SCPH-30000 onward the familiar rear expansion bay appeared, which accepts the network adapter and an internal IDE hard drive — the foundation for fast HDD game loading with Open PS2 Loader.

These models all use a hardware chip for PlayStation 1 backwards compatibility, which many enthusiasts prize. They are excellent softmod targets: every early fat supports FreeMcBoot, and the expansion bay means you can add an HDD for the best loading performance.