As reported late last night, the last official PlayStation 2 title will be released at the end of March 2013, just a few weeks past the console's 13th birthday.
But as it turns out, today is the day in which Sony has decided to finally cease production and shipment of the system to Japanese retailers. According to Kotaku, once remaining stock has been depleted, that's it.
The PS2 was released on March 4, 2000 and would go on to sell over 153.6 million units since. It is, at this point, the most successful home console of all time. Coming in at number 2 is the original PlayStation, at 102.49 million units.
When also factoring handhelds, the PS2 is still the king of the hill, though the Nintendo DS (which includes all variants: the original, Lite, DSi, and DSi XL) is a close second at 152.50 millions sold.
As also mentioned previously, the PS2 remains popular to this very day, and will probably remain so for the foreseeable future, not just in Japan but across the globe. It, unquestionably, has one of the richest and deepest libraries out there, one that many of us have yet to fully explore.