PS2 box data can be VERY misleading.

Alright, I was going to go onto a long spiel about how the little colored boxes with words in them on the lower part of the PS2 game boxes could get very confusing, as they rarely tell you the whole truth. I even had a good portion of it typed. But it was getting WAY too long, so I decided to erase my blathering and opt for a short version.

First off. PS2 game makers, this is addressed specifically to you. I realize that the industry has made 4:3 screen format games a novelty in all but the older games on said console, but we still need to know when a game is 4:3 (fullscreen) and when it's 16:9 (widescreen). Take a cue from the DVD industry, people. While most movies released these days are widescreen anyway, they at least have the decency to tell us when it's not. Remember that when the PS2 first came out, Widescreen was itself a novelty. I have an original model PS2 from the good 'ole days. Still runs Gran Turismo 4 at full 1080P. Did I know that GT4 could do 1080P when I bought it? Of course not. Because they didn't put it on the box. Those little pieces of text on the box, they told me nothing of this. It would've been VERY nice to know, too. Because there's basically no other game on the PS2 that does anything past 480P, and because you probably would've sold more copies if you'd have said it, because that bit of text would've appealed to those who wouldn't have otherwise even thought of a racing game on the PS2. Point made here: You need to tell us more than you do. 16:9 or 4:3? Progressive Scan? Most boxes these don't even list that the support it, but they do. None of the Guitar Hero games even mention that they support widescreen AND progressive scan (except everything past World Tour, as far as I know, which still supports progressive scan). At least Sony had the sense to mention it on the first God of War game (but not the second). All these things should be mentioned, because whether or not it sells more copies or less, the people need to know.

So I contend that if the PS2 has about 2-3 more years of life in it like Sony says it does, why shouldn't the makers of the games we play on it give us accurate information? If you want proof that they aren't telling us what we need to know to make the right purchase, I will soon be uploading a file containing the details (some unmentioned on the box) of my personal PS2 game collection (of the 60 or so I have) and I will post the link in a postscript. Until then, I'll be hard at work on it! Oh, and I WILL actually play all of them to the extent of checking what settings they support and such. So no one can say I've never played ALL of my games.