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PS2 Price Cut On The Way?
GameDailyBiz reports on analyst predictions of an upcoming PS2 price cut. From the article: "Although some analysts have said a price cut to $99 for the aging console would be a possibility, Sebastian believes the cut would be a more moderate $20 drop. 'We now believe a price cut on Sony's PS2 is more than likely ahead of the E3 video game conference. Specifically, our industry checks indicate that Sony is planning to cut the PS2 price to $129 from the current $149 before the end of this month,' he said."
All the next gen systems coming out, its really no surprise.
I'm a Book
On the Bookshelf
I guess people need to replace all of their broken PS2s these days anyway. Wouldn't want to move to the NEXT generation anytime soon.
But bundle it at that price with Guitar Hero and maybe we'll talk.
Since when did it take an analyst to work out that a competitor has a new console out, a new model is due later in the year and there's a shed load of these still to sell so we'll drop the price bit by bit to get rid of them.
Isn't this standard practice, do we need to be told this is what is expected?
Common sense is not so common
If Sony had dropped the price of the PS2 to less than $100 and managed to get some more greatest hits out and somehow get a big sale going on games a week before the 360 was released, they could've done a fair bit of damage.
Oh well. My PS2 is on it's way to the grave anyway...
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
You know, this actually makes some real sense. Look how long the Dreamcast managed to survive after its death due to the hack that allowed the "homebrew scene". Of course, the same hack may well have been what killed the Dreamcast, but that's a controllable factor. Lock out unlicensed games during hte profitable period in the system's life. Then eventually something new comes out, and the games aren't selling like they used to. But most likely, the cost of production of the system has gone way down. So now you turn things around. Allow the homebrew folks to produce cheap games (and if there's some piracy in there too, don't worry too much) -- and make money off of selling the hardware for the first time. Interesting.
and one is going in the bathroom.
Ant
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they could have done this a year ago. the parts in the ps2 are really old. if the gamecube can go for 99 so can the ps3.
"...I was thinking the best solution for Sony to capitalize on their losses"
What losses? PS2 is still the most profitable video game system.
"...release the PS2 as open-source or cheaply licensable and give others access to making new hardware, new software and new accessories."
Yeah, because the OSS version of the PS2 wouldn't compete with the PS3 and dig into their future profits. What the heck are you smoking?
"Imagine a gaming console that can be accessed by the millions of developers, programmers, amateurs and third parties that could make things better."
It's called a PC with a 3D graphics card. I'm sure I'll get modded into oblivion for standing up against an OSS viewpoint, however.
I remember back when the 360 was getting ready to come out that it was rumored Sony was going to drop the price on the PS2 to compete since the PS3 wasn't ready yet. At that time I told myself, the instant the PS2 hits $100, I'd get one.
So I have another 2 years to wait? Sony's already *lost* the money on the production of these things. Least they can do now is try to recoup some of it so the losses on the PS3 will hurt slightly less.
"make money off of selling the hardware for the first time."
It's a common misconception that game consoles always sell at a loss, mostly propogated by the amount of press Microsoft gave out about their X-Box business plan when that console was released. Fact is, Nintendo and Sony make money on the hardware.
Allowing homebrew games on a console would suck out a lot of the profit for the console producer, so it will probably never happen.
That's not an entirely fair comparison, a PC with a graphics engine is considerably easier for an amateur developer to work with than a PS2. If the PS2 was OSSed, I'd expect some emulator engines (ScummVM, NES, SNES) to pop up (along with shady side businesses selling emulator+roms) and maybe a few demos and trivial games, but that's about it. Maybe, maybe, a few years down the road we get a couple of decent homebrew games and a bunch of niche games and ports, but I wouldn't expect to see an explosion of user developed content. The PS2 is just to hard to develop for. While it might be kind of fun to see tuxracer running on a PS2, it's pure novelty.
I could see Sony releasing a PS1 development environment for free now, since it'd be a decent teaching tool and wouldn't cut into their profit margin (nobody licenses the PSx development engine anymore AFAIK), but even that is a bit of a streach.
I read the internet for the articles.
I need to get a PS2 to play "Hogs Of War" PSX since I can't find any memory cards for my PSX. I get a lot of strange looks at stores when I ask about PSX memory cards.
With a total of 17 comments I can see the sheer exitement and fervor this will stir up! Honestly if I were buying a current gen system at this point, I and most others would buy a Gamecube. It is $59 used at most places or $99 with a $60 game like Mario Party 7 included new.
Sure the PS2 has some solid titles, but nothing that would make you jump on one if you didn't already own one by now and need a replacement. At least Zelda TP for GC is coming up soon. The only title would be Okami for PS2 that could possibly move some units after the drop in price.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
That is pretty much where Nintendo is heading with the Revolution, and with the much lower cost to develop for the GC (revo) it makes much more sense.
Sony will never be able to "open" up the dev tools for the PS2 due to the licensing issues. Nintendo is the only one in a position to make all or part of theirs open... or even the SNES toolkit. Mode 7 and other features offer a lot of room to work still.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Allowing homebrew games on a console would suck out a lot of the profit for the console producer, so it will probably never happen.
In which way would allowing homebrew on the PlayStation 1 console suck money away from Sony? There aren't any new commercial PS1 titles coming out anyway that they would compete with.
Interesting, I wasn't aware of the licensing issues. That's too bad, maybe Sony can renegotiate some of them, hmm.
:)
By the way, bizarre-host.com suspended your account, will it get back running soon? I'm interested in your topic
I love this. Everytime someone says "PS2 was sold at a loss", someone turns around and says that this is groupthink and a myth. Then they "prove" it by linking to a blog with zero references (quite ironic). Seems to me like everyone is off their "gord".
I don't see how making PS2 open source would help them at all. Everybody on the planet already knows what a PS2 is, even my aunt who refers to everything else as a "gameboy" so they don't need the publicity. Secondly, consoles hardly make any money through hardware sales. As we have seen with the PS1, sony will continue to pump out games for quite some time and any free games would really cut into those sales. Sony still sells their old games and people still buy them. I know quite a few people who buy nothing but the games in the Greatest Hits lineup because they are affordable, all of these games could be considered old games. You keep talking about a resurgance of support and I never even noticed that "support" left in the first place.
So far, I've paid less than $100 each for my GameCube and xBox - now to pick up a PS2 for the same price!
ah, it's good to be behind the tech adoption curve - stuff is always cheaper, like my 2.6 GHz 752MB 11b/g laptop that only cost $500, so I could spend my money on going to Vancouver with my girlfriend this weekend (total cost around $400 for the full trip).
you can spend your money on adopting tech early, and get less sex.
or you can spend your money later after the tech wave, and get more sex.
I vote for the latter.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Yes, Sony's dev systems employ many licensed bits that would be a nightmare to even think of opening. That is one of the biggest problems with Sony, the propriety of everything they do and the total reliance on outside tools. Just as they are so dependent on IBM right now to get a solid compiler and dev tools for the cell.
BTW: My site is back up and running: www.revolutioninsider.info
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
The PS2 has a much larger library and cheaper games for it. The DS can provide some experiences the PS2 can't, but the opposite is also true - try DDR, any of the EyeToy games, or Guitar Hero with the DS and see how well that works for you.
That's not even a valid comparison, really. It's like comparing crayons to ballpoint pens. They both do the same thing on the surface, but beyond that...there's not really they've got in common.
Goo goo g'joob.
Mod: +1 railing against injust moderators
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
I'd expect some emulator engines
Ahh, yes. I remember the brief period in time when Connectix sold a PS2 emulator (Connectix Virtual Game Station). They even withstood the lawsuit Sony threw at them. But then they sold it to.... Sony.
Oh well, there were a few months when my Mac was a kick-ass game machine.
That's one of the biggest pitfalls for projects that try to get orphaned games open-sourced. The groups contact the company (if the company even exists) and are often told, "We'd love to do that, but there're these licensing issues with dozens of different companies and it would simply cost us too much to do it".
The Connectix VGS was a Ps1 emulator. To date there are no fully fuctioning Ps2 emulators and most likely won't be one for some time as the PS2 is notoriously difficult to program and has rather unorthodox hardware compared to a PC.
One would think IBM actually designing the bulk of the cell processor would have something to do with that...IBM also developed the processor in the 360 as well as the CPU of the Revolution. No matter who loses this round, IBM wins.
then something tells me your girlfriend isn't as satisfied as you'd like to think. Then again, the fact that she's your girlfriend tells me that.
The ps2 despite being extremely expensive to manufacture initially due to the size fo the main chips has been profitable from purely a hardware standpoint after the first 2 million units were shipped. The software sale is where the bulk of the profits came from and it was great enough to have a large impact on sony's bottomline.
The xbox on the other hand has been bleeding tons of cash. I don't think it's ever had a profitable quarter and they've lost up to one billion per year.
Hmmm... Pie...
I'm sure I'll get modded into oblivion for standing up against an OSS viewpoint, however.
Well, maybe if it had been an honest and/or thoughtfull OSS viewpoint. Hell, I'm not sure it was even an OSS viewpoint at all. That, my friend, was a garden varietty troll, having a bit of fun...and you bit the hook.
I mean, come on...."the whole Will-MS-buyout-Sony situation" ...you kidding me?
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
Hardware-wise IBM is in a win-win, but they are only really prevalent in the dev tools with the PS3. IBM and a number of developers have already admitted the tools are lacking and are not utilizing the cell fully, and IBM is working hard at fixing that. The only problem is that the PS3 is only one small piece of the cell puzzle. The cell is going to be used in a number of devices going forward, and with arguably the most complex use being first in line does not bode well for having mature and full-fledged dev systems. There will be a massive lag where the technology is ahead of the tools most likely a year or even more after the PS3 drops... that ain't good.
I'm more interested in seeing how it all unfolds from the outside this time, I have zero plans of buying a PS3 and have no vested interest in it this time, so I can just be a passive observer and watch how it turns out. I actually don't have a lot of faith in the system as far as initial sales, and I think that will be one of the nails in the coffin.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
I could have sworn I was using it for PS2 games, but looking back it appears I was hallucinating.