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Sony Drops PS2 Price to $129

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the get-em-while-they're-hot dept.

Conradq writes "Effective immediately, consumers can purchase the PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system for a suggested retail price (SRP) of $129.99. Previously the console was priced at $149. The company opted for a subtle reduction in price ahead of this years E3, instead of a more dramatic $99 drop."

5 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. They Just Don't Get It by zoomba · · Score: 1, Interesting

    With the GameCube already below that price, and with all the next gen consoles coming out right now, staying above $100.00 is stupid. It's too much money for a platform that is going to be abandoned within a year. We've already seen a dramatic drop in current-gen sales as everyone is waiting for their next-gen console of choice.

    Considering how old the PS2 is now, and how little life it has left in it, this just serves as further proof that Sony is out of touch with the US market. It bodes ill for what they will end up doing with the PS3. Nothing will kill Sony faster than a next-gen console that retails at the core package for $400-500 (and probably considerably more for the Ultimate pack that includes such peripherals as game pads, the power cord and maybe a drive to read the discs.)

  2. YOU Just Don't Get It by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    With the GameCube already below that price, and with all the next gen consoles coming out right now, staying above $100.00 is stupid.

    Even with all the other platforms coming out PS2 STILL outsells all the other consoles even at the more expensive $150 price point? Remember, Sony can drop the price of PS2 again at the drop of a hat, but you can never go back UP in price.

    1. Re:YOU Just Don't Get It by gormanly · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And don't forget that over their lifetimes both the Xbox and GameCube have been pushed for sales by the PS1, which has averaged 80-85% of their shipments despite being a generation back and sitting next to the (obviously superior, even to an idiot) PS2 on many retailer's shelves. It will be very interesting if Sony can pull off that quiet trick again...

  3. You Just Don't Get It by ivan256 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They're sitting back and raking in profits. People keep buying them, even at $149.

    Considering how old the PS2 is now, and how little life it has left in it, this just serves as further proof that Sony is out of touch with the US market.

    Considering sales, and the similar situation they had when the PSOne came out, it's clear that they're well in touch with the US market. PS2 is still outselling the Xbox360, and there's no reason to expect that it will stop any time between now and when the 360 exits the market.

    The day the 360 came out, the original Xbox was dead. A big 'Fuck You' to everybody who purchased one in the last two years, simply because Microsoft was too stupid to figure out how to make a profit on the hardware over the long term. Buy a Microsoft console, and you get an average of 3 years of service out of the platform. Buy a Sony console and get an average of 10 years... You think parents don't see that when they buy a console for their kids?

  4. Re:Sony USA is lowering the prices, sure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Contra-wise, personal experience and studies I think I read but can't seem to recall the address to (too lazy to google) suggest the opposite is true. Many years ago I was a 0 day distributor on a certain IRC network and I was seeing (and not cam'ing, i hated cam's from the beginning) a movie or two every week with one of the other a-ops. The games I play I pay for, some I have multiple copies of. Similar to the music industry, where purchased music increased with the release and popularization of napster, other media forms actually gain from increased coverage, even when it means increased rick of piracy.

    As a music example, I recently downloaded the entire Alanis Morisette Discography because I think I liked a track I heard back in the mid 90's on Jagged Little Pill - it is very, very...in fact it's straight impossible that I would have walked into a Virgin Records store and bought her entire discography at $15 a CD or w/e on a hunch I might have liked a single song - on the plus side, it is very possible people flipping through my shared files on my server at LANs will copy some of her work and she will be introduced to new crowds, and her name might just get around more and be popularized further. Even a possible increase in fanbase is better than no increase at all, which is what would happen without internet piracy by my hand. Consider also that at some point or other I actually owned Jagged Little Pill on cassette, and threw it out when I no longer had cassette players in my house - so frankly I've already payed my due for that album, and the others I call taxation for popularization.

    Studies that suggest lost revenue due to piracy usually involve the assumption I would buy everything I download, which is sort of like when Enron got into electricity and made quarterly reports for surplus based on what they potentially could have in the future. It's poor economics, and if the RIAA/MPAA were a company, they would be pushing themselves for a comparable stock dive to Enron.