Wednesday, January 14th 2009
Sony's PlayStation 2 Reaches Sales Milestone
Announced nine years ago back in 2000, Sony's PlayStation 2 is without a doubt a major success for the company. The console is so good in fact, that today Sony said it has sold 50 million PlayStation 2 units in North America alone, a new milestone. Sales of the iconic console still remain strong, although now we have new consoles like PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. According to the most recently available figures from the NPD Group, which tracks U.S. sales only, in November Americans bought 206,000 units of the PlayStation 2. These are some remarkable numbers. In comparison, Microsoft's original Xbox console sold a total of 14.5 million units and is already long gone. Nintendo's GameCube, another PS2 competitor, sold 12 million units in North America, not even close to PS2 numbers. Today PlayStation 2 costs roughly $130, down from its original $300 price tag from nine years ago, and still offers the latest game titles, emulation of some PS1 titles, video and audio DVD playback, and a numerous hacks that allow installing desktop hard drives, playing of DivX movies, running spare copies of games and so on.
Source:
Associated Press
16 Comments on Sony's PlayStation 2 Reaches Sales Milestone
I wouldn't say it's much of a suprise. When 360 released I had 3 friends who bought one and swore by it. PS3 released I got one and no one else really did. Then 2 friends got them after I got mine, and now those 3 with 360's picked up PS3's and don't use the 360's much. Free online gaming and blu-ray support, can't go wrong. The only advantage 360 has is the red ring of death (Game Informer said at E3 they only ran across 1 person who had never replaced their 360 was in the same article) and the fact that they sell a 20GB version (worthless). But that 20gb pulls people in.
**EDIT** Just found you a source, check out vgchartz.com. The sales chart shows PS3 outselling 360 by quiet a bit until the summer 360 took a mild leap, then PS3 was back ahead till september, the holiday season 360 trounced PS3. So really 8 out of the 12 months the PS3 was sales leader, I don't see that as getting "poor sales".
I heard somewhere that the ps2 "slims" have a little bit faster processor than the original. Is this true? I still have the original and would love to see GTA: San Andreas run a little smoother :D.
If not, is there a way to overclock or put in some different parts?
i also remember reading that the red ring of death was caused by hardware defect from the manufacturing level... for the record. that and microsoft was servicing and replacing 360s for free speaks pretty highly of thier service IMO.
i do like how sony continues support for ps2, especially how they came out with that slim model. reminds me of the late model tiny little SNES that nintendo made :-)