I decided to make this thread because I have noticed a myth being thrown out there as fact on a few threads.  Mainly those talking about the PS2's sales compared to the PS4's.

The myth goes like this...When the PS2 launched in late 2000 WW, it was around the same price as a cheap DVD player, so many just picked it up to have the benefits of a DVD player, that they might decide to occassionally play games on.  It's mainly used as a way to either explain the PS2's success and/or explain why the PS4 can't match the PS2.  There's one big glaring problem with that.  It's a big, fat lie.  Well, at least an ignorance on the subject.

You see, in late 2000, you could pick up a cheap DVD player for around $150, or half the price of a PS2.  Here's a link to a blog where they were looking for the $99 DVD players announced in a Yahoo News article (sadly this is not archived), but only found ones not discounted.  Searching online, they found GE and Zenith models for ~$149, a Samsung for $160, and Walmart had a GE player for $139.  And during the holidays, especially Black Friday, you could pick up one for $99, or 1/3 the price of a PS2.  The site in the first link got a bunch of replies from their readers and wrote another article about the $99 players being available for Black Friday.

This myth gets even sillier the further you look into the PS2's lifetime.  You see DVD players dropped in price quite quickly.  By 2003, they could be bought for under $50.  Keep in mind that this was less than 1/3 the price of the then $179 PS2.  Here is a Black Friday ad from 2004, that advertises a DVD player for under $18.  That's less than 1/8th the price of the then $149 PS2.  This price thing is also silly, as it does not explain why the Xbox, which was the exact same price as the PS2, wasn't also bought as a cheap DVD player.  Are people really going to try and say that a required $30 DVD kit was all that was stopping consumers from buying the Xbox en masse?

There is something else that disproves the DVD player myth.  SW attach ratios.  It's just like how we can prove the PS3 wasn't bought by millions upon millions of for its Bluray player function.  The PS3's SW attach ratio is basically tied with the 360's, which only used a DVD drive.  If there were so many people who bought it for Bluray, the attach ratio would have been MUCH smaller.  Similarly with PS2, its attach ratio would have been much lower if 25M+ of its sales were mainly for DVD use.  Instead it is right there behind the 360 and PS3, with just one less game bought per console, at 10.5:1.  And it's attach ratio is also very similar to the Xbox's.

So, I think it is time to put this ridiculous myth to rest.  It's obvious the PS2 sold so well because it had 3 things most PS systems have.  Great price.  Great 1st party support.  Great 3rd party support.  It's the same reason the PS4 is doing so well.  Granted, I don't think the PS4 will match the PS2, but 100M+ is pretty much guaranteed.  Thoughts?

Do you think it would have sold the same without the DVD player if the price stayed the same? Do you think PS3 would have sold at $599 if it didn't have a BluRay player?

They added value to the system and dual use stopped them from being packed away or collecting dust.

I mean, the PS3 was the cheapest Blu-Ray player, that sure didn't affect its sales. All the proof we should need.

Crazy that gaming consoles sell depending on their gaming content.

You are using the assumption that people wanted Blu-ray player compared to the want and demand of DVD player.

Sony originally wasn't going to have DVD playback with the PS2.  With DVD playback, the PS2 required three microprocessors as opposed to two without DVD playback.  So would the PS2 have been cheaper if there were no DVD playback?  Reasonably, yes.

outside English speaking countries were technologies are quicker to arrive and to get cheaper, PS2 was a dvd player. and it was largely used. ALL of my friends who could have opted between console chose a PS2 for the ability to play DVD too. I think that we cannot rewind time and we cannot have an answer not be able to re-write history.

But I am thinking... would SONY have added a dvd player option to make it more expensive knowing that this would have not drive any sales?

the answer is NO! Even Sony knew it would have sold better if they added a DVD player!

Yes, it would have been able to sell the same.  When you could get a DVD player for 1/8th the price of the PS2, the DVD function means nothing.  It's just a nice feature to use when not gaming.  I mean, at that point you could get a Gamecube and a DVD player for $120, or $30 less than the PS2.  Yet, strangely, nobody really did.  Why?  Because the PS2 offered what PS consoles always offer (minus cheap price for the PS3.)  And the PS2 could have probably been a little cheaper if it didn't have DVD playback, which would have helped sales, as well.

I know, right.  It's like some can't except that the DS AND PS2 sold on their gaming content, so have to explain away the PS2's success.  I could easily just explain DS's success on being able to hack it easily, and that's the only reason it even got close to the PS2.  I mean, its attach ratio is almost half that of the PS2, right?  Of course, that also would be silly.

The DVD player did help sell the PS2 but I agree that the period where the PS2 was seen as a reasonable purchase for someone wanting a good quality DVD player vs standalone DVD players was very short.

As for my personal experience, I bought the PS2 at launch and for the first year, it did serve more as a DVD player than a game console. Back then, there used to be only one or two copies of movies on DVD at the video rental store and they were never rented out because so few people had DVD players. I loved going in and being able to get all the new releases without the fear of all copies being gone.

I know a lot of family members that had a PS2 just as a DVD player, just saying. I owned one for the games of course with my favorite being Dragon Quest 8 but in Japan and other countries (India) where DVD was just coming out and PS2 being a DVD player...we can't deny that aspect didn't sell PS2s. 100M is possible but we're not hitting 155 million. Just not happening. We can't act like everybody is losing audeinces to other technologies and only Sony is immune to it. Every company is losing some of it's audience/install base to other more readily available and cheaper forms of entertainment.

Personally, I would say that period was practically non-existent.  I mean, for the poorer among us, $139 for the normal price at Wal-Mart, and $99 during Black Friday, would have been the way to go.  For the middle class who had little to no interest in gaming and wanted to spend a little more, a $200 player would have done nicely.  According to this site, ~$200 was the actual average price of a DVD player in 2000.  And for the videophiles, there is no way they would have purchased the PS2 for its "2nd rate" DVD player and features.  They would have gone for a standalone $299-$399 unit, instead.

As for your 2nd paragraph, that's what happens with most systems.  Hell, I watch Youtube, Netflix, and Blurays more than I game on my PS4.  But, I didn't buy it for those features.  Like I said before, those are just icing on the cake.  Things you do while not gaming.  If you had to buy a $50 player to do those same things, it wouldn't really change your gaming purchase.  Just like the PS3 would have done the same even if it launched with Netflix out of the gate, but 360 didn't have it all gen.  And I'm pretty sure the XBO had more streaming apps at launch than the PS4.  Might still have more.  But, no one is choosing a system for those things.