PS2 largely pulled away IMO because Microsoft stupidly decided to get involved in the game industry. That basically cut the competition in half, so instead of having one central competitor, it was divided into two.

IMO, MS should've pushed harder for a deal with Nintendo and thrown their support behind the GameCube, then you would've had a more competitive hardware generation. And yes Nintendo should have been less stubborn and realized that allowed some Windows CE to run on the back end was a small price to pay to not have another massive company to compete against. 

That was more of a factor than DVD.

It is an absolute fact that having a DVD player helped drive sales. All features do. It is debatable how many sales occurred that otherwise would not have. But, it is not debatable that the number is greater than zero.

I tend to agree that it probably wasn't a huge factor. But, if you're trying to justify the purchase to yourself, or your wife, or whoever, and you can say "If I buy this thing for $300, we won't have to buy that other thing for $150", it becomes a lot easier to justify.

Also, it should be noted that the OP mentions the low black friday (and other) sale prices of DVD players, but does not mention that the PS2 was also frequently discounted and bundled. Discounts, at least in the US, happen on almost all products, almost all of the time.

But but but Black Friday prices, where they have millions of the deals in store rather than just 20 per store for a great deal

We know everyone thinks like you correct? The bolded runs contrary to your argument and the underlined is just your reasoning why you think that happened, you can't possibly claim to know the intenet of 155 million households? Hell we have people in this thread saying they bought it for the DVD player and the gaming was the added feature.  I'm not one that has said it only sold because of the DVD functionality but it seems like you are grasping at straws and some of your assertations seem a bit off base (i.e. black friday pricing that happens one day out of the year and with VERY limited amounts of stock)

I don't think you would have wanted that.  MS has a way of worming themselves into things, just to eventually take them over.  A Nintendo run by MS would not have been a pretty picture.  At least not if you look at how they handled Rare.

Actually, no, that didn't happen all the time.  Mostly because the game companies handled the prices themselves.  The Black Friday ad I posted showing the $18 DVD player also advertised the PS2 for $149.  Which is the price Sony dropped it in May of that year.  Same goes for Kmart and Target.  Walmart didn't even advertise it.  And Toys R Us was actually selling it for $220 with a few add-ins.  In fact, 2005, which saw no official price cut was exactly the same.  Best Buy - $149.  Kmart - $149.  Target - $149.  Walmart - $149.  A lot has changed in the past decade or so. 

So, 2 years of the PS2 being $149, while a DVD player would only set you back $20-$30.  $50-$60 for a nice one.

That doesn't run contrary at all.  And the underlined is the reason for the vast majority of people who bought the PS2.  Otherwise, the attach ratio wouldn't have been so high.  Instead it almost doubled that of the DS, which sold almost the same amount as the PS2. So, yea, I'll use actual data to prove my points, not anecdotal evidence from a few random people online.

Also, funny how you latch onto someone showing the more top of the line models and their crazy prices, while I actually show proof of the lower end.  The $99 price was in fact Black Friday pricing, which I never claimed it wasn't.  However, those that ranged from $149-$159 were not priced for Black Friday.  It also doesn't change the fact that by 2003, you could get a DVD player for under $50.  Yes, these were lower end models, but guess what, so was the DVD player found in the PS2.  No one who wanted the best quality video was going to get a PS2.  And those looking to get a cheap DVD player would have gotten a $50 one.

Back in the year 2000, BEFORE the PS2 launched, I bought a Sony DVD player for under the price of a PS2. The myth that the PS2 was the cheapest DVD player and thus, dominated based on that, has always been just that... a myth.

The PS2 destroyed Nintendo and Microsoft because it had a stone cold LOCK on third party games.

It certainly did affect its sales but not so much like Sony was hoping.  Sony clearly hoped that Blu Ray would has the same effect as DVD did for PS2.

They even went so far to ask retailers to not only put it in the game section but also in the DVD/blu ray player and came even with bundles that only had movies (and oh boy people were pissed on Vgchartz)

Man they used to market it as the cheapest gaming console that could play DVDs. Most my friends even used it as a DVD player. I was the only one who had a dedicated DVD player. Not every region in the world had cheap DVD players and the ones that were cheap had shit picture quality compared to a good dvd player and the PS2.


With PS3 they went a step further and if you bought a Sony LCD TV you would get a a free BluRay Player / Game Console. During that promo of three months in AUS about 70,000 units got moved with TVs. They even use to market it a the worlds cheapest BluRay player.


I don't see how this is a problem though. It moved units it worked it got them sales.

LOL.  I actually decided to run through these links.  Oh, boy.  Edits in bold.