The phasing out of PS2, how will they do it?

[WilliamWatts]

binary solo said:

WilliamWatts said:

So long as its selling a few million a year they'll probably keep it on the market. I think perhaps they will fit it with some storage and use it as an experiment in high piracy markets to offer say kiosk or direct downloads for ultra cheap.

There's got to come a point where it's no longer economic to have a factory producing PS2's. I'd like to know what the optimal daily production rate for a PS2 factory is. Once the demand drops to substantially below the optimal factory output then PS2 becomes  less economic to produce, and the unit profit for the system starts to go down. It might not be there yet, but I get the feeling this holiday is going to be pretty rough for the PS2 in most places.

Well there are 8,700 hours in a year. They would have to still produce them at a rate of 114 an hour or one every 30S to keep up with that demand if they were to only make 1 million per year. They'll need more than one factory line to produce at that rate so all they have to do is repurpose/shut them down as they start to idle. Whilst the PS2 is dead in the west, its still got a while to go in the 2nd/3rd world and producing this cheap system is to Sony's obvious advantage as these emerging markets will be much more positive towards playstation because of it. Even if they didn't make much, it still makes sense as an emisary of their brand.