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Ryudo on 10 May 2014
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gergroy said:
foxtail said:
gergroy said:

Yeah, there is a reason the gamecube was 100 bucks cheaper too, it didnt have a dvd drive.  Dvd technology was still pretty expensive back in 2000.  Ps2 is actually one of the major reasons it got pushed into the mainstream and drove prices down.  There were a lot of bells and whistles included in the ps2 and xbox that werent included in the gamecube (ie hard drive, usb ports, dvd, etc.). There is a reason they were able to come in at a hundred bucks cheaper.

The Gamecube does use a proprietary version of DVD technology made by Panasonic for it's disc and drive.  

Also the PS2 didn't include a hard drive, and you needed to buy a dongle for DVD movie playback on the Xbox.

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The $100 price advatage only lasted six months before Sony cut the price of PS2 to $199 to match the Gamecube (which in turn dropped to $149).

Also to note around 80% of all PS2 sold were priced at $199 or under.

yes, I know the ps2 didn't have a hard drive, I don't think the xbox had usb ports either, but I could be wrong.  That was just features that either one or both of those consoles had that the gamecube didn't.  

Also, while the gamecube did use a proprietary minDVD technology, it was still a lot cheaper.  Not only was it cheaper to manufacture than the standard dvd drives, but it also cut out the dvd forum that would have charged a fee of 20 per unit just to have dvd technology included.  Not to mention the license fees for each disc printed, etc.  That dongle was Microsofts way of trying to recoup some of the cost going to the dvd forum.  The dvd hardware was already included, all the stupid dongle did was unlock it and let you use a remote.  


Original Xbox controller ports were USB 1.0 but MS changed the ends of  the connectors. So back then many people cut the end off and wrapped the wires with a USB cord and plugged it into the PC.