Time To Put The PS2 DVD Myth To Rest

[TruckOSaurus]

thismeintiel said:

TruckOSaurus said:
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.

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. 

I don't remember DVD players being this low when I got my PS2. They were considered a luxury item back then because they were so expensive. I don't think you can write off the possibility of people buying the console only for the DVD playback but it must have been a very limited amount of buyers that didn't game at all on it. 

But to early adopters like me, the DVD player certainly helped "justify" my purchase because at launch there wasn't much to play on PS2 (thank God for Tekken Tag Tournament).