| thismeintiel said:
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? |
No DVD was very important for PS2 success.
Japan went heavy crazy for PS2 one of the biggest reasons was DVD like you can see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4SJKcWbmAI
The PS2 almost shipped 10 million in its first two years in Japan (Took PS3 + 8 years and possible same or a little better for PS4). With that kind of install base it had devs jumping on it to make games and others to even make promised exclusive games for another system go multiplatform.
the DVD for PS2 is basically the FFVII for PS one in Japan they had same huge effect.
