By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
DekutheEvilClown on 17 May 2026
Edit Thread
bdbdbd said:
DekutheEvilClown said:

The survey referenced in the article does not seem to actually say that though? The survey says 6% of people bought it as a DVD player only.

You also need to understand that the PS2 launched in Japan earlier than the west, by over half a year, when DVD players would have cost more than they did by the time of the western lunch. So, it’s possible that some people them are buying it solely for DVDs but that effect would diminish quickly over time as DVD players got cheaper much faster than the PS2 received price reductions, and the PS2 DVD player quality would be quickly outdated. 6% of people that bought the PS2 in its launch month in Japan would be a tiny number of overall buys, less than 0.1% of total lifetime owners. 

Japan had DVD-players long before west had them. Since 1996? Especially in Europe PS2 was among the first DVD-players, so it's very likely that more people had PS2 as a DVD player in the west than they had in Japan. Secondly, it's not just how many bought it overall as DVD-players, but also when did they buy it as such. Especially at the time of the launch it was cheap and also had the Sony brand. 

PS2 had it's first price cut a year after it's release and every two years after that, if I recall.

The point about timing is because DVD players started 2000 very expensive, and ended the year available sub $100 for budget brands. So, the PS2 launching in March in Japan vs. October in the USA, and November for Europe is extremely important to the understanding of how much value the DVD playback feature offered. The value of the DVD player basically got worse with time, price cuts of the PS2 never overtook the rate that DVD players fell. DVD players also got better over time while the PS2 never did, and didn’t even include a remote out of the box. The value proposition of the PS2 as a primary DVD player was terrible by the time it launched in the west, and abysmal within a year or two.