Did it (Dreamcast) officially go to $50 MSRP? The last price I saw in gaming stores on the systems was $80, and that was a final sale from $100, the last MSRP I'd heard of for the system. I'd not be surprised if some store lowered their price to $50, and everyone jumped to price match, but I've not heard that it was an official price drop before.

As for the Gamecube, yes, that was an Amazon deal. Nintendo's official MSRP bottomed out at $100, though some stores dropped to $80 after the system had been discontinued for a few years already, and retail support from Nintendo was nonexistant. I'd not be surprised, if Nintendo did work out a deal with Amazon to clear out remaining Gamecubes from their storage, since selling leftovers at a loss by 2008 would offset the continuing to pay storage costs.

Like you said, I also don't see the PS2 going to $50. I think that the system will be officially discontinued at the $100 price, and after some months, get dropped to $80 if Sony still has a few more to sell off. There is still enough demand for the PS2 that it won't hit $50, though.

lol ps3 wil sell more soon, just wait and see, it's going to be epic when it happens, and so funny at the same time

Actually, if the strong push for HD DVD and the rushed release of the 360 hadn't forced their hand, I think the PS3 would have released later.  I don't think Sony had the initial production and costs where they really wanted it when they launched PS3, particularly in US and Japan.

The PS2 was selling fine and without the external factors they had no real need to launch when they did - and I doubt at the time they were really worried about the Wii, although of course with hindsight we know they should have been.

Well there you go then. PS2 wasn't the technologically best consol of its time, and it may not have had the most beloved games of all time on it. But damn that thing knew how to sell itself.

Sony could have given in on HDDVD vs Blu-Ray, it was probably mostly ego rather than economics that made them determined to win this format war. They'd lost too many other format wars int he past, they felt they needed a win. But having lost past format wars didn't stop them from being a highly profitable and successful company. Same would have happened here. So they could have delayed the PS3 and simply slapped a HDDVD drive in it instead of Blu-Ray. However as it turned out they really did need to launch PS3 when they did because if they waited until a year after Wii was released they would have been in an even more difficult position, and they still would have had to launch PS3 at the same price (only possibly made slightly less of a loss on it).

Seriously you didn't know the PS2 outsold the 360 and PS3 with ease? Come on man, get real.

They probably figured all they had to do was show up to win. So why not take away the format war at the same time? :-p Though in any case I doubt that HD-DVD would have won even if the PS3 had been delayed. Sony's reputation with the PS2 and their own movie studios pretty much sealed that deal.

This makes me want to buy a PS2 again :P

Agreed.  I think when they decided to put PS3 front and centre against HD DVD they felt they could survive the inevitable initial high price at launch due to brand dominance and that they'd recover any lost momentum via price cuts on the back of production improvements at a later stage.

Instead, of course, the Wii became the real PS2 (saleswise for consoles sold) of the generation and the 360 surprised them by gaining a very stubborn and firm grip on the predominately English speaking markets, particularly US and UK.  I think MS also suprised Sony with the aggresiveness with which they pursued timed and other exclusives.

They did here in the U.K, 'worldwide launch' my arse!

I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised by the PS2 sales in the last few years.  I think it will keep the title of 'best selling platform' until November, which I think sounds reasonable.

I suspect the surprise was how effective their early exclusives were in the first two years of the generation and the luck they had. Its a big list of games really and Microsoft came out with all their big guns in the first few years and made some feats which Sony haven't matched to this day -> 10M and 5M selling exclusives, with the latter being new I.P.