The bottom of the line, budget DVD player that Sony had released in 2001 was the DVP-NS300 which had a MSRP of $199.00.

So that may have been the case for you to get a $50 discount on a new Sony player, but it is uncommon for retailers to cut that much off the MSRP of a product the first year that model is introduced. 

Below is Sony’s 2001 lineup for standalone single Disc DVD players:

• DVP-NS300     2001   MSRP: $199.00
• DVP-NS400D  2001   MSRP: $249.99
• DVP-NS500P  2001    MSRP: $300.00  Progressive scan
• DVP-NS700P  2001    MSRP: $349.00  Progressive scan

As you can see $199 was the lowest MSRP, but Sony had higher price points for better models.

In the overall market in 2001 the average price of a DVD player was also $193. – source

The PS2 came out in October 26, 2000 in North America.  2001 was its first full year in that market.

In 2001, almost a total of 13 Million DVD players (incl PS2) were sold in the United States.

In 2001, 8.41 Million PS2s were sold in North America.

So there the PS2 sold better than all other DVD players combined in 2001.

65% of all DVD players sold there in 2001 were PS2s.

In May of 2002, when the PS2 was reduced to only $199, it made it all the more attractive as a reasonably priced Game and DVD player combo.

End of 2019.

Q4 2019

Jesus Christ (our saviour), there are still people who pedal the notion that the PS2 sold so well because of it's DVD player. The thing reached 100 million units in 2005, by then Blu-ray players were out and DVD players were $40. It went on to sell another 55 million units after that, was that because it played DVD's or because it had by far the best game library of any console to date for cheap? I'd say the latter.

I think you are taking things out of context, nobody is saying PS2 wouldnt have a been a huge success without a DVD player, they are just saying it was a big contributing factor.

Early on in its life a console that doubled as a DVD player right out of the box was a big deal in the major markets like US, Europe, Japan and later on in its life it was a big deal for developing countries.

It was this one.

2001 We got this for $150 bucks is all I know.

Price and library were a factor for that last $50 Million, as you said.

In March 31, 2006 the PS2 was at 103.69 Million total WW.

In April 2006 the PS2 price was cut to $129.

With Price and library the PS2 outsold the PS3 for a few quarters in hardware (and sometimes software too).

see chart below:

See but what people are suggesting when they say this is that the PS2 sold on a fad, as a casual non gamer product. But the software sales and attach rate completely say otherwise and outclass any Nintendo console for example, you know, completely dedicated gaming consoles with no multimedia functions?

I don't doubt that in the early days of the PS2 the DVD functionality at least pushed people over the edge on getting a PS2, but even then the PS4 sold much faster than the PS2 at launch, entirely on the premise of being a dedicated home console. 

The thing is, the argument for Nintendo Wii being a casual console for example actually has solid evidence to back it up, all you need to do is look at the decline and the WiiU's failure. But the PS2 DVD craze narrative holds much less weight when you consider 1) Software attach rate and 2) the fact that 2 other consoles in the brand name have sold or are going to sell over 100 million units, and the only reason PS3 didn't was because of launching for $200 more than the competition 1 year later.

60 millions sold now.

so : -75 millions shipped for the end of fiscal year (march 2018)
93 millions shipped for the end of 2019 fiscal year.
100 millions sold near the end of 2019.

Here you go

Lol'ed at people (mostly nintendo ""fans"") saying never.

The truth is it seems to pain people to see Sony on top so much that they have to explain it away with other things besides games.  When the PS2 launched, you could get a DVD player for less than $100.  There's absolutely no way people were paying $300 for a PS2 to play DVDs.  And the high attach rate for SW proves it.  Like I said before, people became interested in DVDs because they had a PS2. Not the other way around.  Weird how the Xbox did DVD, too, yet sold a lot less. Hmmm.

I guess PS1 only did so well because it could play CDs.  . So, what's the excuse for the PS4? Bluray?