14 DAY TRIAL // Sony hasn’t had the greatest holiday season, as its PlayStation 3 console didn't register the same big sales that the company expected and fell well under the Nintendo Wii and the Xbox 360, its Arch rivals. But things aren't all bad for the Japanese company, as the old PlayStation 2 is still selling strong.
We recently reported that, according to a study, the PS2 was still the most played console in North America, overtaking other products like the strong selling Nintendo Wii or the Xbox 360. Now, it seems that all of this chart success is translating into some very big aggregated sales, as Sony announced that it had sold over 50 million PlayStation 2 consoles in North America alone, which is a very impressive milestone.
Quick to comment was John Koller, the director of hardware marketing at Sony Computer Entertainment America, who attributed such a success to the fact that currently, it is the lowest-priced console, at 129.99 dollars, and that its target demographic prefers it due to the massive game library available on the market. He went on to say that such a success would continue, as Sony still had plans to launch games and other features for the old console until 2010.
“It's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy; as it continues to sell, development continues, and consumers continue to buy,” Koller said. “There's such a wide range of entertainment experiences available that I think it would be very difficult for people to complain, 'this console doesn't have anything that appeals to me'. The only way to kill the PS2 business is to stop supporting it. With the lineup for 2009 and 2010, the PS2 is not going away anytime soon.”
Although things aren't looking very good for its older brother, the PS3, it seems that Sony can still count on the PS2 to register decent sales and drive the company forward, despite the rumors that the Japanese electronics company is in trouble and will employ major cost-cutting measures to maintain a marginal profit.