Sony Sees 10-Year Life for PlayStation 2 Console

[jvd]

Welp they wont be selling the psp at a loss because the costs for it wont drop as quickly as a home console and the tech in it is already pushing the boundrys of tech .



As for short term. Well sometimes short term is just that. Short term and it ruins long term goals .

As for the market i would enjoy seeing sony 40% / ms 40% / nintendo 20%

I think that would be best for the market .

because i'm sure if ms never entered the race we wouldn't be talking about a ps3 right now and we would still be talking about a 300$ ps2 .

 

[Nick Laslett]

This is just the sort of announcement I have been waiting for.

Although the sales estimates seems way too high, the message itself is very timely.

Paraphrase Sony "We don't plan on launching the PS3 anytime soon. Developers, you should continue to develop for the PS2. The PSP, PStwo, Eyetoy and Singstar devices will all extend the life of the PS2. Microsoft if you are listening, you can do whatever you want in the console business, because you are not a significant threat."

If you factor in the recent EA presentation where they advise publishers to keep some of the best teams still developing for the PS2. You can see a pattern emerging.

I expect to hear many more messages like this that advise constraint and caution about the next generation. In financial terms we are entering the most profitable period for this generation, but not many companies seem to be experiencing these benefits. A lengthening of the console cycle is very good news indeed.

Things like online gaming, eyetoy and PSP need the PS2 to last a lot longer, so that they can mature.

The Performance Analyser data released last year indicated that the PS2 still has a hugh amount of untapped potential. This is just as true for the other consoles. The GC and Xbox would also benefit greatly from an extended lifespan. A Xbox2 in 2005 just seems too soon.

I know this goes against everything Beyond3d.com stands for, but I'm all for a delay in the next generation. I only come here because you guys understand the hardware and how to code it in a very detailed way. (Which I can just about understand!) I'm not a technology addict. I still use a Pentium II machine circa 1999.

I was not expecting to buy a next gen console at launch and had already made up my mind to wait until Christmas 2008. This may seem like an incredibly long time to most of you, but I am very happy with the games I currently get to play on my PS2 and don't see there being much of a material improvement until the second generation of PS3 games arrives in 2007/8.

I'm more likely to buy an ultra cheap Xbox next year than a next generation console, if I run out of titles I'm interested in on the PS2. £99 Xbox plus Halo2, Fable, Doom3 and Half-Life2 will seem really attractive by then.

 

[jvd]

Paraphrase Sony "We don't plan on launching the PS3 anytime soon. Developers, you should continue to develop for the PS2. The PSP, PStwo, Eyetoy and Singstar devices will all extend the life of the PS2. Microsoft if you are listening, you can do whatever you want in the console business, because you are not a significant threat."

I don't see it that way at all .

Continuing to dev for the ps2 instead of the ps3 (which what has a year and a half till launch) will be very bad for sony .

To me this is like a peacock showing its feathers. Its just for show . Trying to sound confident .

They know how many companys have gone against ms . They know ms is a very strong rival and they would be stupid not to be some what affraid .

Remember once the xbox 2 and ps3 launch sony no longer has the lead . Everyone is in first place just like in baseball .

 

[London Geezer]

because i'm sure if ms never entered the race we wouldn't be talking about a ps3 right now and we would still be talking about a 300$ ps2 .

Wouldn't know about that, but it would have been nice to see how Nintendo would have done in this generation, if they had taken things a bit more seriously and aggressively.

2 "market leaders" would definately be cool, although it's very hard to achieve, or rather impossible...

I think, with PSP and PStwo, Sony will get even more mind-share and name recognition, which will help them a lot when launching PS3. As if they need any help anyway, the thing will be hyped to death by everyone anyway.

Very very much looking forward to see if history will repeat itself.

 

[cthellis42]

But two thirds yet to come? Phsaw. The market isn't going to swing too far THAT way either.

I do believe the origional comment was talking about software. Although hardware should do pretty well itself

Oh, well same bit. I know the PS1 has gotten a number of new titles--I think about half as many as the Xbox or Gamecube since they launched--so software still sells as well, it just won't sell at the same rate either. How much? Not sure, as I haven't seen software figures with the same breakdown as the hardware; both the number sold and the number of individual titles itself are a lot more than the PS2--and I know have still been selling--but I'm not sure what exact comparisons can be drawn since the PS2 launched in each market.

Offhand, I don't think they have another billion-or-so software sales coming before 2010 either, but it'll probably do better ratio-wise than the hardware, I suppose.

 

[wazoo]

I always thought that ps2 would reach 150M. I'm not surprised. PS1 is still strong in Europe.

 

[cthellis42]

It's possible at some point in time, but remember that they're talking about only being 1/3rd through their sales NOW, which points to way too many expected sales in the future...

because i'm sure if ms never entered the race we wouldn't be talking about a ps3 right now and we would still be talking about a 300$ ps2 .

Well, if it were indeed only a two-man game, Nintendo would be much better off. Cheaper, technically superior, AND with basically no 3rd-party problems? That being the case, we'd probably have online features pushed a bit less, but connectivity pushed harder, and with Nintendo having pulled most of Xbox's sales figures in addition. It would likely still strive to keep its lower-priced option--and Sony wouldn't have fought them on that--but there'd probably be even less of a price difference; closer to $50, max of $100. And the better Nintendo would look in comparison, the less Sony could charge above them. (Of course without the added competition, Nintendo probably wouldn't have lowered to $99 either.) We'd probably be at $150/$200, or $200/$250 if each was content to rest at their price points. (And with two players things can get cutthroat, but they can also work with each other on things like that for mutually-beneficial reasons.)

Online gaming adoption would be slower, but Nintendo would probably have pushed it harder than it does now. ^_^