I’m sure this is a surprise to many of you, but until recently Sony was still making and shipping Playstation 2 consoles. Yes, you did read that correctly, I said PS2. Despite having the PS3 on the market and basically ceasing game production on the PS2 Sony was still rolling out PS2 consoles.
According to The Verge, Sony has sold over 150 million PS2 consoles since the system released in October 2000. That is an extraordinary number of consoles in a little over 12 years. Speculation is running rampant that Sony is closing production on the PS2 since the PS4 is rumored to be announced sometime around E3 this year.
It does look like Sony will continue to move forward with a strategy of selling both the current gen and previous gen consoles in this next round of gaming consoles. This is a different move than both Microsoft and Nintendo. Both of those companies pretty much dropped support for their old systems as soon as the new ones launched. Sony’s move to support two generations of consoles is a smart move in part because it keeps gamers buying their brand and staying in the PS2 family.
To be honest, I hadn’t realized that Sony was still making PS2 systems. I think that it is time to move on, especially with the rumored release of the PS4 this year. It will be interesting to see how long Sony supports the PS3 for in the coming years. If its anything like the history with the PS2 then I think there are another 6 years of life left in the PS3.
This makes me a little sad. I didn’t actually have a console until I was 20 and bought a PS2 myself. It was a great entry level console, with a huge affordable library to choose from. Still, they are very durable machines and I bet they’ll be around for years.
I honestly thought they stopped about 3 yrs ago!!!!