People always talk about dog years, or cat years, but what about video game console years?
It's hard to know what that math is, but one thing is certain: Sony's PlayStation 2 turned 9 years old Wednesday, and it sure feels like the best-selling video game console of all time has been around a whole lot longer than that.
Yet even though we're already more than three years into the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360/Wii console generation, the PS2 is still going strong. Routinely, month after month, its sales are in six figures--146,000 in September in the United States alone, according to The NPD Group--and there's no reason to think the 485 (and counting) developers who have made games for the platform are going to stop any time soon.
The PS2 turned 9 on Wednesday. What's that in video game years, if dog and cat years are equal to 7 human years?
(Credit: Sony)In large part, that's because there are millions of people for whom the world-beating processing power of the PS3 and the Xbox 360, and the graphics-so-good-you-can-see-beads-of-sweat-on-sports-players'-bodies aren't worth paying several hundred dollars for. For $100, they say, you can get one heck of a good video game playing experience with a PS2.
It "still holds a place in my heart--there's so many great games with huge amounts of replay value," said Michael Steavenson, a public relations professional who bought his PS2 around 2001. "I'm not so interested in blazingly fast processing speeds, graphics that make games look like a movie, or uber-cutting-edge hardware stats. If the game is well-designed, fun to play, and provides me with a good emotional connection, I'll play it forever."
According to Sony, one out of every three U.S. households owns a PS2, and, worldwide, almost 140 million people have one. To date, Americans have bought more than half a billion PS2 games, and all told, nearly 10,000 titles have been released for the platform. Not bad for a machine that has earned the right to be living out its golden years sitting on a porch somewhere, smoking a cigar and grumbling about kids these days.
... Read moreWhen Sony argues, as it frequently does these days, that its video game consoles have a 10-year life cycle, critics often assume the company is just trying to make the point that its PlayStation 3 has many years left in which to become the dominant machine of the current generation.
The PlayStation 2 has been on the market for nearly nine years, proving there may well be truth to Sony's claim of a 10-year console life cycle.
(Credit: Sony Computer Entertainment of America)There may be some truth to that interpretation, but at the same time, Sony does indeed have a point, as evidenced by the continued strong performance of its PlayStation 2, a console it has sold more than 140 million units of since launching it in 2000.
Even now, the PS2 is still selling fairly well, moving 188,000 units in June, just 14.1 percent less than the 219,800 Xbox 360s Microsoft sold in the same period, according to industry analyst the NPD Group.
With all that in mind, the good folks over at IGN ran a recent story looking at the "state" of the PS2. And the general conclusion? The PS2 is doing just fine, thank you--even after all these years.
"For the time being, the PS2 doesn't seem to be left in the lurch and seems destined to actually live up to the much-vaunted '10-year life cycle' that Sony keeps talking about," IGN's Sam Bishop wrote. "Some developers like Atlus and Sega, are still supporting the system with new, exclusive games like Persona 4 and Yakuza 2, respectively. With no shortage of Guitar Heroes or Maddens, the system's library isn't nearly as bleak as one would assume for a console entering the full decade stretch."
The article goes on to make the case that the PS2 still offers a full spectrum of games in all categories, and that with the success of Nintendo's Wii, the PS2 is very well positioned as a more casual game machine.
"The bottom line is that the PS2 is hardly down and out," Bishop wrote. "It's a little surprising, really--even to us--that the library has this much steam. Chalk it up to plenty of familiarity with the hardware...,an absolutely epic install base that's still growing, and the fact that the PS2 is just plain awesome, and you can see why we're still staring down another monster end of the year."
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