The PlayStation 2 console is celebrating its ninth birthday, and “shows no sign of slowing down”, at least according to Sony.
While that is not actually technically accurate – sales in 2009 have been around a hundred and forty six thousand a month, down from around two hundred and fifteen thousand a month in 2007 and a hundred and seventy three a month last year. Nonetheless, for a console to have lasted for nine years and still have such a strong fan base, even in the wake of its technically superior successors, is a remarkable achievement and Sony can hardly be blamed for believing it to be one worth celebrating.
Sony Computer Entertainment America claims that the platform has a worldwide installed base of almost a hundred and forty million, with almost ten thousand games having sold over five hundred million copies in total. And, amazingly, new games are still being produced for the console. The price for the console was finally cut – to ninety nine dollars in the US – this April (over eight years after its release, and about half a decade after the price slash was first rumoured to be in the offing) and the resultant sales figures have been enough to persuade software publishers to continue to make games for the PS2, including such titles as “DJ Hero” and “Motorstorm Arctic Edge”.
Microsoft’s first Xbox and the Nintendo GameCube both stopped being produced several years ago, but the PS2 remains a force to be reckoned with even as it approaches ten years in the highly competitive field.
