While Sony battles with Microsoft over which of their next-generation video game consoles will dominate, its seven-year-old PlayStation 2 still has a lot of life in it.
Now PlayStation 2 has come down so much in price that it is cheap enough for people in Western Europe or North America to buy on a whim and affordable for consumers in emerging markets such as Eastern Europe, Sony said.Sales are still going strong, with the PlayStation 2 outselling Sony’s new flagship PlayStation 3 by a ratio of almost four to one in the second quarter of this year.
“We are committing funds for PS2 … we encourage third parties to continue development for PS2. If they bring a PS3 version out, they can bring a PS2 version out as well,” David Reeves, head of Sony’s European games unit, told Reuters on the sidelines of the Leipzig Games Convention on Thursday. “There is a lot of money still. What happened last time with PS1 is that they left a lot of money on the table by making the transition too quickly,” he said. Reeves said he expected games development for the PlayStation 2 to continue for three to four years. Other industry executives gave more cautious estimates of two to three years.