Why I like the PS2 Price Drop.

With Sony's announcement of a price drop for the PS2 from 129.99 to 99.99 (or 109.99 here in Canada), it shows that Sony actually has the right thought process.

Every time Sony sells a PS2, they will be earning a profit. Considering the system nearly a decade old, they probably have an abundance of units still available and would love nothing more than to get more units available. The PS2 already has a slew of quality titles available and each one is extremely affordable. Stores have been for the past 3 months been offering incredible discounts on such titles. Here in Canada, Best Buy was offering a Buy 2 Get 1 Free PS2 offer. If you consider that most titles have an MSRP of 19.99 to 29.99, so for the same price of one 360/PS3 game you are getting two quality games.

Now the reason behind this is strictly to cut into the sales of the Nintendo Wii which retails for about 279.99 depending on where you are. The Wii and the PS2 have a lot of the same features and benefits for users. The Wii offers you Motion control while the PS2 is a DVD player. Yes, the DVD feature is now mute considering you can buy DVD players for 40 dollars, it is still a bonus feature and essentially puts the cost of the gaming portion of the unit at 60 dollars (I will be using the US pricing point for this article).

Both systems have very similar titles. Those of us who play games and follow the industry know that Wii and PS2 games are nearly identical in look and play. In fact, it's often the case with some titles that the PS2 version of a game is ported to the Wii.

The casual aspect of the PS2 is there but will require Sony to push it. Game Series like Buzz, SingStar and EyeToy will need to be marketed strongly to capitalize on this. Sony has already in the past done this but will need to redo this push to let those casual players know that the fun they have with the Wii can also be done with the PS2 sans the motion controlling. Sony can focus on the fact that they have cool spericals such as a Camera, Microphone and other features that can only be found on the PS2 (excluding of course the 360 and PS3).

We Hardcore gamers might not care too much about this because we've already experienced and enjoyed what the PS2 had to offer and have evolved with the growing technology. Again, they have our money so they don't really care about us. They don't have the money of the parent with kids in elementary school who has a kid who loves Hannah Montana will lean towards the PS2 because of the games and the fact that they can watch Hannah Montana on the unit.

Don't forget that Sony has been planning a casual push for a while now. Last month, they announced the Hannah Montana PSP pack and I could see them doing something extremely similar with the PS2. Bundle the unit with the Hannah Montana singing game along with a DVD and a remote and you'll get those kids.

In my life-time, I have purchased 3 PS2 units, two fats and one slim. I no longer have a PS2 and luckily have a PS3 with backwards compatibilty but I could still see myself purchasing another PS2 to have with my other television in my apartment. I could watch DVDs from the comfort of my Bed and even play my older titles. There are still a slew of great titles still available for the PS2 which I missed or own and haven't gotten around to completing such as Resident Evil 4, God of War II, Persona 3 and 4 and Final Fantasy XII.

I love what Sony did with this, but there is one mistake that will hurt Sony monetarily. They did this at least a year too late. This should have been done this time last year when the PS3 was struggling and were forced to drop the price. Yes, this might have hurt sales of the HD system, but it would have been great when the economy was at such a high and people were spending. This would have really put more pressure on Nintendo and the industry as a whole would have benefited. Now a year later, it will take a bit longer before we actually see this force the other companies to play their hands.

It will be interesting to see what both Nintendo and Microsoft do to counter this. Will Nintendo finally drop the price of the Wii to entice gamers? Will they start announcing more flagship titles to keep gamers coming? Will Microsoft try to bring attention to the 360 Arcade and its benefits? This is actually a great thing and I am anxious to see what the companies all do in the lead-up to E3 over these next 60 days.