this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2024
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DVD playback was a big issue at the time. Buy a PS2 and you got a built in DVD player. Here's the 2000 JCPenney Christmas catalog for DVD players:
https://christmas.musetechnical.com/ShowCatalogPage/2000-JCPenney-Christmas-Book/0689
Around $250-$350. The PS2 was introduced that year in North America for $300. So you could get one for about the price of a standalone DVD player. Why wouldn't you? Nobody cares now, of course, but it was a big thing at the time.
Oh, and the PS2 played all the existing PS1 games. To this day, I still tell people that the PS2 is one of the best deals in retro gaming because of the wide range of titles it can play. Lots of hidden gems to find. Even better if you can score an early model PS3, but they're harder to find and more expensive than a PS2.
The early model PS3 had a literal PS2 crammed inside of it for the sole purpose of backwards compatibility which was fascinating. The death of physical media (blu ray) and high price kind of caused it to flop that generation. Look who’s laughing now though!
PS3 still outsold the XB360 globally, barely. 87M vs 85M. That was also the generation Nintendo decided to take its ball and play by itself with the Wii. Microsoft had its own fuckup with the red ring of death. PS3 wasn't a total flop, though certainly not as dominant as it has been against Microsoft before or since.
People commonly think the PS3 was a flop due to very poor performance in the US. Outside of the US, it did way, way better. Then later in the generation when you could get one of the Super Slim models for dirt cheap and the library was so massive, it caught up in sales in the US.
In Australia it cost over a grand on launch, and it still beat out the 360 for a while. Toward the end you could get a super slim and two games from EBGames for like $100.