Screw you Sunshine!

From Sony's perspective, the PS2 is likely their "low end" model (not unlike the Xbox Arcade unit), so with the combined PS2 and PS3 sales... Sony seems to be doing ok.

Personally I think it's time they dropped their PS2 unit though... get people to move on, but I guess while there is money to be made and while there are still PS2 games being made...

Well, let's put it this way: As soon as the PS3 gets less expensive I'm going to be contributing to it's statistics.

...though I'm not sure how they find out people are playing Gamecubes and systems not hooked up to the internet.

Man those PS2 numbers are still quite high, higher than I thought they would be. After seeing that its no wonder people haven't moved on yet with current PS3s having no backwards compatibility. If Sony can lower the price and re-introduce backwards compatibility in some form I think they should be able to move more PS3s than they currently do.

From what I can tell this data suggests that while sales from videogames are significantly down due to the terrible economy, the amount of time people spend playing them is up.

So people are buying fewer games (with less money on hand) and playing the games they do buy longer (to avoid having to buy more). It's great news in that people are experiencing more of the content that developers worked to put on the disc, but definite bad news if you're looking at it from a funding angle. Also, Nielsen has only tracked videogame usage date since 2007. So when they claim that we're experiencing "The Hottest June on Record for Gaming", they really mean "The Hottest June in the Two Years We've Been Collecting Data", or in other words "The Best Out of Two Summers We Looked At!"

First there really needs to be a clarification here. These statistics are for usage, not sales or install base or anything like that. A few of you seem to have missed that. As Neilson has previously reported the PS3 install base skews older so you're looking at gamers with less free time on their hands for playing games. PS2 gets up there because, like the 360 (to a somewhat lesser extent, I would imagine), the player base is younger.

Now, as to the unrelated to the article topic of what the PS3 needs to address the install base situation, it is less misleading and negative coverage in the press. The price difference is there, but it's really not that large. If you're not bargain hunting a PS3 will run you $400 and a similarly equipped 360 will cost you $300 + $50 for a year of Live. If you don't want to hassle with AA batteries you're looking at another $20 for the Play & Charge kit. That is assuming that you don't care about WiFi or Blu-Ray, which you probably should if you have an HDTV and like movies since a lot of movies (even upscaled) look TERRIBLE, especially on a large-ish LCD.

You're basically looking at $400 vs $370, but you won't hear that if you're reading or listening to any video game coverage, you'll just hear how ridiculously over-priced the PS3 is and how stupid Sony is for not cutting that price during the summer when it'd have little impact on sales and do nothing but add to their losses. It gets worse for 360 as every year you'll be tacking on the $50 for Live to Total Cost of Ownership. If you have that Xbox for 5 years (and you'll probably have several since they're almost guaranteed to break) you'll almost be doubling TCO without even buying a game.

So you're either extremely short-sighted or are NEVER going to play online if you think 360 is actually cheaper, though admittedly getting a discount on a 360 is a lot more common than PS3. That or you're a clueless parent (or similar person) buying a console as a gift and see that $199 Arcade unit when you walk into Walmart not realizing the hidden costs involved in getting it up to speed.*

If you ask me it's really a no brainer if you're buying your first console this generation as the PS3 exclusive line-up is stronger than 360's.** If you already have a PS3 there isn't much reason to buy a 360 at this point, which is maybe why you don't hear discussion about that scenario since so few are in that position. The only people who are complaining about the PS3 pricing are the crybabies who have a 360 and want all those tasty, tasty Playstation exclusives but can't get their mom to buy them one. Which is fair enough, $400 for a "second" console is, to put it kindly, a bit steep. I don't know that I'd do it unless I didn't already have a 60GB and had the opportunity to pick one up. But what isn't fair is claiming that PS3 is over-priced just because you already have an Xbox. Just shut up and be happy that you're going to be getting a steal when Sony drops the price to $299 next month with the release of the PS3Slim.***

* Full disclosure, I just bought an Arcade and upgraded to a 120GB HDD for considerably less than $300. So I get that you can put together a good deal, but the majority of buyers are paying MSRP (or RRP or whatever if you're British or Criminal or something).

** Unfortunately my best friend who won't play FIFA on Playstation isn't one of those PS3 exclusives.

*** Which I'll take credit for being the first to predict months ago, but would ask that you all forget my prediction if it turns out to be false.

PlayStation: We're gender neutral. Actually what I find interesting is that if you take away the 360, women have longer gaming sessions than men overall. *mutters something about an empty kitchen*

It's funny because we all make fun of Sony's 10 year plan for the PS3 but it is clearly working for the PS2.

@ Robbo the hood

Half of PS2's 136 million consoles sold is really nothing to be ashamed of. Even a quarter is still better than the Xbox and GameCube sales. Sony has supported the PS2 till now and has gotten many publishers to do the same, whereas both Microsoft and Nintendo basically abandoned their previous consoles 3 years ago when their new consoles came out. They have gained the confidence of both the consumers and publishers in this respect. They know that a new console won't mean the death of the PS3, a console Sony would be making profit off of. The only reason why people complain about the PS3's 10 year cycle is because it gives Sony an excuse not to drop the price. But with all the bitching and complaining you hear about the current price point, Sony has realized that they already have the sales and can hold off until the production costs drop a bit more. Yeah Sony isn't doing too well at the moment but I'm more than positive a price drop will open the floodgates for sales. Microsoft hasn't gained the brand loyalty they think they have to keep their consumers from jumping ship after they get another hardware failure.