I was laughing while I read your first paragraph, then the PS2 was mentioned(I thought he was talking about the PS3), and I think I might have to agree with him. Sure, the Wii brought gaming further into the mainstream, but I can see how the PS2 brought gaming more into the limelight.

And guess what? They're right.

The PS2, if not the PS1, was the first console that most consumers didn't have to ask their parents to get. The Wii broke into old folks' homes and got gobbled up by soccer moms and is a bona fide Nintendo mint, but you have to admit that Sony started the idea that you can still play video games while having facial hair (or getting a period).

Because fuck you, NES.

These Sony execs should just make personal Twitter accounts so that whenever they come up with rational like this, they can immediately post it for the amusement of us all.

wow jim, and you wonder why people say you're anti-sony?

ok this is stupid PR bullshit, but it's not as ridiculous a claim as you make it out to be.

Gotta agree with Sony on this one, unfortunately :/ I worked in retail back in the day, and EVERYONE bought PS2's. The Wii is family friendly and all that, but the PS2 was the first console that wasn't immediately associated with being an anti-social loser (by the younger audience), and that had a lot of adults purchasing oodles of games. Hell, my MUM played my PS2 to death, literally. The PS2's, not hers.

Um...Sony is right though. Nintendo educated the masses back in the day and kept video games going. Sony PS1 came along and it caught on. Everyone was talking about it and nothing else. Then years later the PS2 hit the scene and EVERYONE you knew had one. EVERYONE. You didn't have to ask you'd just go over your friends house and BAM there was the PS2. Not many people had the Super NES back in the day for me. I was one of the lucky ones. Kids I knew were still rocking the original Nintendo with duck hunt (LOVE DUCKHUNT!).

While Nintendo kept games around, Sony was the one who broke the barrier for gaming. If the Nintendo Wii released with the PS1 with the same grafical capabilitys as the PS1 it wouldn't have sold like it does now.

Huh. Really? I don't know about that. While I think the PS2 helped make gaming more mainstream and "popular" (along with Halo on the Xbox), the Wii pulled it from teens and 20 somethings to older adults, moms, families, etc.
Sony started it, sure, but the Wii sealed the deal.

I agree with them! They really did 'break the barrier' I mean, that does not mean they delved much futher through, but they made gaming widely accepted! Mainstream equates to a large majority of people and what by that majority is considered cool or fun. I think the ps2 really did fall into that. I knew so many people who hated games, but would play the ps2 in groups for hours!

And they're fucking right. PS3 might be a failure, and it might not matter anymore how well the PS2 did, but they're still right. The PS2 was a monster. It was truly mainstream. Sure, soccer moms didn't play it, but guess what, the Wii isn't getting the majority of its sales from soccer moms either. It's getting them from people who aren't necessarily hardcore gamers, but still like to play once in a while. Same as the PS2. The difference between the PS2 and the Wii is that the hardcore fucking loved the PS2. Nobody ever said "It's good for a PS2 game". And neither of them have truly captured all demographics, as they both claim, but I think the PS2 came closer.

like ripley's said to the farmer: "That's the biggest pile of shit, ive ever seen."

Hrmmm... Wii is pretty popular isn't it?

I think Jim just writes it the way he does to get people outraged which means more cash for him. It works, but its still kinda sleezy to not even give Sony credit for doing what they DID do. I believe Sony Playstation 2 has sold OVER 130 Million units. Don't believe me? heres the copy/paste from Wikipedia.

"The PS2 is the best-selling console to date, having reached over 138 million units sold as of August 18, 2009 and a software library projected to exceed 1,900 games in 2009. Twenty games are scheduled to be released in 2010, giving the PS2 a marketable life of over 10 years, thus continuing the sixth generation."


"On November 29, 2005, the PS2 became the fastest game console to reach 100 million units shipped, accomplishing the feat within 5 years and 9 months from its launch. This achievement occurred faster than its predecessor, the PlayStation, which took 9 years and 6 months to reach the same benchmark."

In total the original Xbox only sold about 30 million units. So between the Playstation(102.49 million, including 28.15 million) and Playstation 2 Sony has sold 260+ Million units of hardware. Then add on the PS3 and its 286 Million. With the slim it will be dangerously close to 300.

For those that don't know,the Wii(52 million units) is Nintendo's second best selling home console behind the NES (61 million units).

"...'The most successful console is still the PS2 and it's still going strong,' claims Hirai..."

Yep, in fact much better than the newer PS3, oh snap!. Well, let's hope the price cut helps Sony do better, their people really need the money for some rehab treatment.

Give Jim Sterling a quote and he can spin it into anything.

You mean to tell me the PS1 and PS2 DIDN'T blow the doors off the whole the fucking industry? Really Jim? I mean, come on man, I enjoy your articles and all, but sometimes I think YOU'RE the one who is a little diluted.

I think Kaz was referring to the fact that the Playstation brand has outsold every other brand by far over the years.

I think your next column should be written in the third person and titled "Why Jim Sterling needs to STFU"

Ok, now you can write me off as a Sony fanboy and dismiss my comment, but if you seriously think that Sony didn't blow this industry wide open your fucking nuts bro. Sorry.

errr their right you know.

The ryetoy got my mum and nan flailing their arms around the living room... SingStar allowed gaming to become accessible to my girlfriend ... and Buzz has kept the families interest many a christmas!

So once again Jim is being a tool and failing to see the bigger picture...

Jim, I'm your biggest fan, but you can't twitter you don't understand why people think you're biased against Sony, then take an article like this and spin it against them. Every company should be defending itself, sending good messages through PR, and be confident. Sony's doing nothing that Microsoft or Nintendo wouldn't be doing themselves given a specific statistic. Sony doesn't have a lot of bragging rights at the moment, but it does have this, why not let them have it? The ps2 is STILL being manufactured, it's a really popular system, and has done really well, why can't they brag about it? PR Spin is one thing, but it's not like they're too far off base on this one.

I would say he is 100% correct, actually.

And that comes from someone who has never owned a Playstation before the PS3, and rarely uses said PS3.

I hate to say it but he's not entirely wrong. While the Playstation 2 hasn't had nearly the mainstream success the Wii has, it has played a fairly vital role in getting video games into the mainstream. When Grand Theft Auto 3 came out for the Playstation 2, scores of people who wouldn't normally play video games played this game. It was heavily talked about and I know that when I was in school I'd hear about the game all the time. It was a big thing and it really got in the mainstream. Vice City had a very similar effect.

Halo, of course, had a huge role in getting gaming into the mainstream.

But one of the biggest games to get the hobby of video games into the main stream was Guitar Hero, released for the PS2. It was a great party game that everyone played and it got tons of people into video games. Guitar Hero 2 did it as much as Guitar Hero 1 did, if not more.
I mean, Guitar Hero had an enormous impact on video games and the mainstream's views of it. You can't deny it.

So, what I mean by this mediocre post is this: The Wii has had an almost unbelievable impact on video gaming and has moved it into the mainstream. They have been highly successful in it, but Kaz Hirai is not that far off by saying the Playstation 2 really got gaming in the mainstream. I mean, of course, it had the help of Halo, but with Grand Theft Auto, Guitar Hero, and quite a few other games I forget at the moment, the Playstation 2 did quite the job of getting video games more noticed in the mainstream.

"...'The most successful console is still the PS2 and it's still going strong,' claims Hirai..."

I'm very interested in seeing how much the Wii has sold by 2015. Given the same lifespan as the PS2 currently, I'm sure it could sell at least 10 million units.

And I have to update my numbers once more- the PS2 has sold over 138 million units, and is approaching a 10 year life cycle.

"...you can't twitter you don't understand why people think you're biased against Sony, then take an article like this and spin it against them."

First of all, yes he can. As a matter of fact, he did.

Second of all, there is literally no spin in this article. None. He said outright what Sony said. Spin isn't the same thing as opinion. Sure, this article is full of opinion, but that's not "spin". He didn't turn it into "Sony loves Nazism."

It's going to be interesting to see how long the Wii can hold out for its life cycle especially given Sony and Microsoft's new focus being put on motion controls for their platforms (Well, Sony's second attempt at it anyway).

I expect Nintendo will wait until next year to announce a price cut and release the black Wii to help it combat Sony and Microsoft's new focus on motion controls as a way to target the blue ocean strategy.