EEDAR: PS2 price cut to halt declining sales
Research firm also still expects PS3 price cut this year
Sony's decision to cut the price of the PlayStation 2 to USD 99.99 will initially boost sales and lessen the platform's long-term declining market share, according to the Electronic Entertainment Design and Research group.
The research firm reports that PS2 titles accounted for 21 per cent of all home console software sales in the last quarter of 2008, and 19 per cent in the first quarter of 2009. Today's USD 30 price cut will boost hardware sales by 30 per cent from the previous quarter and 10 per cent year-over-year.
"Before the announcement of the price cut, we expected PS2 software sales, a good measure of a console's health, to decline to 16 per cent April through July," the firm explained in a statement.
"We now expect PS2 software to maintain an 18 per cent market share among home console unit sales for quarter two. While we could not confirm a worldwide price cut, we do expect PS2 hardware prices to drop across major regions in the coming months."
EEDAR says it still expects a price cut on the PlayStation 3 to come at some point this year.