Sony has officially announced that the price of the Playstation 2 will drop to $129.99 US / $139.99 CDN starting today. Sony hopes the reduction in price will drive more consumers to pick up the PS2 and add to its huge lead in the console market. The Playstation 2 currently holds a lion share of the marketplace, with about 55% of the total consoles sold bearing the PS2 label.

It will be interesting to see if Microsoft matches the price drop, but one gets the feeling that Microsoft is going to let the Xbox basically fade away while they focus their energy on the Xbox 360. Where Sony has done particularly well is managing a console’s sales throughout its lifecycle; when the PS2 launched on the market, Sony seemed to have a plan for the original Playstation, both in ongoing price reductions, and the introduction of the small PSOne. Sony seems to have a similar plan in mind for the PS2: continue to drive sales of the PS2 through and after the PS3 launch. This makes Sony’s focus on backwards-compatibility more salient. While backwards-compatibility may not be a huge factor for early-adopters, being able to play previous generation games may be more of a concern for late adopters to the cycle.

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