Well if you don't already own one maybe this is your excuse. With Xbox 360 already out the door and sort of available and PS3 right around the corner Sony is trying to juice demand for its already dominant game console. Pricing is an important and mysterious art. Why Sony decided to drop the price now is not really known. Analysts were expecting a much more dramatic price cut to $99 a little later. Obviously there are a lot of PS2 consoles out in the wild and the system will have a long, albeit budget oriented, life in the face of the next-gen systems. Have you been holding off getting a PS2? Now that the price is lower would you get one? Tell us what you think.

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Some thought it would drop directly to $100, but I didn't put much stock in that. Due to its massive success PS2 has been much slower on each price drop compared to PS1, and they even invented a $180 price point so they didn't drop directly from $200 to $150. Given that, skipping the $129 point would totally not fit in.

I bought a used one for the same price about 2 years ago and it still works fine. Why Sony would ait to drop it now I do not know. To me a drop to $99 would have been better for sales.

And the GC is already down to $80 for used consoles so I really don't think its that big of a deal anyway. If it dropped down to the GC price then I would think its a big thing.

It's getting rather interesting. I have never owned a console but PS2 has some games I'd like to play. Hm, second hand they might actually be affordable, too.

Wasn't there a news story awhile back about Sony losing a patent case regarding the "vibration" function of controllers and it's implementation of games. I seem to recall one article suggesting that some of these games (many of which are top-selling) might suddenly become very hard to find.

Here's one article on the case, though not the one I had originally read. SonyPlaystation infringes Immerson patent (29-Mar-2006)

... on the other hand there is an order to dismiss third-party claims in this case.