Sony Sees 10-Year Life for PlayStation 2 Console

Sony Corp. believes that its market-leading PlayStation 2 video game console can continue to sell until 2010, twice as long as most in the industry had assumed was possible, an executive of Sony’s U.S. video game unit said on Thursday.

In a keynote address at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, California, Andrew House, executive vice president of Sony Computer Entertainment of America, said the success of the original PlayStation, nearing its 10th anniversary, had convinced the company that two-thirds of its potential PS2 sales were yet to come. The PlayStation 2 was released in 2000 in the United States and game industry observers have expected Sony and rival Microsoft Corp to shift their marketing efforts to next-generation game machines in 2005 or 2006.