Sony To Bundle Toy Story 3 Game With PlayStation 2

As the PlayStation 2 nears the tenth anniversary of its U.S. release, Sony announced today that it will be offering a limited edition bundle including the system and Disney Interactive's Toy Story 3 game. The bundle, which will be available in the U.S. starting October 31, will retail for a suggested price of $99, the same price currently suggested for the system without a bundled game. First released in Japan in March 2000 and brought stateside on October 26, 2000, the PlayStation 2 claims over 2,000 software titles and sales of over 146 million units worldwide. The system's continuous production run in the United States now rivals that of the wildly successful Nintendo Entertainment System, which was manufactured for the U.S. market from 1985 until 1995. Sony has repeatedly claimed a similar ten-year product strategy for its PlayStation 3, released in the U.S. in late 2006. "We do not have a planned obsolescence strategy," Sony Marketing VP Scott Steinberg said in a 2008 interview with Gamasutra. Toy Story 3 saw strong sales in the UK, topping the region's cross-platform sales charts for three weeks this summer. The Nintendo DS version of the game premiered in 7th place on NPD's June U.S. sales chart, with the Wii version appearing in 19th place.