Sony is cutting the price of its PlayStation 2 console by almost 25 percent in both Europe and North America, the company said Tuesday.

The console, which has just begun its tenth year on retail shelves, will cost EUR100 (US$133) and US$100 from Wednesday. It previously cost EUR130 and US$130.

Sony has sold more than 136 million of the consoles since it first launched on March 4, 2000, in Japan. It went on sale in Europe and North America in November of the same year.

Despite the launch of the more advanced PlayStation 3 console, the older model has remained equally popular in part due to the large catalog of games and low price.

New software for the console continues to be published, and the price cut seems to ensure that its popularity will continue.

The price cut is due to improvements in manufacturing that allow Sony to consolidate components together onto more highly integrated chips and general reductions in the price of technology used in the console, which doubles as a DVD video player.

In its current financial year, which ends Tuesday, Sony expects to sell 8 million of the consoles, which is not far off the 10 million PlayStation 3s it expects to sell in the same period.

As of the first nine months of the year - the period from April to December 2008 - sales stood at 6.5 million PlayStation 2 units. Software sales over the same period were 72.1 million units.