PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan Says the PS2 Sold 160 Million Units Lifetime - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 29 March 2024 / 9,707 Views
Jim Ryan on his final day as PlayStation President and CEO on the latest episode of the PlayStation Podcast (at 14:52) stated that the PlayStation 2 sold 160 million units lifetime.
"The 2000's that would be, I would say 160 million, which is the number of PS2s we sold," said Ryan when asked about 2000's and what was brought to his mind. "A high watermark."
The last official figure provided from Sony Interactive Entertainment is "more than 155.0 million (As of March 31, 2012)," but the PS2 wasn't discontinued until 2013.
Here is the list of available lifetime shipment (sell-in) figures for PlayStation consoles:
- PS1 - More than 102.4 million (As of March 31, 2012)
- PS2 - More than 155.0 million (As of March 31, 2012)
- PS3 - More than 87.4 million (As of March 31, 2017)
- PS4 - More than 117 million (As of June 30, 2022)
- PS5 - More than 54.8 million (as of December 31, 2023)
Shawn Layden, the former PlayStation boss, revealed in September 2023 that the PSP (PlayStation Portable) ultimately shipped 82,523,607 units lifetime.
Sony itself announced that sell-through figures (sold to consumers) for the PlayStation 5 topped 50 million units worldwide as of December 9, 2023.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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This doesn't actually sound like he's reporting a definitive number. It would also be a bit coincidental that it sold exactly 160.0M wouldn't it? So he's just throwing around a ballpark number. Sorry but kind of strange that VGC immediately takes this as gospel and changes the sold number to exactly 160.0M on the Hardware Chart.
You're right, it's much more likely that he's just rounding than that it ultimately shipped EXACTLY 160.00 million. After some discussion, we've decided to stick with the final minimum figure it could be, which is 158.70 million, based on the various shipment figures Sony released and the calculations that people made from those to come up with a range a few years ago.
It's likely in the 159s, but in absence of an exact total (like Layden did for PSP), we're going to use the minimum confirmable figure.
Edit - for those curious about the workings out for the 158.7m minimum shipment figure, they can be viewed here: https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9507794
Yeah after doing some thinking and looking over the math I decided to revert back our PS2 figure to 158.7M, which is the minimum based on official figures from Sony.
Here is a post on the forums with the math based on the official numbers from Sony: https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9507794
This be just a guess or rounding up to that number. He might be just as knowledgeable as we are regarding how much it sold. I'm not sure if this could be taken as confirmation
Exato.
Why rouding UP? It can be rouding down as well?
What does this mean for PS3 totals? Wasn't there a year where the numbers where grouped?
Sony has the PS3 shipped (sell-in) listed as "More than 87.4 million (As of March 31, 2017)." Hopefully they update the PS2 total as the 155M shipment figure is through March 2012, while it wasn't discontinued until the end of 2012 or very beginning of 2013.
https://sonyinteractive.com/en/our-company/business-data-sales/
Wasn’t this always suspected, just never actually confirmed
Correct. Doing some math there was a range of where the PS2 most likely sold lifetime.
When Switch achieved 160 million, then they will say that Play 2 sold 161. And the incredible thing is that there will be people who believe it.
(Sorry for my possible bad grammar)
It only acts as a trophy anyway. The "we have the best selling console trophy". The PS4 is the most successful console ever in terms of games sold, getting MAU's, and generating revenue. That's what matters
Isn't Switch more successful? More units sold, profit on the hardware, tons of software, still some people with the subscription.
It just misses out on too many big games to be considered most successful ever. Last year PS4 still got Resi 4 remake, COD and Diablo 4. A lot of people use PS4's still so PS4 has been way more successful
Switch doesn't need what you call "big games". It has Mario Kart, Smash Bros., Zelda, Animal Crossing etc. which sell more than COD on a single system.
"Switch don't need what you call "big games". I own a Switch and it was a great innovation, but cmon now, that's the goal for every hardware manufacturer, to have as many third party titles as possible on your system, and have your system as the best place to play them. What I'm saying is not tribalistic or extreme in any way, it's just common sense.
Switch is also missing out on a game called "visions of Mana" releasing this summer. That's also another big loss for Nintendo. Instead of denying missing these games is a loss you should be saying "yeah Nintendo needs new hardware and they need it quick". Nintendo fans deserve better to be missing out on games like Visions of Mana. They have plenty of money to release new Hardware sooner than they did
Lol pure delusion. Nintendo makes way more off its IPs than they do off the missed opportunities of 3rd partys.
Out of the big 3 Nintendo is last in terms of revenue generated at 12 Billion. Sony is at 30 and MS is at 18. YOU are the delusional one. You are not helping them by being an apologist for them having weak hardware!! All their fans should demand better from them. They are missing out of games that even the 11 year old PS4 can run! That is a total failure and their fans deserve better
Revenue is pointless. Let's look at profit.
Uhh you do realize Nintendo profits more than either of them? That's more important. Anyways, Switch has its own "big games" you can't play on other systems. At this point you're injecting your own personal bias to dismiss the Switches success.
What personal bias? Just because I believe Sony is currently the market leader doesn't make me biased. Sony are ahead in hardware sales, software sales and revenue. I thought that would just be a no brainer
Why do you never acknowledge profits when it's clearly more important than revenue? Ignoring one peice of data for another is showing bias. When saying, Sony is the market leader while ignoring Switch sales and success is showing bias. This is exactly why I said what I said.
I am not ignoring their profits. I am also not ignoring their hardware sales but PS5 is currently selling better than switch. I'm looking at everything overall. Hardware and software sales, revenues and profits. I think Sony operates with lower profit margins because they can afford to because they are in such a commanding position in the gaming market. Overall I think they are in a much much better position than Nintendo. They need new hardware fast
Any objective person looking at everything wouldn't be crowning ps5 as the winner. Look at the ps5 compared to Switch article and you can see aligned sales of both systems favor Switch. Of course Switch sales are currently lower in year 7 with new hardware right around the corner compared to a console that is in its peak years. It's safe to assume ps5 sales will never reach Switch numbers when it's all said and done.
Switch was 200$ 2.5 years after it's launch (switch lite). That's because it's hardware is so weak, and they are paying the price for it now because they can't have games that even the 11 year old PS4 is getting
Games like Bayonetta 3, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 or Hogwarts Legacy show that it's possible to create or port demanding games on Switch. It's not a matter of hardware power, it's the will of the developers.
Hogwarts legacy is proof that the developers will is not enough. The game looks and plays terrible on switch, and I own a switch so I don't take pleasure in saying that
So what? Offering different models at affordable prices is something all console makers do to sell more systems. No one is buying a Switch to play games with cutting edge graphics. You buy it to play Nintendo games.
I just think the success of the switch is going to hurt them in the long run. It will be 2025 when switch 2 launches and that will be around when GTA6 launches. It's unlikely it will be on Nintendo's platform so Switch 2 will just be seen as something that doesn't have a key blockbuster title and become obscure early into it's life.
We have no idea what games Nintendo has planned for the Switch 2. 3rd party games like GTA6 will determining the Switch 2s fate is simply not true. This hasn't been the case before and it's not going to be true going forward. Nintendo games will determine the fate of the system, just like in the past. You are putting way too much stock into Nintendo needing a powerful console.
And Nintendo is literally still laughing to the bank. You vastly overestimate the importance of third party games when Nintendo has some of the most valuable IPs in its hardware.
overestimate it? Really? N64 - no third party and a failure. Gamecube - no third party and a failure. Wii u - no third party and a failure. Consoles without third party support fail MOST of the time. Why are you guys in such denial over this it's crazy
Look at the top selling games on Nintendo platforms and you will the trend of 1st party dominating the charts, even when Nintendo has 3rd party games. What are the top selling games on the Switch right now? Please, tell us. 3rd party isn't as important to Nintendo as it is with Sony and MS. It's a fact. All you need to do is look at the most played and sold games on each system to understand this.
If Nintendo's first party games alone could save them, the N64, Gamecube and Wii-U wouldn't have been failures. They all had great first party games but it wasn't enough. Even Apple's Phones can run res 4 remake, Village and death stranding. Everyone is overtaking them to the point that it is a concern
Again Switch is not the N64 or GameCube and the first party sales of Switch games prove that. You aren't even trying to make sense.
Imagine comparing Switch to any of these? What kind of mental gymnastics 😂
Presenting such a vague assertion as a fact without an official statement from Sony and arbitrarily adopting the sales figures seriously calls into question the credibility of this website.
Só disseram isso pra ficar mais difícil do Switch passar, mas não adianta, o switch passará de qualquer forma.
Someone tell me where they are still selling brand new PS2s.. the product was discontinued more than a decade ago.
We know the PS2 sold over 150 million, so whatever. It's not like VGChartz would use an off the hand bit from a podcast to justify updating their all-time hardware sales.
...right?
"More than" what a manipulative statement. "more than" X number it could mean a few units more and also some millions more. By not saying exactly how much but they use the statement "more than" they wash their hands of any explicit lie, but they could manipulate the people's perception to make them believe they've sold more.
https://sonyinteractive.com/en/our-company/business-data-sales/
That's within in a million with no hundred thousands and 157 million rounded up to the nearest 10. Sure, Jan.
vgchartz's credibility is falling every day, believing statements from CEOs that contradict themselves all the time, clearly he just rounded the numbers that are not official.
https://www.vgchartz.com/charts/platform_totals/Hardware.php/
look at this page and you will see that vgchatz has already updated the Ps2 numbers just because a lying CEO said that the ps2 sold a rounded 160m, so yes, vgchatz is believing that.
Você lembra quanto era o número de PS2 nessa page antes de atualizarem hj?
Sim, em 2021 era 157,4 milhões, depois atualizaram pra 158,7 milhões em 2022, da primeira vez o William alegou que era atualização com base em estimativas, agora atualizaram de novo por causa da fala do Jim Ryan hoje.
To be clear, we had put it at the absolute minimum it could be - 158.70m - based on Sony's various own shipment figures, not estimates. There's a thread somewhere on the forums) with the workings out in detail.
Edit - here's the thread in question: https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9507794
Voltou o número antigo. Que bom!
We had it at 158.7M before it was updated with the figure from Jim Ryan. There was a range the PS2 likely sold lifetime due to Sony combining PS3 and PS2 sales for a while and we put it at the lower end. The higher end was close to 162M.
The CEO of PlayStation seems like the right person who would know how well the PS2 sold.
Edit: if we get clarification we will update the PS2 numbers to be as accurate as possible.
It’s possibly that it ended between 161-162m sold
Joke or bait.
The highest mathematical theoretical possible is 161.9m but it is VERY unlikely that it actually sold more than 159.2m because in FY21 (ending March 31, 2022) the PS2 shipped 4.1m and production stopped in January 2023 - so it is VERY unlikely that in it's very last year of existence that it sold more than the year before (4.1m). Therefore, when the PS2 was at 155m (or for those who think it actually was at 155.1m), the absolute realistic maximum is 159.2m by end of life (March 31, 2023).
Quando switch tiver pertinho, o ps2 já vai estar com 200 milhões vendidos. O desespero da sony, dos sonystas e do vgchartz é surreal.
Why is vgchartz so scared of Nintendo fanboys?
We've got the boss of Sony Interactive saying that the PS2 sold 160 million units, the guy's been with Sony since the early days of the PlayStation, he knows more than anyone else, what more do you need?
ZhugeEx has already shown in the past that it couldn't have sold less than 159.2 million.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/what-was-the-lifetime-sales-of-the-ps2-not-158m-update-between-159-2m-and-161-9m.77277/
160 million just makes sense, unlike 158.7 million.
ZHuge's minimum in that thread of 159.2 million is based purely on the supposition that because Sony had said it was down in previous financials, but didn't in the final one, it must have been up. That's a shaky foundation on which to declare 'it couldn't have sold less than 159.2m'. The minimum verifiable figure - one that's based purely on the data in the reports - is 158.7 million. The max it can be is 161.9 million.
We think it probably ended up in the 159s, but we can't yet confirm that using the data provided by Sony in its reports.
Finally, the 160 million from Ryan is likely a rounded figure, in contrast with Layden's recent PSP figure (which we updated). That doesn't really advance things beyond the 158.7-161.9 range, because every figure within that range can be rounded to 160. If Ryan, or any other higher up at Sony, announces an exact figure at some point we'll happily update it straight away.
Still a glorified cheap DVD player. That's the real reason it sold so well.
GTA games on PS2 sold over 50M cumulative copies
Software Sales:
PS2 - 1.537B
Wii - 921.85m
The PS2 has a tie-ratio of 9.68, which is actually higher than every console or handheld Nintendo have released.
My metric is better because it shows more properly how many people owned the most popular game whereas your metric contains gamers who own many games on one console.
All it shows is that it had a smaller number of successful games and basically everyone bought the same small group of games.
It shows more than that, I already explained it.
If you explain nonsense then it’s still nonsense. The act of explaining something doesn’t mean it will cease to be nonsense.
Your logic is nonsense.
"All it shows is that it had a smaller number of successful games and basically everyone bought the same small group of games."
What are you even talking about here. What is it, what games are you referring to. Your talk is lazy. You are bashing my metric while using your own metric's logic, being extremely hazy about the ideas to obfuscate your lack of honesty, how disingenuous.
What your metric shows is that you are biased because the Wii tie ratio has nothing to do with what we're talking about and all you had intent to do was put Playstation above Nintendo. Your arguments are useless and off-topic. Plus you upvoted yourself obviously as you are full of ego.
As I explained, the tie ratio does not prove that PS2s' were not bought mainly to play DVDs, it just means that per console more games were sold. You don't understand the statistic because you have an agenda.
My metric is the right one to discuss what we're talking about. The higher sales for the highest-selling game, the more players there are in the install base. Meaning that per platform, the playerness of the buyer is higher. Meaning the lower the number, the more PS2s were used for non-games.
The PS2 has a much broader userbase than the Wii, that’s why there’s around 300% as many games on PS2 that are confirmed to have sold 1M+ than the Wii. Focusing only on the largest selling game to make the argument that the PS2 was bought by millions as a DVD player is one of the dumber logic lines I’ve ever read.
Basically every single Nintendo console will have higher selling single popular games, but the consoles overall will sell less software per consumer than a comparable PS or Xbox. This is pretty much been consistent through every generation.
It's not dumb you just don't understand it. If only 17M people bought the most popular game on a console that sold 160M it isnlikely there aren't as many players total software sales may lead to believe. Even if many other games sold individually many games, the highest-selling game is a more telling metric than the variety of high-selling games on the console.
The best selling PlayStation one game was Gran turismo at 10.85m.
Old games didn't sell anywhere near as much as now. The PS systems had incredibly broad player bases.
The whole PS2 was cheaper than a DVD player was a myth that has been dissproved long ago, in case that is what you still believe.
“ There is one myth and a few mysteries around PlayStation 2’s DVD player. Many retellings of the PlayStation story state that the PS2 was cheaper than standalone players at launch. This otherwise perfect, in-depth article about PS2 says the console was ‘significantly’ so. This is simply not the case.
Accurate numbers are hard to find, only fueling the misconception. Wikipedia states (almost certainly incorrectly) that DVD players could be found for under $100 by the end of 2000. The excellent America on Record: A History of Recorded Sound by Andre Miller puts DVD players breaking the $100 barrier in 2003, seven years after DVD launched.
Fortune magazine claimed ‘solid’ players could be found in retailers for $200-$400 in their November 1999 issue. Chicago Tribune reported in October 2001 that the average selling price for DVD player in July of that year was $192 – not the lowest, the average.”
Source: https://techstomper.com/pivotal-decisions-in-gaming-history-playstation-2-and-dvd-playback/
DVD players were as cheap as $200 one year before the PS2 launched(PS2 launch price $299). During the first year of the PS2 the average sales price of a consumer DVD player was $192(the bottom end of that is probably very close to $100).
By 2003 the cheapest DVD players were easily found and readily available at sub $100 prices(the PS4 was $199 then).
The whole “My uncle had a PS2 as a DVD player lol” is basically an urban myth. People didn’t even claim during the lifetime of the PS2 that there was people buying it only as a DVD player, it was something that was invented later.
It was cheaper to buy an actual DVD player...
Much cheaper when you do the math.
