Sony Confirms PlayStation 2 Sold Over 160 Million Units Lifetime - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 26 November 2024 / 5,512 Views
Sony Interactive Entertainment has launched a PlayStation history page on the official PlayStation website celebrating the 30th anniversary of the original PlayStation in Japan on December 3, 1994.
The website confirms what former PlayStation President and CEO Jim Ryan said earlier this year that the PlayStation 2 sold over 160 million units lifetime.
"PS2 is one of the biggest-selling video game consoles of all time, with over 160,000,000 consoles sold worldwide since 2000," reads the website.
Sony Interactive Entertainment's "Business Data & Sales" page has yet to be updated and still says "More than 155.0 million (As of March 31, 2012)" for the PS2.
Here is the list of sales numbers for each PlayStation console on the PlayStation history page:
- PlayStation - Over 102 million
- PlayStation 2 - Over 160 million
- PSP - Over 80 million
- PlayStation 3 - Over 87 million
- PlayStation 4 - Over 117 million
No sales data was given for the PlayStation Vita or PlayStation 5.
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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Damn it sony give us the actual total.
A few of this sites more extreme personalities are going to take this news rather poorly I suspect.
no.... :.( (im taking this news rather poorly.)
...if i were to be serious for a moment: It would be nice if Sony just gave the official figures. If NSW does hit 160mil, it would be great to not be left with an unanswerable question b/c some higher-ups at Sony are too fearful abt their PS2 crown being taken away.
If the Switch reaches 160 million units by the end, and the PS2 surpasses it by any margin, Sony will likely reveal the exact number. Otherwise, they probably won't say a @#$%...
They've seen the Switch is close to the old figure and likely to surpass it. Console wars continue
They don't care about the crown nor does nintendo care about taking it. Nintendo wants a smooth transition and would love it if everyone immediately stopped buyign switch and went to switch 2 after launch and Sony has never marked "highest sellign console ever". they don't even call the ps2 the best sellign one in their graphic.
okay then to rephrase: ...it would be great to not be left with an unanswerable question b/c some mysterious reason that only the higher-ups at Sony know.
Still vague. First it was over 156. now over 160. What if in a few years they say over 165. We can go on forever like this.
The vagueness is indeed annoying, though the possible range has always been 158.70-161.90 million, based on Sony's financials. This just helps narrow the range down to 160.01-161.90 million.
Given the numbers in the article being precise to the million, I would say 160.01-160.99. Had they said over 161milion it would be on the higher end of what you said, but they said over 160m.
I agree.
Thinking the same thing, being that they listed 102 million for PS1 and 87 million for PS3. If PS2 was between 161-161.9, they would have listed it as over 161 million I bet.
I can understand leaving PS5 out, I guess, but why the Vita?
Vita figures have always been left out by Sony in data releases because the figures are embarrassingly low.
These new figures do however allow us to work out a range of 11.68M - 14.21M for Vita ~7-8 months before Sony ceased production.
It has never been over 156M.
It was always over 155M (since 2012). From there on out till when Show Layden was it ? announced 160M everywhere PS2 was discussed with the ranges between 155 and 162M. Now is the first time, we get official announcement from Sony since that " over 155M" in 2012.
Yes. There is a very very suspicious trend in that. 12 years after the death of PS2...
Sony knew 12 years ago how many PS2 they made, and do not tell the exact number... but just NOW they told this to us? mm...
PS1 - Sony says “over 102 million.” The last reported shipped number, 102.49 million.
PS3 - Sony says “over 87 million.” Last reported shipped number, 87.4 million.
PS4 - Sony says “over 117 million.” Last reported shipped number, …more than 117 million.
And then there’s the PSP, Sony says “over 80 million.” The last reported shipped number was 82.5 million - via Shawn Layden on Twitter.
I’m assuming the PS2 follows the same trend as the other consoles and that the PSP, being a handheld, is treated as an outlier. If that’s the case, then the final PS2 number is somewhere between 160-161 million units. But that PSP trajectory really throws me off! And they didn’t even state anything about the Vita’s final tally!
Damn it, Sony! Stop being vague!
PS4 is 117,2 million, after that it was discontinued! No more PS4 hardware announced in their forecast!
They pretending the Vita didn't exist is just sad.
They don't. They had 1 page ? for it .. instead of like 10 slides for every other console
Well, if they say the PS1 is over 102 million and not something like "over 100 million", I will assume the PS2 has not reached 161 million and it landed somewhere between 160,000,001 and 160,999,999 units sold. Sony is the one to blame. SometimesI think Sony does this on purpose, just to keep increasing PS2's number whenever they want
Yep, PS1 was 102.5M I think. PS3 is 87.4M but they rounded to the nearest milion. PSP was confirmed for 82.5M, and on those slides they listed it as over 82M.
82,51 is a fake number as its exactly 1 million over te GBA. Also add in the fact its "in memory of 82,51 million PRODUCED PSPs". Subtract all demo stations, that whee shipped to retailers and later send back to Sony wich where not even made for costumer use and your number will be clearly below 81,51 million. There was the PSP, Street PSP wich had seperate demo stations in store and world wide there was more than a million shops who ordered them.
Lol that timing can't be coincidental. Still a bit of that old rivalry left I suppose
True
Its the ps 30th year soo yea
They also updated the psp
Wow! That's amazing!! Congrats to Sony for reaching that high with the PS2.
They don't know how many exactely they have produced? I mean, they can't sell more than they have manufactured...
well.. it seems they pretend this, at least XD
Sony is afraid of the Switch stealing their 158-159 million PS2 Record. So these liers fake up the PS2's total as much as they want. Maybe we see a PS2 with a fantasy number laserd on the system ("in lying... ähm sorry... in loving memory of ...million PS2s)😂🤣 So they see Nintendo as a DIRECT COMPETITIOR!! No more denying this now! Sony and Nintendo go for the SAME FUCKING AUDIENCE wich are gamers. But if the Switch reached that record (I DO NOT SAY THEY WILL FOR SURE!!) then it will be a different audience again. When you are loosing a war, you claim the winners as "non fighters"? Fighting for "different reasons". Our cities are bombed down, millions died, but we won because of fightin for a "different reason"?🤣😂
i played ps2 more than any other system
Opposite for me. It was my least played system. That was the one gen I had all three systems and despite getting PS2 second out of the three it was by far my least played of the three. Only Sony system I've ever bothered to own. Though I do wish I still had it just so I could play Shadow of the Colossus and FF Tactics again.
cool, the PS3 was my least favorite, i was a little late due to the original cost. PS4 was fantastic, i have a PS5 but play it the least of the 3 with playing the switch the most
Interesting. Not into Japanese third-party games that generation? Xbox and PlayStation had a lot of North American and European overlap, but tons of Japanese games never came to Xbox or even GameCube.
as the switch gets closer
As the 30th year of ps gets closer ya meam
Many people are asking for the precise number of PS2 consoles SONY has sold. Nobody complaining about M$ not revealing their sales numbers for the last 3 XBox gens?
Meh. 155 160... Switch is #1 ps2 is #1. Whatever. We're all gonna die someday people.
Why now Sony? awesome numbers for sure, PS2 KING!
Maybe SONY is starting to hear the Boss music from the Switch incoming ;)
Cause they fear Switch, as they feared DS
I have no idea why they took so long. Jim Ryan said it hit around 160 million back in March this year and now Sony is confirming it. Part of it makes me think they're trolling Nintendo because Switch is 144.33 million units and counting and could either fall short or narrowly beat the 160-162 million or so PS2 finished around.
Switch is all but guaranteed to surpass DS globally, PS2 isn't as certain.
Well, it really isn't all that logical to compare handhelds to dedicated home consoles, and the Switch is a hybrid. These SHOULD be three separate categories, imo, so I don't know why Sony would feel this way. Nothing is going to beat the PS2 in the dedicated home console market. That record is pretty much etched in stone.
But the point is not comparing the PS2 and the Switch as home consoles. We compare them as video game consoles, simply like that
I think the point of separating them is the same reason we think of handhelds different. There are a lot of households where multiple people have their own and they're more prone to being replaced due to accidents. So if the reason someone is looking at the numbers is that they want to know which one was "more popular", the PS2 is almost unbeatable because it achieved those numbers with very few redundant sales.
I had 3 damn different PS2, because the thing kept breaking. I never needed to replace any other of the consoles I own.
this is irrelevant, because if we count double or triple sales and broken consoles, then the numbers for most of the consoles should be different. Not by half but at least by 10% if not 15% of their Lifetime sales.
Same here with every house in my family. With Switch is different, everyone wants their own.
I get that you may have a unique case, but the PS2 wasn't known for catastrophic failure. Like if we were talking about the 360, we could almost wash all sales in the first couple of years because RROD was almost inevitable and absolutely unfixable. PS2 on the other hand was known for its disc read error which was actually fixable and a lot of computer shops would fix them. Yes some people that had enough money would just get a new one, but I'd argue the number of double sales are typical with most other consoles.
The only point I'm making here is that if we're comparing these numbers as a popularity contest, it's not exactly fair to compare to a portable device that regardless of reliability has an added risk of being dropped.
Back in the day, us gamers never compared their sales. The Gameboy was not competing with the Genesis, the SNES was. The GBA was not competing with the Xbox, the Gamecube was. That whole thing is relatively new, and it completely boggles my mind. It's like comparing motorcycles and cars. Sure, they both have engines and get you from point a to b, but they do not compete, and that's how the automotive industry views it. Consoles use to be the same way, but then newer gamers started to buck it... and God only knows why. It's strange.
Well, it's strange for > you <
Yes, it is. It's like comparing Harley sales to Teslas, or popsicles to hot dogs. Both have engines and drive people around, both are food products, none of them even remotely competing with one another.
If I'm hungry and I have 5 bucks, you can bet that popsicles and hot dogs companies are competing to get my money. Just accepet that there are diffrent levels of competitiveness, and the one that people focus the most regarding videogame is the one you don't like
The thing here is, that the gamer can be hungry for home playing, or playing outside, or both. And when you combine those that want to play outside and those inside you get bigger number than only those who want to play inside. Therefore normally Switch should have the potential to beat the PS2. And not barely in the end of it's lifecycle, but earlier. And in reality it is even questionable if it will do it even in the end. Although in defence of Switch the most of the home market is on the XBSX/PS5 territory, and handheld wasn't powerfull as it once were (7th gen) since there were many people going to phones since then.
I agree with you. However most people are fighting for their console of choice and they don't look categories but just pure numbers. Switch has both home console audience as well as handheld ones. This is another reason added to the list. Well PS2 had dvd player when it was the boom period. The reasons for any of them are many. But yes, it should be noted the different categories they are in. Having Switch almost dead in Europe in USA, and continue to decline steadily in Japan, I think Switch may finish somewhere around 155M or barely above. But still a distance from the PS2 at 160M.
Will all the region numbers on the platform totals chart be adjusted to reflect this new total? It currently shows over 158m so not too much to change.
I've updated the global total to 160.01M for the PS2, but I haven't updated the different region totals yet. Any platform before the 7th generation we didn't do estimates on, so older consoles we just input the lifetime figures manually for that page.
Edit: I've gone and added the missing figures to "Rest of World"
I would LOVE if Sony gave us the exact figure. Or at least to the nearest 10K like Nintendo does.
So that 88.15M for the PS3 it seems fake now .. since they round to the nearest milion, they would put PS3 at over 88M. But they didn't.
Managed to beat you by 2 minutes!
Lie
The best-selling dedicated home console in history. And I'd put real money on it staying that way forever.
Next:
PS2 at 165 million
Sony Just Trolled Nintendo?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_QlPLZacZ8
Essay Pro