Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the Best-Selling PS2 Game in the US - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 26 October 2025 / 7,351 Views
Circana Executive Director and Video Game Industry Analyst Mat Piscatella in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the launch of PlayStation 2 in North America, October 26, 2000, has revealed the top 20 best-selling PS2 games in the US of all-time.
The Grand Theft Auto franchise dominates the charts taking up the top three spots. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the best-selling PS2 game of all-time, followed by Grand Theft Auto: Vice City in second place and Grand Theft Auto III in third place.
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is the fourth best-selling game, however, it comes in third in terms of dollar sales. Guitar Hero II is in seventh place in terms of units sold and fifth in dollar sales.
Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec is the best-selling first-party game as it comes in fifth place. Gran Turismo 4: The Real Driving Simulator is in 18th place and God of War is in 19th place.
The PS2 itself is the best-selling video game home console of all-time worldwide with over 160 million units sold. However, it is the third best-selling console in the US with 46.5 million units sold lifetime. Only the Nintendo DS (54.8 million) and the Nintendo Switch (48.3 million) have sold more.
Here are the all-time top 20 best-selling PlayStation games in the US:
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 follow the author on Bluesky.
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Interesting to see Guitar Hero 3 is so high in the list, given this was a couple of years into the PS360 era. Helps show how high the active install base of the PS2 was even that late into its lifespan.
I thought we've known this for 20 years.
It’s sometimes fun to revisit old news. I somehow didn’t realize that Guitar Hero made such an impression so late in the PS2 era. So sometimes it can give you some other insight I guess.
Yeah, I knew GH was big, though that was an interesting tidbit. Rock Band's expensive plastic instruments kicked it all the way up to #7 in revenue when it didn't even make the top 20 in unit sales.
Mostly yes, but I think the units vs revenue dimension is new.
Best selling dedicated home console in the US ever. And I'm curious if GTA SA is the highest selling game of that gen. I'm guessing so.
By the time San Andreas came out, it was just more Grand Theft Auto to me and I was over it. Vice City will always be my favorite GTA game.
Warms my heart seeing SOCOM on the list. Even if it is in dollar signs lol RIP
I don't think I knew GTA had the 3 first spots. I'm very surprise Kingdom Hearts sold so well there.
Fun fact. The reason Madden 05 sold more, but made less money than Madden 04 is because of NFL 2K5. NFL2K5 launched a few weeks before Madden 05 at $20, which led EA to make Madden 05 $30 instead of the usual $50. NFL 2K5 became the best selling NFL 2K game ever with over 3 million on PS2 and Xbox. The Xbox version sold closer to Madden 05 than the PS2 version.
Pre Call of Duty domination era.
Kingdom Hearts is surprisingly high. Even outsold FFX making it the bestselling JRPG on the console considered one of the best for the genre.
Rockstar just let MIdnight Club die as a series, even though it was so popular.
Socom fizzling out as a series is also a tragedy.
Is GoW the only in-house PS2 exclusive on the left list? Or is GT3 also in-house?
GT3 is in-house. Polyphony Digital has been a Sony studio for its entire existence.
And their best game is Omega Boost!
