Jim Ryan, who has led the last stage of Sony's video game division until April 2024, said goodbye leaving much more than his own collectible for PS Stars: during his talk on the official PlayStation podcast he stated that they had been sold 160 million PS2 consoles, consolidating itself as the best-selling console of all time. In many ways a revelation, since until then the official amount was set at 155 million. A slip on Ryan's part? Not quite.
Starting from the essentials, the new figure has not gone unnoticed. In good part given that Nintendo Switch is little by little approaching equal to the original PS2 figures in a shorter time frame. But above all because Sony has been accounting for the hardware sales of its second console for more than a decade (exactly since March 2013 and onwards) without modifying the units sold. The 155 million have not moved and are still there. That's as easy as it gets.
However, and this is the really interesting fact, Sony continued manufacturing PS2 until January 2013 and, by extension, consoles continued to be sold from March until the end of existence. As detailed by Daniel Ahmad (Director of Research and Information at Niko Partners), PS2 and PS3 continued to be shipped and sold together throughout 2013, although officially The sales data of the first one stopped updating.
From there, and based on both official Sony documentation and the evolution and recorded monitoring of PS3 sales, Ahmad establishes the range of PS2 consoles sold after Sony's official and definitive figure; which moves between 3.6 million PS2 to 6.8 million. In other words: despite the final record, the real amount would be between the 158.6 million PS2 consoles sold and the 161.8 million.
What is clear is that matching that milestone is extremely difficult: the overwhelming success of PS2 was due to many factors that worked in its favor, including the birth and exclusivity for decades of timeless classics (including some of the best and most revolutionary games of history like two unrepeatable Metal Gear Solid or GTA San Andreas) or simpler reasons such as offering compatibility with PS1 games or a DVD player at a very tempting price.
In any case, PS2 did not reign alone, but it did take the reins of its generation, leaving a very high bar for its successors and everything that came after. Unattainable? If we can make something clear in the video game industry, it is that You never have to say never.
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