Former Sony PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan recently attended a PlayStation podcast where he revealed the final sales figures for the historic console. The PlayStation 2 gaming console heralded a new era in March 2000 for the gaming industry with its MIPS III R5900-based “Emotion Engine” processor featuring 128-bit SIMD capabilities. The console also ushered in a gaming industry first with its inclusion of a Blu-ray disc drive and the ability to play movies right out of the box which added to its value and challenged DVD player manufacturers on their own turf. All this combined with hundreds of games being released for the console led to the PlayStation 2 becoming the highest-selling gaming console of all time.
The PlayStation 2 stayed in production for roughly twelve years, a ridiculously long time by today’s standards, until it was officially retired in January 2013, although a month before in Japan. In a similar fashion to current console manufacturer strategies, and following those with its predecessor, multiple versions of the console were released during its production run further prolonging its appeal to consumers.
PS2 vs Switch
While Sony has never officially said exactly how many units were sold during the console’s historic run it has been reported as being at roughly over 155 million. As of yet, no other console has managed to beat that figure but the Nintendo Switch isn’t far behind and was recently said to be at just over 139 million units sold. However, the former Sony PlayStation CEO has clarified the final sales number of the PlayStation 2 at 160 million.
Even though that final sale figure may not be much of a difference the Nintendo Switch could be hard-pressed to beat it given the number of other contenders in the gaming handheld market there currently are and more seem to pop up each quarter. That combined with its older processor only adds to the challenge of overtaking the PlayStation 2 sales record. However, Nintendo could offer a new bundle or sales promotion in order to do just that and it is well known that Nintendo has a strong market share in Asia where such a promotion might just be the tipping point. Factor in that its successor the Switch 2 isn’t expected to arrive until 2025 and the odds of closing the gap become even more probable.