PS2 formally surpasses 160m gross sales, retaining its best-selling console crown

Nintendo’s Change could be nipping at its heels, however PlayStation 2 continues to carry the report because the best-selling console of all time – with Sony now confirming the machine has shifted a whopping 160m items since launching all the best way again in March 2000.

This is not the primary time we have heard that determine, in fact; former PlayStation boss Jim Ryan casually claimed a complete of 160m PlayStation 2s had been bought throughout a farewell version of PlayStation Podcast earlier this 12 months, however Sony has now up to date its PlayStation historical past web page to replicate that quantity, lastly making it formally official.

PlayStation 2’s final main gross sales milestone was trumpeted again in 2011, when Sony revealed the console had surpassed 150m gross sales – though it solely took one other 12 months for that quantity to leap up by an extra 5m. So whereas gross sales have undoubtedly slowed – not precisely shocking seeing as Sony hasn’t produced a PS2 since January 2013 – the actual fact the console has efficiently managed to shift one other 5m items within the interim remains to be fairly wild.

To place that into some kind of perspective, PlayStation 5 is at the moment at 65m lifetime gross sales, whereas PS4 has bought 117m items, PS3 is on the 87m mark, and PS1 was snapped up by 102m Vib-Ribbon followers. Nintendo’s DS handheld virtually got here near matching PS2’s beforehand introduced determine, shifting 154m items, but it surely now trails someway behind. As for Change (at the moment at 146m gross sales), it might nonetheless reign victorious if Change 2 would not get in its approach.

For all this aggressive chatter, 160m PS2s bought remains to be a formidable achievement, and you may learn extra concerning the console’s success elsewhere on Eurogamer. It is not Sony’s solely trigger for celebration, in fact, given the whole PlayStation model is marking its thirtieth anniversary in precisely one week’s time. And all this due to a falling out with Nintendo.