The PlayStation 2 has cleared 50 million units sold in North America, after entering its ninth year on the market, The Associated Press has reported.
As of last summer 140 million PS2s had been shipped worldwide. We expect that figure to be even bigger now, easily making it the single best selling console of all time.
The console, which is on sale for $130 (£89) in the US, continues to move off the shelves and even sold an impressive 206,000 units in November States-side, a testament to Sony's continued support for the old box.
The PS2 has been realigned as console for the casual and family market, with games like Buzz!, SingStar and EyeToy pushed to the front of the marketing queue.
Honestly, I would have thought the sales in the US had exceeded 50 mil already. Guess the wordwide sales are more equally spread out than they are with PS3/Xbox360 sales.
Well done PS2! It is precisely because of the phenomenal hither-to-unheard of success of PS2 sales that the PS3 sales are considered "unsuccessful" as such. History may prove me wrong but I have a very hard time believing that the PS3, or any other console this generation for that matter, will surpass the PS2 in sales even if it were to sell for as many years as the PS2 does until it is completely retired.
I love the older gen consoles: 1. Throw in a game->play immediately, no installation 2. No System Updates 3. Due to no harddrive games have to be robust and not require patches 4. Simple, effective, do what they say on the tin
Would love to get another PS2 as ive 30 games and my PS2 died about a year ago, shame they removed the backwards compatibility from the PS3, grrr, still wanna finish FF12 and have to do it on my PC instead
i'm not surprised considering how prone to dieing the bloody things are.
I'm on my 3rd.
Still an awesome machine though.
You seem to be confused. This article is about PS2, not XBOX360.
hur hur hur.
Surprisingly enough the tables turned this gen. Up untill now sony have made consoles that break if you merely look at them funny, Still sold in spades.
And the original xbox you could drop out of a window and the bloody thing'd still work.
The only manufacturer that has consistantly made really hardy machines is nintendo. Never had one break on me yet.
Loved my PS2, only got rid of it to trade it in for a PS3.
Mind you, I only really played the GTA games, call of duty and pro evo on it.
Have to say PS3 improved in all the right areas for me though.
I still have a few PS2 games around, but I haven't touched them in nearly 2 years, even though they will run on my PS3. Did stick in Resident Evil from the PS1 in a while ago though, shocked by how good it still looked.
i'm not surprised considering how prone to dieing the bloody things are.
I'm on my 3rd.
Still an awesome machine though.
the. f**king. cheek.
some nerve.
.. and i wouldnt say no system updates is a good thing. may have caused some companies to go lax on QA but its better than getting a glitchy game forever or one that cant have maps or DLC added in later.
i'm not surprised considering how prone to dieing the bloody things are.
I'm on my 3rd.
Still an awesome machine though.
the. f**king. cheek.
some nerve.
What? You can't be refuting this, surely?
I don't know anyone who's had only one PS2. They've all either had to replace a broken one or have upgraded to one of the later hardware revisions.
likewise with a certain console that is about a third of its age. how many are you gonna get through by the time it reaches the age the ps2 is right now?
at least the revised ps2's dont suffer from the same problems as the launch machines.
I'm still on my first PS2 after 7 years and still on my first 360 after 3 years. Both console are notorious for dying so what does that tell you? Some people take care of their possesions and others don't and then bitch and moan about it and blame the manufacturer for their own neglect. Or I just got very lucky.
As Sony took BC out of PS3, here's hoping for another few years of trouble free PS2 gaming. Still got loads of awesome games to go back to. Just wish it had wireless pads these days.
I'm still on my first PS2 after 7 years and still on my first 360 after 3 years. Both console are notorious for dying so what does that tell you? Some people take care of their possesions and others don't and then bitch and moan about it and blame the manufacturer for their own neglect. Or I just got very lucky.
True - but then again, you could play football with the Gamecube and it would still work - the same certainly can't be said for either the PS2 or Xbox 360...
I do still want to get a PS2, but I want one of the proper ones; not one of the crap slimline ones.
I have a 'proper' PS2 that I never use. In perfect working order. £350 and it's yours.
You must be joking. The fellow could probably order a brand-new one from the US or Japan for that matter including shipping and any tariffs while still not paying 350 quid. Pffft!
I know for a fact he could buy a new PS2 cheaper in one of the Benelux countries. Whether any of the stores would be willing to ship it to the UK is another matter but anything is possible if you have the patience and the money where transportation is concerned.
Last year DOSBox had it's five millionth download, the 360 Arcade and Sony LIVE services selling retro games(among other things) boomed, DS and Wii, with lack of graphics but plenty of gameplay beating PS3 and 360 'hardcore' machines hands-down and now PS2 selling 50 million plus in the U.S and still only just behind the PS3!
Doesn't all this tell you something? That gamers are now voting with the purse strings against modern graphics intensive, but shallow repetitive gameplay video games, and the less graphics greater gameplay of older games! The success of PS2, Wii, DS and DOSBOX has got to be showing us a revolution in gaming - that no one has noticed!
If modern AAA gaming was all it was cracked up to be, the 'hardcore' machines (PC, PS3 and 360) would be doing best and the PS2, Wii and DS would be doing poorly. Certainly we would not have seen over 5 million DOSBox's downloaded unless a large number of gamers were going back to playing DOS games!!!
Certainly on PC, as fewer AAA titles come out, and even fewer decent AAA titles come out, PC gamers are filling their time with playing their old retro games! Once you have played System Shock 2 it shows you how Bioshock is not that great, when you play Far Cry you realise how better it is than Crysis, and of course, in many Top 100 games, the original Half Life comes higher than Half Life 2! Same goes for console games. For original gameplay, deeper stories and more believable characters you have to go back. Hence so many PS2's still being sold - not just for PS2 gaming, but also PS1 gaming, which I understand is also still going strong!
Tonight, as I type this, I wouldn't be surprised if over half of all gamers are going to play a game with the equivalent of 2005 graphics, but also 1998-2003 gameplay!!!! (Like DS games, PS1/PS2 games, and DOSBox games). Add in all the 8/16 bit 360 Arcade and Sony Live games that will be played and the number of emulated games being played on PC for machines like the Commodore 64 and Amiga (and yes, the PS1 and PS2!) and you can see how many are now not playing 2008/9 AAA titles like Crysis and GTA IV, but are looking at 2005 and back for their gaming pleasure!
A well worded and salient argument. I would like to add that it would seem harder to measure a rejection of the PC as a gaming platform based solely on the graphics issue since even a 5 year old PC today with low specs should be more than enough to handle games from the 80's and 90's thus negating any need whatsoever to upgrade regardless of whether you have an old (by PC standards,) or new PC. Indeed, even buying a budget PC today should be more than enough to trounce the old "classics'" requirements. This would only serve to support your point though it also serves to highlight that it then becomes increasingly difficult to state that the PC is losing gamers when indeed it may be gaining some due to the very soft requirements that even many a low-spec office PC can handle today (and let's face it: The PC office/business market dwarfs all of the dedicated gaming platforms combined).
I still have my PS2. Mine never died on me. Had it years and years. i use to rest my drink in the CD tray whilst looking for another game to play. Classic machine. Much better than PS3. (and 360 and Wii for that matter!)
I have an original PS2 in working order. I've had mine for about 8 years, never stopped working on me. Always worked perfectly, constant use out of it. I loves it still : )
What a fantastic system the ps2 was. I remember wanting one because MGS2 was announced for it, and when I actually bought it in Oct 2001 I got GTA3 with it and that more that tided me over until MGS2. Then I got hooked on Pro Evolution that same year and the following year two of my favorite games of all time arrived, MGS2 and GTA Vice City. When I think back the ps2 doesn't owe me anything, but then I did have more time to play games in college. Still though, a truely great console.
1, Get a knackered PS2 for next to nowt. 2, Call Sony customer services and pay for an exchange unit. These PS2's are factory reconditioned, good as new units. 3, Wait for courier, exchange consoles. 4, Play on a new fat PS2 for years. Just like me.
Problem solved.
You can then get a network adapter, hard drive and some software and transfer your original games onto hdd to save the laser and speed up loading.
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I thought it was 120 million worldwide, it's much higher from the looks of it.
