160 Million: Why the PS2 Is Still the Best-Selling Console Ever
It was a games console, a DVD player and, for a while, almost impossible to buy. Twenty-six years after launch, no machine has outsold Sony's black tower. Here is how it happened.
On March 4, 2000, Sony launched the PlayStation 2 in Japan at 39,800 yen. The first one million units sold out over the opening weekend. When it reached North America on October 26, 2000, Sony had cut the US shipment from about one million to roughly 500,000, and shops ran out almost immediately. Europe, which got the console on November 24, 2000, was short too: retailers there had only enough stock to fill about 80,000 pre-orders.
That scramble was the start of the most successful run any console has ever had. Sony has confirmed lifetime sales of 160 million units, more than any other home console. More than 4,000 games were released for it, and they sold 1.54 billion copies. Here is how a black tower became the console of a generation.
The Emotion Engine and a DVD drive
The PS2's processor, the Emotion Engine, was co-developed by Sony and Toshiba. It ran at about 295 MHz and could manage around 6.2 billion floating-point calculations per second, and Sony marketed it as more powerful than most PCs of the time. When it was revealed in March 1999, its specifications made Sega's brand-new Dreamcast look outdated overnight, and many players simply waited.
But the feature that sold millions of PS2s had nothing to do with games. The console had a built-in DVD drive, and at its launch price of $299 in the US and £299 in the UK, it cost about the same as a standalone DVD player. For many households, the PS2 was their first DVD player, and it happened to play the best games too.
The library that never stopped
The PS2's games are its real legacy. In a single year, 2001, it received Grand Theft Auto III, Metal Gear Solid 2 and Final Fantasy X, three of the most important games of the decade. God of War arrived in 2005. Japanese role-playing games, racing games, music games, horror and sports titles filled the shelves for more than a decade.
The best-selling game on the system was Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, with 17.33 million copies, the best-selling game on the best-selling console.
Thirteen years on the shelves
Most consoles are replaced within six or seven years. The PS2 refused to leave. Even after the PlayStation 3 launched in 2006, Sony kept making and selling PS2s, and publishers kept releasing games for it, especially sports titles for players who had not upgraded.
Japanese shipments finally ended on December 28, 2012, and production was officially discontinued on January 4, 2013. The very last game released for it was Pro Evolution Soccer 2014, which came out in the UK on November 8, 2013, more than 13 years after the console's launch. In North America, the final release was FIFA 14.
Why it matters
The PS2 is the clearest example of a console winning through value and library. It was not the most powerful machine of its generation, but it arrived before the Xbox and GameCube, did more than play games, and built the deepest catalogue.
WGC's take: today's consoles are going the other way. The PS5 costs more in its sixth year than at launch, and the PS2's model of a cheaper, slimmer console late in life looks impossible in 2026. That is why its record may never be broken. For the modern picture, read our look at the PS5 Pro two years on.