The numers for the PS2 are still innacurate and haven't been tracked in a long time so It hasn't outsold the PS2 yet. It doesn't matter anyways, PS2 is the greatest console ever made.

The issue of multiple buys is not founded on lost hand helds or broken consoles and upgrades because they probably cancel each other out or come close to. The issue is that with a handheld there is only one player per handheld. If there is a family with three children, one console is purchased with 3 controllers and 3 handhelds are purchased for each child. Contributing to this is also the price discrepancy in which on average for most of a generation the handheld is less than half the cost of a console so people are more willing to purchase multiple handhaelds. Generally a household will not have more than 1 console from a given brand. But many households have multiple hand helds.  

"The Game Boy and Game Boy Color combined have sold 118.69 million units worldwide, with 32.47 million units in Japan, 44.06 million in the Americas, and 42.16 million in other regions. By Japanese fiscal year 1997, before Game Boy Color's release in late-1998, the Game Boy alone had sold 64.42 million units worldwide. ^[16][17]"

so the original GB (64M) sold more than the NES (62M) without any revisions.

and btw the NES wasn't discontinued until 2003 so it was on the market for 18 years.

one last thing...

...not exactly short on revisions are we?

again, DS has had an amazing run.  full props to it.  still not unpresedented.

The NES wasn't discontinued in Japan until 2003, but it was discontinued almost everywhere else long before, and it wasn't an actual sales force for over a decade before that.

It took eight years for Game Boy to hit NES numbers; the DS has more than double those in six, and may end up tripling them before it's all said and done. The speed and volume of sales for the DS are unprecedented, as is the fact of it outselling the PS2, which is unprecedented in the context of videogame-specific hardware period.

And for the record, the Game Boy Pocket came out in 1996.

I think handhelds and home consoles should be in categories all by themselves.  Heck, VGC seems to think so, too. 

Of course this is in no way to try and downgrade the DS's numbers, because that would just be foolish and bias.  The DS numbers are incredible.  But when you actually take a step back and look at it, it just seems silly to compare the 2.  Here's my thoughts anyway.

1. The DS is just way more accessible.  You have everything you need when you purchase the console.  No TV's, no wires, and no real extra space needed for consoles and controllers.  This is probably why the handheld is much more popular in Japan than home consoles, considering their smaller living spaces.  And gaming on the go has always had appeal with children of all ages.

2. The price is a major contributor.  At launch, the PS2 was $299 ($381 by today's standards).  The DS, on the other hand, was half that price at launch, $149 (though less than half by todays standards, $174).  Lol, I don't think I need to explain this one further.

3.  And another important factor, the gaming market has expanded.  The PS2 (as well as the PS1) helped increase the popularity and the audience for gaming.  The DS was able to benefit quite a bit from this expanded popularity and audience, as it came out 4 years after the launch of the PS2. 

Again, this isn't to say DS's numbrs are crap because it had many things in its favor, because they aren't.  Just illustrating it's not exactly an apples to apples comparison.

If you're adding production shipments and shipments, you're double counting units.  PS2 hasn't shipped over 150m yet.

Well, now you know someone that didnt, I only got 1 ps2 since 2003, and I know plenty people who only have had only one. 

As for the DS outselling the ps2, I think its a great achievement, but we also have to consider the growth of the market since then, and the great amount of marketshare the ps2 had against 2 other consoles. For this to not turn into a fanboy war its necesary to admit the merits of both system which have sold amazing for their respective times.

No. Sony officially announced months ago the PS2 breaking the 150m.

http://playstationlifestyle.net/2010/05/19/playstation-2-surpasses-unimaginable-150-million-units-milestone/

You can't compare a home console to a handheld portable device! It's different territory. Not to mention the differences between the DS and the DSi. One can argue it's kind of unfair to count them together as the DSi has exclusive games making it a partially different device.

Yeah the PS2 is untertracked but once the DS hits over 150 million units sold its the best selling console in my book.  The DS will easliy sell over 160 million units by the time its discontinued.