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I'll take a quick stab at last generation's numbers.  Let's say that 1% of all consoles each year are replacement units of all units sold to date.  (Could be due to a hardware failure that was due to poor design, excessive use, accident, etc.  This also assumes that some people may choose to not replace their systems or buy a used console as a replacement.)  If we look at sales each year, we'd get a picture like this:

March 2000 - PS2 - 1.41M - 14K units sold as replacements

March 2001 - PS2 - 10.6M - 106K

March 2002 - PS2 - 28.7M - 287K - GC - 3.8M - 38K - Xbox - 3.1M - 31K

March 2003 - PS2 - 51.2M - 512K - GC - 9.6M - 96K - Xbox - 8.6M - 86K

March 2004 - PS2 - 71.3M - 713K - GC - 14.6M - 146K - Xbox - 14.5M - 145K

March 2005 - PS2 - 87.5M - 875K - GC - 18.5M - 185K - Xbox - 20.7M - 207K

March 2006 - PS2 - 103.7M - 1M  - GC - 20.9M - 209K - Xbox - 24.2M - 242K

So through March 2006, that would provide a conservative estimate of 3.507M of the PS2's 103.7M shipped number as replacements.  You'd have 674,000 GameCube's replaced and 711,000 replacement Xboxes.  This is of course a real rough estimate and there could be a number of other factors that play into these numbers including the redesign of the PS2 (which probably swayed a few people to buy a new console even if their system was already working), actual failure rates of the systems, price of a used versus new system, etc.  

A more aggressive estimate may assume that a greater percentage of systems fail as they get older.  Assuming 1% of consoles fail within the first year and that number increases 1% each year (so 2% of total system sold two years ago fail, etc.), you'd have numbers like this:

March 2000 - PS2 - 1.41M - 14K units sold as replacements

March 2001 - PS2 - 10.6M - 120K

March 2002 - PS2 - 28.7M - 421K - GC - 3.8M - 38K - Xbox - 3.1M - 31K

March 2003 - PS2 - 51.2M - 1.05M - GC - 9.6M - 134K - Xbox - 8.6M - 117K

March 2004 - PS2 - 71.3M - 2.17M - GC - 14.6M - 356K - Xbox - 14.5M - 324K

March 2005 - PS2 - 87.5M - 3.09M - GC - 18.5M - 637K - Xbox - 20.7M - 617K

March 2006 - PS2 - 103.7M - 6.64M - GC - 20.9M - 1.13M - Xbox - 24.2M -1.12M

This formula indicates that 13.5M or about 13% of the PS2's 103.7M shipped number were replacements.  (2.3M for GameCube and 2.2M for Xbox.) Of course this assumes that 28% of the consoles Sony sold before March 2000 have since been replaced.

I believe the actual numbers lie somewhere in the middle of both estimates.  While significant, I still don't think that really puts Sony's dominance of last generation in question.  With this generation's console war still young and close, every unit counts.



Numbers are like people. Torture them enough and you can get them to say anything you want.

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