PS2 will remain the best selling console of all time by the end of this gen

[Linkzmax]

Snake612 said:

Showertea said:
Generations last six years, so the PS2 stopped selling in 2006, right? Completely taken off the market?

That's not what I'm saying. You're missing the point. The gamecube came out in 2001 and was discontinued in 2006. The xbox came out in 2001, discontinued in 2006. The PS2 kep going because of its strong weekly sales and Sony wanted to see the console have a 10 year lifespan. Now that  it will reach its 10th year in japan  by march and in us by october, Sony should discontinue the console in early 2011. That's what i'm trying to say.

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/library/historical_data/pdf/consolidated_sales_e0912.pdf

I'm not gonna bother looking up the Xbox stuff, but since I found this nice chart when looking up info for the Gameboy I'll inform you that the Gamecube continued to be shipped until FY 2008, and software continued to be shipped until FY 2009. If they continued to support a failure in the sense that it only sold ~20M, what in the world makes you think they'll drop a cash cow like the Wii that's more than tripled those sales in half of the time?

Companies don't discontinue a product because they don't want to drag it into the next generation, or it's been out long enough, or any other silly reason. They drop something if it's no longer making a profit(or for loss-leading consoles if the red ink will never turn black) or if the opportunity cost is too much, meaning they could profit more on something else.

 

@Miquel_Zorro  as to the definition of console, from Merriam-Webster's:

5 : an electronic system that connects to a display (as a television set) and is used primarily to play video games

Just because portables are internally connected to their display means they don't count?