Okay, serious and honest question here as stated in the subject line. Is the original PlayStation overtracked on VGChartz?
I was looking at the Platform Totals charts one day, I saw that the PS1 is listed as having sold 104.25 million units worldwide during its lifetime. What struck me as odd is that this number is contrary to everything I have seen almost everywhere else on the internet. Out of curiousity, I started digging, thinking maybe I missed something. Here's the timeline I came up with:
12/3/1994 - PlayStation releases in Japan
9/9/1995 - PlayStation releases in North America
9/29/1995 - PlayStation releases in Europe
1998 - PlayStation sales reach 50 million units
3/4/2000 - PlayStation 2 releases in Japan (NA & Europe follow later in same year)
7/7/2000 - Sony releases PSOne redesign
9/2005 - Sony announces PlayStation + PSOne surpass 100 million sold milestone.
3/31/2006 - PlayStation/PSOne is discontinued
Now, almost everywhere I look on the internet come up with the same final tally for units sold of the original PlayStation + PSOne redesign combined. That # is 102.49 million units. That's almost 2 million units less than what is listed on VGChartz platforms total. And the places that I do see the 104.25 million unit total are citing VGChartz as their source. Which still begs the question, where does the 104 million+ number come from? If VGChartz is correct, baring in mind that Sony had just announced PS1 crossing 100 million units in 2005, and then discontinuation in 2006; then Sony would have sold 4 million PS1's in the 12th year of its lifespan (6 years into PS2 being on the market)? For perspective, in the first year of PS4 being on the market, PS3 did not even manage to sell 4 million consoles in 2014 (the 8th year of its lifespan). The dates and the numbers just don't add up for me. So, am I wrong? Did the original PlayStation surpass 104 million units sold? Or, is it more likely that 102 million is the more correct number?
Now, I freely admit that my original inspiration for looking at VGChartz Platform Totals that day was to see how close the Wii actually was to reaching/passing the PlayStation's total. Even if adjusted down to 102.49 million, it would still be very difficult for the Wii (currently listed at 101.17 million) to reach this number considering its sales have slowed to a trickle (selling just over 500,000 units in all of 2014, down from almost 2 million the year before). So, I'm not muck-raking here in the Wii's favor. I'm honestly curious about the discrepancy at this point.
(By the way, this is the first thread I've created on this site after strictly commenting on posts as a member for some time.)
The below sources don't represent every site/article I looked at, but they do set-up the timeline above for reference.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_(console)
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/01/playstation-20th-anniversary-sony-1994
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/sony-stops-making-original-ps/1100-6146549/
http://scei.co.jp/corporate/data/bizdataps_e.html">http://web.archive.org/web/20110722094946/http://scei.co.jp/corporate/data/bizdataps_e.html
http://www.nextpowerup.com/news/19896/there-have-been-370-million-playstations-sold-since-1994/
http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/
