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HigHurtenflurst on 05 April 2021
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Mandalore76 said:
IcaroRibeiro said:

Console market when PS2 came out was smaller. Economic growth lead consoles being more accessible and affordable. Remember when PS2 was released only one home system ever has surpassed 100 million, PS1, and only one handheld, Game Boy, that needed over 10 years in the market plus a huge upgrade (Game Boy Color) to surpass 100 million too. I'm not sure if Switch surpassing PS2 sales is exactly more or less impressive than PS2 but I'm leaning towards less impressive

Switch pulling something more like 170-180 million copies though... that's another thing

Not sure why you felt the need to mention how long it took the Gameboy to reach 100 million, when it took the original PlayStation over 10 years as well.  Both PS1 and PS2 had their successors on the market before either crossed the 100 million milestone.  It was the impressive legs of each that put them over the hurdle (the PS2 in a considerably shorter span of time).

PS2 will have reached 100 million in early 2006, 9-12 months before PS3 released, (Sony announced 100m shipped in November 2005)

And to correct Icaro: When the PS2 first launched no system had sold 100 million as neither PS1 nor GB had reached that yet. GB was at 94.8 million shipped, PS1 was at 54.47 million shipped, not even at NES total yet (though it was obvious PS1 would surpass NES, and obvious GB would go over 100m at the time)

You both have valid points but you can't directly compare PS2 to Switch and determine which is more impressive, they both come with different advantages & disadvantages due to when they released & the systems themselves.

Switch has the advantage of being in a larger more varied gaming market.
Also being a hybrid it is more likely to have multiple concurrent purchases in the same household
And as it's usable as a handheld it doesn't really have any competition as there are no other dedicated handheld gaming devices (3DS may have been mild competiton early on, but last 2 years Switch is basically on it's own in that field)

PS2 has the advantage of being bought by some as a multimedia system (when it launched it was cheaper than most standalone DVD players)
More so just by it being so long lived (a significant portion of original phat PS2 owners probably bought a 2nd PS2 after the original broke... PS2 failure rate is certainly higher than any Nintendo console afaik).
It also had the advantage of being followed by the PS3, which had a poor launch performance & crazy high price.
Wii's graphically poor power but big sales success also meant PS2 saw some ported game releases to help extend it's life.
Early in PS2 life there was also not much competition, Sega bowed out, MS was new & untested & Nintendo had lost support due to N64 and was trying to emulate Sony too much with the GC... PS2s biggest competition was probably the PS1