Is the PS4 Sony's Most Successful Console to Date?

[The_Liquid_Laser]

It's a close call, but I have to give it to the PS2.  A system does have to be profitable in order to be successful (and that is why the PS3 was a failure), but maximizing profit is not the actual purpose of a business.  According to Peter Drucker, the purpose of a business is to make a customer.  Which system made the most customers?  The PS2.

Obviously the PS2 sold the most systems.  However, this is because Sony was actually trying to make the most customers during the PS2 era.  The PS2 was a huge expansion over the PS1.  The PS1 was the best selling system in its day, and yet the PS2 went 50m+ over the PS1's hardware sales.  They kept expanding the PS2 into new markets.  And they eventually dropped the price to $99.99 which was a third of it's starting price.  They were doing everything they could to make new customers.  The PS2 was still profitable during it's $99 price era.  It's not like they were cutting off their own hand to make customers.  Instead they made many new customers while remaining profitable.

On the other hand the PS4 did not make anywhere near this effort to expand into new markets.  Most importantly, it didn't drop the price below $300.  If they were going to do price cuts comparable to the PS2, then they should have at least gone down to $150.  This means that they chose more profits over more customers.  That's a big mark against the PS4.  It is not expensive for them to make PS4's anymore.  They could have easily dropped the price, but they chose not to and that left millions of people out of the gaming market.

On top of that I have to give the PS2 some bonus points for the following reasons:
1. Better software diversity.  A fair amount of those PS4 software sales are people releasing a CoD or Assassin's Creed every year.
2. Bigger game library.  Wikipedia lists PS4 at 3222 and many of those games are digital only.  PS2 has 4380 games and they are all physical.
3. Tougher competition.  The internet is full of people who keep praising the XBox, Gamecube and even the Dreamcast.  In spite of this the PS2 clobbered them all, because it was just that good of a system.  When is the last time you heard someone praising the XBox1?  Somehow it still sold about double what the original XBox sold.  Competition just wasn't very tough during Gen 8.