Could the Switch surpass the PS2 in sales?

[Shadow1980]

I think I've pretty much established that I don't think the Switch will take the new #1 spot globally. I've said that for years and I still stand by it, and I won't spend 15 minutes reiterating for the hundredth time my reasons why I think this. But wherever the Switch ends up when the dust settles, the Top 3 will be filled by systems very close to each other in lifetime sales.

However, I did want to take the time to rebut the idea that the PS2 got a boost from people buying it just to serve as a DVD player. That's and old, old argument, and it never made sense to me. Sure, it may have swayed a lot of gamers as it could play DVDs right out of the box (the Xbox required an additional accessory for DVD playback, while the Dreamcast and GameCube had no DVD playback at all), which increased its value proposition for those in the market for a Gen 6 console, but I doubt many non-gamers would have bothered.

Now, I can only speak of the situation in the U.S., and it may have been different elsewhere (any non-Americans want to fill me in?), but when the PS2 debuted in the U.S. in Oct. 2000, it cost $300. By that point, DVD players had been around for a bit over three years (I already owned one before the PS2 released), and even in 2000 you could already buy one for half the price of the PS2. By time the PS2's price was cut to $200 (May 2002), you could buy a DVD player for well under $100. At no point during the PS2's life was it cheaper than the cheapest DVD player. Further complicating things was that even though it was the only console that could play DVDs straight out of the box, it did not come with a remote control, which would further add another $20 to the cost.

The idea that the PS2 was purchased en masse by non-gamers is just illogical. It was neither the cheapest nor most convenient option for watching DVDs. Regular DVD players did the job just as good if not better and could be purchased for far less money. Unless there's actual market research showing that non-gamers bought the PS2 en masse just for the DVD playback, then I don't buy that claim.

Also, why even put these asterisks next the sales of all these systems in the first place? So what if there were caveats? Lots of systems have caveats. Households bought multiple units of handhelds so each of their kids (or kids & gaming adults) could have one of their own. The 360 had the RROD issue in its first several years. The Wii was bought by a fair amount of non-gamers. The PS3 actually was the most affordable Blu-ray player by far back in 2006. The Switch got a boost from The Germ. So even if it is true that the PS2's sales were inflated because of DVD, so what? Either one system sells more than another or it doesn't. It should be a matter of academic curiosity, not part of a partisan pissing contest.