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Soundwave on 12 May 2025
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Norion said:
Soundwave said:

The PS2 is a paper champion anyway, it doesn't deserve the title it has. The only reason is has the record is because Sony bungled the PS3 and kept shipping PS2s in developing countries for years afterwards.

If Nintendo did the same thing with Switch or DS, they would easily be no.1, the PS2 needed several extra years of sales to get to 160.

Nintendo could have easily sold 165 million DS' and could do the same for the Switch, the PS3 being a terrible launch isn't something Sony should be proud of.

It took PS2 11 years to hit 150 million (Feb 14, 2011 according to Sony), the DS and Switch are both way above that, the PS2 isn't able to match prime for prime DS or Switch 1 sales, that's simply a fact, it needed to be dragged across the finish line with several extra years of sales. The Switch hit 150 million at its 8th year anniversary, 8 years vs 11 years is a laughable gap, that's not even close. 

I mostly agree though there is a point to be made about just how long the lifespan of the PS2 was even if a big factor in that was them screwing up the PS3. Its peak popularity is lower than the DS and Switch but it retained popularity for much longer than the DS and will retain it longer than the Switch will even with its successor platform coming out years sooner compared to the Switch so I do think it counts for something if it remains the best selling despite the Switch having years longer to itself before being replaced.

There's also other factors like how the Switch benefited a lot from covid and gaming being significantly bigger now compared to the PS2 days though it did never get a price cut so was never really cheap like the DS and PS2 after they got price cuts. In terms of hardware sales I'd actually argue that the most impressive one of the three is likely the DS, it was such a behemoth during its peak period when gaming was smaller. If software sales are included then the winner is probably the Switch though.

I disagree it retained popularity longer than the Switch at all. 

First of all lets get one thing clear, the Switch has sold more than the PS2 for basically it's entire primary product cycle and even late product cycle. The PS2 needed 11 years to hit 150 million, the Switch did that in 8 years and at present I think you'd be hard pressed to say the PS2 circa 2009 was more popular or relevant than the Switch is today in 2025. The Switch as of 2024 was still the 2nd best selling console on a monthly basis with new software titles still debuting in the top 10. The PS2 at the same age? Was well behind the Wii, DS, XBox 360, PSP, and PS3 in popularity at this point with virtually no new big charting games. It was essentially just a budget system at that point. 

The Switch has beaten the PS2 and been ahead of the PS2 sales pace basically since day 1 and that continues almost here almost 9 years later. With no price drop either, whereas the PS2 had several price cuts. 

The Switch is the more popular system, if it wasn't it would never be 20+ million units ahead at 8+ years into its product cycle. Nintendo is just prematurely going to shut down Switch 1 supply because they want people to be forced to buy a Switch 2. Nothing really too complicated about that. 

Again, who here honestly believes if Nintendo gave the Switch even one price cut (whereas the PS2 had like 4 of them) and let the Switch 1 ride for another 3-4 years that it wouldn't easily cruise past 160 mill? It obviously would. Anyone with any logical sense will admit that. 

If the PS2 was the more popular system it should be beating the Switch head to head in relevant prime cycle years at least some of the time, it should be getting to 120 mill, 130 mill, 140 mill, etc. faster. Not only is that not the case, it's not even close. Like I could understand if it was something like the PS2 is within about 5 mill of the Switch and then pulling ahead, but the Switch is country mile ahead, this isn't even a contest 8, 9 years in. It's not even competitive head to head, head to head the PS2 can't compete it needs several extra years tacked on where it got sell at $99 to barely eek out a 160 mill number that isn't even a sales figure, it's a production number (likely includes all kinds of crap like kiosk units, demo units, defective/returned units, quite probably even things like developer units, etc. etc.). 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 12 May 2025