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Norion on 12 May 2025
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Soundwave said:
Norion said:

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 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. 

The PS2 is not the more popular system, if it was it should be beating the Switch head to head in relevant prime cycle years, 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, etc. etc.). 

When it comes to hardware sales it's not a debate that it'll retain popularity for longer, the previous fiscal year for the Switch is 10.8m which is notably lower than the equivalent for the PS2 at 13.7m and that'll increasingly be the case over the next few years so in the last few years the PS2 will have greater demand. For the rest I literally said I mostly agree and that it had lower peak popularity so of course I agree that the Switch is the overall more popular system. I was just pointing out that the PS2 does have points in its favour one being its impressively long lifespan despite its successor coming out just six years in.