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Forums - Sales Discussion - PS2 shipments over 158.6m, breaking down missing fiscal data.

TL:DR in spoiler (hopefully simplified)

Spoiler!

PS3 shipped 63.9m by March 31st 2012

PS2+PS3 combined ships 16.5m in the year ending March 31st 2013

PS3 ships 3.1m from April 1st 2013 to September 30th 2013

PS3 shipped 80m by Nov 2nd 2013

If PS3 had accounted for 13m of the 16.5m combined figure then PS3 would already have reached 80m by September 30th 2013. So at an absolute minimum where PS3 ships no units between September 30th and Nov 2nd, the PS2 ships 3.5m in the missing year of data, add that on to the 155.01m as of March 31st 2012 and the lifetime PS2 is brought up to a minimum of 158.51m.

Edit: Alternate second method using official PS3 figures as of March 31st 2017 and breaking down PS3 FY sales to determine PS2+PS3 combined possible minimum split. Thanks to @RolStoppable for linking the PS3 march 2017 figures. This method shows PS2 HAD to have sold over 158.29m (Link)

The last official number for PS2 ever given was 155.01m as of March 31st 2012. The PS2 was discontinued in January 2013 and we never got another number because starting with their quarterly report for June 30th 2012 Sony began combining PS2+PS3 numbers.

However because we did receive PS3 shipment numbers in the following year we can use the combined numbers to determine a range that the PS2 must have ended up at. Here's what we have. (All sources will be linked at the bottom of the post)

March 31st 2012
PS2 = 155.01m
PS3 = 63.9m

June 30th 2012 - PS2+PS3 shipped 2.8m this quarter
September 30th 2012 - PS2+PS3 shipped 3.5m this quarter
December 31st 2012 - PS2+PS3 shipped 6.8m this quarter
March 31st 2013 - PS2+PS3 shipped 3.4m this quarter

So the total combined sales of PS2+PS3 for the year of PS2 sales we have missing is 16.5m. Now how do we work out how many of those 16.5m are PS2's?

Well luckily we have some help, Sony announced that as of November 2nd 2013 the PS3 had shipped 80m units. This means that between March 31st 2012 and November 2nd 2013 the PS3 shipped 16.1m units, and we have figures for some PS3 quarters in 2013.

June 30th 2013 - PS3 shipped 1.1m this quarter
September 30th 2013 - PS3 shipped 2m this quarter
December 31st 2013 - PS3 shipped 3.3m this quarter

Here's a table with every number we have:

PS2 Quarterly PS2 Total PS3 Quarterly PS3 Total PS2+PS3 Quarterly
March 31st 2012 0.6m 155.1m 1.9m 63.9m 2.5m
June 30th 2012 ? ? ? ? 2.8m
September 30th 2012 ? ? ? ? 3.5m
December 31st 2012 ? ? ? ? 6.8m
March 31st 2013 ? ? ? ? 3.4m
June 30th 2013 0 (discontinued) discontinued 1.1m ? 1.1m
September 30th 2013 0 (discontinued) discontinued 2m ? (<80m) 2m
November 2nd 2013 N/A N/A N/A 80m N/A
December 31st 2013 0 (discontinued) ? 3.3m 80m"}">>80m 3.3m

Some of the December 31st 2013 numbers are after the November 2nd date but just taking the June/Sept 2013 quarter numbers away from 16.1m we already bring the missing PS3 shipments down to 13m.

So now we have:

PS2+PS3 shipped 16.5m between April 1st 2012 and March 31st 2013.

PS3 Shipped 13m between April 1st 2012 and March 31st 2013 combined with October 1st 2013 to November 2nd 2013.

So the PS3 shipments in the period where PS2+PS3 shipped 16.5m combined (April 1st 2012 and March 31st 2013) MUST be less than 13m.

The only missing piece of the puzzle is how many of the 3.3m PS3's shipped in the holiday quarter of 2013 were shipped before November 2nd. If we had that or we had PS3 shipments as of December 31st 2013 we could get the exact number of PS2's sold lifetime.

As we can't get that then worst case scenario for PS2 all of PS3's 3.3m holiday quarter shipments in 2013 were after Nov 2nd, meaning PS2 sold 158.6m

Best case scenario for PS2 all of PS3's 3.3m holiday quarter shipments in 2013 were before Nov 2nd, meaning PS2 sold 161.9m

Obviously both extremes are unrealistic, October will generally ship less than Nov/Dec but rather than doing any guesswork and keeping this entire post purely mathematical and void of any guesswork. 

PS2 sold somewhere between 158.51m and 161.81m.

Sources:

PS2+PS3 combined figures (Page 8) - FY 2012 Consolidated Financial Results (sony.com)
PS3 2013 quarterly shipments (Page 13) - FY2013 Consolidated Financial Results (sony.com)
PS3 ships 80m as of November 2nd 2013 - PlayStation®3 Sales Reach 80 Million Units Worldwide (prnewswire.com)

(PS3 final 2013 quarter is determined by taking away the 4.5m shipped PS4's figure from the combined PS3+PS4 sales in the PDF)

Edit: I was digging for information for PS2 shipments because I was requested to make a ps2 vs ds graph, but of course many people have come to this conclusion before me lol.

There's a whole thread discussing the situation in 2018 here: What was the lifetime sales of the PS2? Not 158m [Update: Between 159.2m and 161.9m] | Page 2 | ResetEra

There are people coming up with the same range as me 158.51-161.81m, ZhugeEX says FY12 was probably up YoY and that would increase the minimum to 159.2m

Last edited by Zippy6 - on 13 December 2021

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While there is easily some wiggle room for a margin of error of a few million, it would be even more incredible to think if the PS2 reached about 160-161.9 million. As you said, the last official number was around 155 million. And it seems like this site and other educated estimates put the total around 157 million.



Lifetime Sales Predictions 

Switch: 151 million (was 73, then 96, then 113 million, then 125 million, then 144 million)

PS5: 115 million (was 105 million) Xbox Series S/X: 57 million (was 60 million, then 67 million)

PS4: 120 mil (was 100 then 130 million, then 122 million) Xbox One: 51 mil (was 50 then 55 mil)

3DS: 75.5 mil (was 73, then 77 million)

"Let go your earthly tether, enter the void, empty and become wind." - Guru Laghima

Yea there’s been some sources quoting a 158 million number for ps2. Which is believable.



 

mM

If it sold that much between March 2012 and January 2013 then why would it be discontinued? Consoles usually get discontinued when they sell less than 1 million a year not up to 7 million in 10 months



yo33331 said:

Here is my opinion about this from this summer in the june monthly thread:

yo33331 said:

Hey @trunkswd is it possible if official data for PS2 is given maybe to change the platform numbers about it ?


https://web.archive.org/web/20120609180536/http://scei.co.jp/corporate/data/bizdataps2_sale_e.html


Here is official page of sony that is showing that PS2 sold another 4.1M in the FY after the famous 6.4M FY that is presented almost in every website for last official data from sony about PS2. With those 4.1 of the FY 2011 (which ends at March 2012) PS2 is reaching 157.30. So I don't know why everywhere the official PS2 number is 155M when sony is giving official info for it's last full FY doing 4.10M. When you add that up to the previous 153.20M number from march 2011, you get 157.30. From there it's pretty easy to suggest PS2 had made at least around 2M more making the total number somewhere in the 159-160M range.

*Edit: I found a way for the exact PS2 numbers made in FY2012

For the FY2012 (ending in march 2013) Sony has given official info that has sold 16.5M home consoles.

We know that ending FY11 Sony had sold 63.9M PS3s.

https://gamingbolt.com/sony-fy12-report-ps3-sells-63-9-million-units-sales-down-across-the-board (don't know why the title on this article is FY12, but is really FY11, because FY11 ends in 2012, and FY12 ends in 2013)

We Know that PS3 have sold around 77M units in around the time april 2013 has begun since from this article the numbers should be by start of april

https://www.vgchartz.com/article/250980/playstation-3-lifetime-sales-overtakes-the-xbox-360/

therefore 77M-63.9 gives us number of 13M so 16.5M - 13 will give the PS2 around 3M more, therefore the PS2 with having 157.30M and those 3M is breaking the 160M barrier.

What do you think @Zippy6 about this ?

Sony switched from reporting manufactured units to units sold to retailers as of 2007. So if you look at 2007 or 2008's FY report it will contradict previous reports with slightly different numbers.

This is what we have from Sony:

Manufactured

FY99 - 1.41m (Source)
FY00 - 9.2m (10.61m total) (Source)
FY01 - 18.07m (28.68m total) (Source)
FY02 - 22.52m (51.2m total) (Source)
FY03 - 20.1m (71.3m total) (Source)
FY04 - 16.17m (87.47m total) (Source)
FY05 - 16.22m (103.69m total) (Source)
FY06 - 14.2m (117.89m total) (Source)

Sell-In

FY06 - 14.71m (Source)

FY07 - 13.7m (131.59m total) (Source)
FY08 - 7.91m (139.49m total) (Source)
FY09 - 7.3m (146.8m total) (Source)
FY10 - 6.4m (153.2m total) (Source)
FY11 - 4.1m (157.3m total) (Source)

Edit: I have removed a lot of this post to avoid misleading conclusions but kept the figures for those that are interested. The 155.01m figure seems to be correct as I found this from ZhugeEx: "PS2 Production Shipments were 117.9 million as of March 2007. At this point Sony switched from reporting production shipments to hardware sell in. Hardware sell in at this point was 115.6 million." from this thread

This will bring total Sell-In to 155.01m as of March 31st 2012. It's difficult finding information on this from a decade ago as 155m is quoted in many places but never given a source or rationale on how this fits into the fiscal data supplied by Sony, but here it is. I will try and find where this 115.6m figure comes from but I doubt I will have luck lol.

Last edited by Zippy6 - on 13 December 2021

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Are we making sure to establish accurate PS2 sales in case the Switch gets there? Haha...mostly joking, but more hoping.



super_etecoon said:

Are we making sure to establish accurate PS2 sales in case the Switch gets there? Haha...mostly joking, but more hoping.

Well it would be unfortunate if the Switch ends up in the range of "we have no idea if this is higher or lower than PS2" so hopefully if it does get to the 155m mark it blasts a fair bit past 160m too.



Yes, I have explained this many times in the past. It is still difficult to get a solid number. But the gist is, if PS2 didn't sell 160m, then the PS3 did sell closer to 90m than we thought.



ShadowLink93 said:

If it sold that much between March 2012 and January 2013 then why would it be discontinued? Consoles usually get discontinued when they sell less than 1 million a year not up to 7 million in 10 months

Because by January 2013 they were already (or getting ready to) making the PS4. It wouldn't make sense to keep making the PS2 much longer, and it wouldn't make sense to discontinue the PS3 already in 2013 and keep making the PS2 for another few months to a year. 

PS2 only held on so long anyway because of what a titan it was. If the PS3 did better, PS2 probably would've been discontinued in 2009 or 2010. 

Last edited by Wman1996 - on 13 December 2021

Lifetime Sales Predictions 

Switch: 151 million (was 73, then 96, then 113 million, then 125 million, then 144 million)

PS5: 115 million (was 105 million) Xbox Series S/X: 57 million (was 60 million, then 67 million)

PS4: 120 mil (was 100 then 130 million, then 122 million) Xbox One: 51 mil (was 50 then 55 mil)

3DS: 75.5 mil (was 73, then 77 million)

"Let go your earthly tether, enter the void, empty and become wind." - Guru Laghima

super_etecoon said:

Are we making sure to establish accurate PS2 sales in case the Switch gets there? Haha...mostly joking, but more hoping.

I also feel that PlayStation fanboys want to be prepared in case the Nintendo Switch starts to come close to PS2 numbers. I think the Nintendo fanboys could counter that by saying that Nintendo is always slightly lowballing with their official numbers and it ads up over the years. For whatever reason Nintendo keeps their official numbers a bit too low... meaning that at the end of Nintendo Switch's life you probably can ad a few millions.