To be honest any reasonably popular console can be sold for 10+ years if they really want to. The PS4 could. Nintendo could sell DSi today for $60 and it would probably move some units especially in developing countries and be able to hit 175 million.

Sony cut the PS4 off because they want people to buy PS5s. Nintendo cut the DS off because they want people to buy 3DS'. Not because they couldn't continue to sell those systems or there was no market demand. Isn't this actually literally the opposite in reality ... they killed these systems off because the demand level was *too high* (even if it's far off from peak sales), they don't want it interfering with their new systems. A PS4 today (especially at a price cut of say $199.99) would be as popular as a PS2 was circa 2009 or whatever, Sony just chooses to not give it that chance for their own purposes. 

But from that people may gain the POV that PS2 was more popular later at age 9/10 than say the PS4 or DS would be ... and I don't think that's actually even true. It just got a chance to hang around because of other factors whereas PS4, DS, etc. weren't given that chance, it's not really a case of "well PS2 was just more popular and had better legs". It's not an issue of sales or popularity, it's an issue of whatever priorities the company has at the time. 

Would a PS4 be able to sell for another 2-3 years at $199.99? Absofuckinglutely. 

Would a DSi have been able to sell for a few extra years at $69.99 or $79.99? Anyone really want to doubt this one? I'd buy one at that price right now brand new.

Sony/Nintendo just chose not to give those systems that shot. But the argument is then seized on that "well it means the PS2 was more popular longer than those systems!!!" ... when I just think that's false. That's why I take late cycle post year 7-8 sales with a huge grain of salt. There's a lot of factors there that aren't tied to a system's actual ability to sell by that point (was the PS2 really that much more popular late gen than DS and PS4 ... or was it because the PS3 was selling like a turd so Sony decided to let the PS2 stick around for several extra years?)

Yes PS2 was more popular than those systems, and yes it had longer legs, and yes it was for longer. And yes it may be because for those reasons, conditions, factors, that PS4 and DS didn't have. It may not be fair, but it is what it is. You can't say black is white and white is black.

There are reason, factors and conditions, sure. But it is a fact too. When it's there it's there. No matter how. Did it reach it ? It did. Is it on top ? I is.

Everything can be rotate with ifs and buts. Hell the world wars if you want we can all say but if this and that it would be different. It would! However it is not, because it didn't actually happened. It happened what it happened and the reality is what it happened. With if and buts you can reach everything.

The fact, the reality is that PS2 did it. It may have 100 reasons, factors, luck and whatever you want for why and how, but it did. DS and PS4 and Gameboy if you want didn't.

This is part of what is doing the good legs too. Reasons. Everything happens in this world for a reason.

The best ones are the best ones for a reason. Is it the one or the other doesn't matter. The final result matters.

What is long legs and popularity ? sales, success, for a long long time. Did PS2 had it ? yes. Maybe because of some lucky factors, okay. But did it ? yes or no ? Yes. Than it's absolutely valid. Did the total sales are lower for the DS and PS4 ? Yes, then the saying that they are less popular is true. Did they sold for less time with shorter and weaker last few years after prime time ? Yes. Then sure, PS2 had longer and better legs then them. End of discussion.

It is what it is and you have to face the reality. Everything in this life has a reason. And the reasons themselves (or the luck if you want) don't make the success invalid.

I don't agree that PS2 had better legs than the DS. 

Nintendo easily could have sold the DS at $79.99 for example for several more years but they choked its shipments to peanuts on purpose. 

If anything the DS was punished (just as the PS4) for having sales at a level too high that it was seen as a possible interfering factor for the 3DS.

Same thing with PS4 ... Sony doesn't want to sell PS4s, not because they couldn't sell them at $199.99 ... they could probably sell another 7-10 million PS4s at $199.99 ... but they refuse to offer consumers that option. 

So is this actually an issue of "legs"? No it's not. 

This isn't the case of the DS or PS4 not having market demand, if anything their death warrant is written because they definitely *could* sell several million units at a discounted price and Nintendo and Sony don't want people spending their money there. These systems are basically being punished for being basically stubbornly popular for too long. 

If it was the case that the PS2 simply was more popular at age 9/10/11 for example and DS and PS4 simply could not sell even at a budget price by that time, sure I'd agree, but that isn't really the case if we're being honest. 

This is why I think it's better to just compare like the relevant first 7-8 years of a product cycle. That tells you in better reality which system was actually more popular without interference or "we have to sell our next-gen systems" politics getting in the way. 

Exactly my thinking. In sports if you just need to win one more tournament to be GOAT and it should be reasonably achievable but unfortunately you get injured and never really recover and have to retire you career, well, you can say I'm GOAT because sure as hell I would have won just one more tournament. The reality is you're not, sports history doesn't see you as that.

I also like to look into movie record sales whereas some older movie actually sold better than the current champions if you consider inflation, that we have much more cinemas today and the movies are shown in more countries (incl. big ones like China). However, ultimately, the raw numbers are what count, that's what people are interested in, fair or unfair doesn't matter. But to come back to PS2-DS-PS4 sales comparison, it's a far more clear win for PS2 compared to the movies because those arguing with inflation have a much stronger point than reasons like Soundwave bring up.

Why would anybody want to be a goat ?

DS hit 150 million sold at roughly 7 years on market, PS2 took almost 11 years to get to the same 150 mark (almost 4 extra years on market). Both got a bit beyond 150 mill but neither got to 160 mill.

C'mon.

This isn't even remotely close. DS was absolutely trouncing the PS2 before Nintendo called off the dogs. The only reason the PS2 is above the DS is because it got to sell at a discount price for several extra years the DS was not allowed to due to the PS3 being such a dud out of the gates. Plain and simple, if DS was given the same opportunity by Nintendo it would have killed the PS2. 

If you want to use a sports analogy it's like one basketball player hitting 15,400 points in 10 seasons and another player hitting 15,800 points in 14 seasons ... like the first player is very obviously the better scorer (it's actually why the NBA uses points per game as their metric for scoring champion, not overall points). 

You lost me at "sports"

GOAT = Greates Of All Time

Oh okay, I thought it meant Greatest of all time

Something you are missing is that PS2 didn't take 11 years to hit 150m in most markets. The console had very late launches in a ton of territories. starting with Japan and then 9 months later in America and then Europe. Korea and Taiwan didn't launch until 2002. India and China didn't launch until 2003. Brazil didn't launch until 2009 (!) . Many other markets like the Middle East also had late launches.

This is where the origination of the myth "Ps consoles have good legs" comes from, and why a lot of people expected the Ps4 to sell much better than it did, simply due to the launch timings of these different consoles. Ps4 having a global launch made it easy to break shipment records, even in "launch aligned" comparisons.