so is 120-125m a safe bet?

140 million figure was a mistake (or a lie) by whichever Sony figure mentioned it.

The PS2 has only just passed 130 million shipped, which I believe includes a good number (5 mil?) that were replacements for early models.

Yes VGC is probably quite low on PS2 sales because PS2 is released in so many countries that no-one has any information for... my guess would be around 4 million low.... which puts it's sales around 124 million.

by the end of it's like I expect it will be between 135 and 140 million though.

I would put the numbers pretty close to the combined numbers above.  Sony is expecting to sell over 4mil fewer PS2's this year compared to last and from what i recall they have shrank their warehouse supply by about 40% compared to last year in the gaming section.  Last year they had about 1.56mil PS3 units, so i would assume PS2 stocks were around that amount.  And i would expect 1.5-3mil PS2 at retail WW, based on the cheap price of the system and the expanded markets the PS2 is sold in.  So about 128-129mil sold to consumers.  Of course this is all just a guess.

I find the question in the OP pretty interesting, considering the site we're at.

I'd recall talk about the "official" Wii target being around 50M sold and atleast Iwata expects Wii to beat PS2.

The PS2 shipped number is really confusing, since even the offial figures seem to contradict themselves sometimes. Not to mention the times, when Sony changed their methods how to track "sales". The 140M figure may include replacements and/or manufactured that sit in warehouses etc. It's really hard to tell.

Nope. 140 million was a mistake... the guy meant 130 million because that is what they had passed at the end of the fiscal year.

117.89 million were "produced" by the old reporting method... which would naturally include many many of the early units they replaced (my guess about 5 million replaced... probably a further 5-10 would have been repaired rather than replaced, but those should still count of course)

Since changing the method they shipped (sales TO retail) a further 15 million or so, (Griffin said 15.24 so I expect that is correct) which puts their figure at 133.13 million (they passed 130 million early in Jan-March quarter, and the last quarter another 1.6 were shipped I think)

So I think in terms of sales to retail it will be 133 minus however many replacements were sent out (my guess being about 5 million)

@TWroo: Wasn't the old method (pre Q1 2007) "shipped to warehouse" and the new one (Q1 2007 and after) is "shipped from warehouse (to retail)"? Which would mean the new method gives lower number.

I don't know for sure... but yes I think so. (Warehouse still being part of Sony corp.)

All I know is that the old method included all consoles produced, even if they were sending a new one out to a customer with a faulty model.

Luckily for PS3 numbers it wasn't too late, so we got both figures last year. (3.7m were shipped to retail, although 5.5m were "shipped" by the old method)

If the console is reliable it wouldn't make much difference really, so had they not changed back their method - In the fiscal reports we would just be seeing PS3s earlier in their life (so although they "shipped" 2 million more than they shipped for FY2007, they would then be as good as parallel from then on... so the last quarter would probably have had about 16 million figure reported rather than the 14.XX one.)

With PS2 though, a lot of early models had to be sent back and either repaired or replaced... only Sony knows how many are included in that.

NOOOO N64

I prefer N64 than Wii.

I prefer the Gamecube to both.