I'm always a little curious of the PS console sales as I suspect a HUGE number are people having to go out and buy one again due to breakdown out of warranty, although I'm sure some consoles have lasted many more years than ours have.

My son has had 4 PS2s since it was released yet the same GC since launch.

It was however repaired under the GC's 2 year warranty meaning we did not have to go out and buy another one.

My son's Xbox is also the original one and was passed onto his friend when he got his Xbox360 and still there are no problems.

So my question is how many people/families  have actually owned each console without counting re-purchases due to failure.

We have 3 Wiis but they would all count unless one broke down and we had to buy another one.

The Nes sold 60 million whilst the PS2 sold 120 million but that is no guarantee the PS2 has been purchased by more people.

It's all very well having a great selling console but they would never add 'it's because so many break down just out of warranty, meaning they have to buy another one'.

It's definately a significant fraction of total PS2s sold but I don't think we'll ever know the real figure. If I had to take a shot in the dark I'd go with 1/3 of the system's sales being replacements.  

There are (approximately) 100 Million households in North America and as a (rough) guestimate I would say that only 1/4 to 1/3 of households owned a console in the past generation; this would put the total number of households with gaming systems at (aproximately) 25 to 33 Million. The PS2 shipped 48 Million consoles to North America. Personally, I would put the failure rate of the PS2 at 50% after 5 years which (in electronics) is not that bad but it is not that great either ... If no PS2 ever broke, I'd put LTD sales at (roughly) 60 to 70 Million

(if no XBox or Gamecube broke I'd also have put their sales in the 12.5 to 17.5 Million range)

I have never had any console that has failed on its own from a manufacturing defect in ~25 years, dating all the way back to the Atari 2600. I've owned about 15-20 different systems in all over the years. I still have a few of them too (the 2600, a ColecoVision, a Sega Master, a Genesis, a Panasonic FZ-1 3DO, N64, and launch PS2) and those all still work perfectly today.

I have replaced a console once though, and that was an original NES. Totally my fault, too, because I took it apart trying to figure out what the heck that expansion port on the bottom was for, and I accidentally shorted it in the process. I was probably 13 or 14 when I did that. That failure was 110% user error though. It worked fine, and the replacement worked fine too. I never used the Galoob Game Genie either, which was the major culprit in killing NESes back in the day. Every single person I knew that used the Game Genie screwed up their 72-pin after around 1-2 years of using it.

None of my consoles so far has failed me. I even dropped my GC from the top of the TV while playing, and even from the stairs, and its still alive.

I would say that, if the PS2 didnt had that high failure rate, her sales would be around 80 millions...

Pretty high anyway :P  

I'm also curious about this, but it's not just a matter of how many units were replaced, but how many people bought more than one PS2, even if the first they had worked well. I know two people with two PS2s: One on the living room, and another in their dorm. Also I know one who bought the PS2 redesign when it was released and left the old one in the closet.

Each time a game like God of War II doesn't sell more than, say, 5 millions, with an installed base of over 100 million consoles (120, as Sony fans claim to be), I ask myself "Why?". And there are two main reasons which come to my head, which I believe are both correct: a) There must be a great majority of casual gamers in the installed base, and b) There are not as many people with PS2s, even if they have sold as many as they say.

So, I'd say 75 millions of different people owned a PS2 during last gen.

Video on topic, in Spanish, but still cool even if you don't understand:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=sVRJtqPRZhQ

While we're throwing out wild guesses, I'll say the failure rate was more like 5/2  and if the system never failed sales would be 170 units.

One simple word "Piracy" 

 Touché.

The official failure rate for the PS2 at this current point in it's lifetime is less than 5%. It is no where near as high as everyone thinks.

After the class action lawsuit Sony offered free repair or replacement of PS2s till 2005 and since the vast majority of faulty PS2s wer made between launch and 2003 then they would most likely be replaced under this deal and not count as new sales.