• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Will we ever have another console sell as much (or more) as the PS2?

daTRUballin

daTRUballin

Member
The PS2 is the best selling console of all time, with having sold around 150 million units which is crazy to think about. Will we ever have another console sell as much or even more?

What would a console need to do nowadays in order to achieve that kind of success? Even the Wii only managed to sell 100 million units which is still quite a bit behind the PS2. There were a lot of factors that helped the PS2 completely crush its competition when it came out. Are we going to ever have something similar happen again? Or was the PS2 just a lightning in a bottle moment that won't be caught twice? Do you think any of the current consoles out now could somehow achieve those kind of numbers?
 
O

OCD Guy

Member
Not likely that we'll have consoles racking up sales like the PS2 or Wii again. But if someone was ever going to do it, then my bets would be on Nintendo.
 
L

low-G

Member
Is it possible to get a strong console market in China... India afterwards?

That's all it'd take.
 
K

kromeo

Member
There would have to be a selling point similar to ps2's ability to play dvds and I can't see what that would be in the foreseeable future
 
S

scar654

Neo Member
Of course. Pretty sure that gaming is getting more "accessible", in a way that it's more socially accepted to game as an adult. So I guess in the future we will have another console that sell as much, but maybe, all the generation will sell the same.
EDIT: Also, if it opens to new markets (globalization) it's almost guaranteed.
 
Y

yuoke

Banned
OCD Guy said:
Not likely that we'll have consoles racking up sales like the PS2 or Wii again. But if someone was ever going to do it, then my bets would be on Nintendo.
Click to expand...

The Ps4 might pass the wii or get close. The switch will probably top out at 70, maybe 80 million.
 
R

Realeza

Banned
PS2 came at the right time to sell that much. With all the entertainment available, sometimes even for free, that isn't feasible anymore.
 
T

terrdactycalsrock

Member
The PS2 had a lot of factors going for it. The original playstation was well received, so of course a newer version was already going to sell. It was also a DVD player in a time where a lot of people didnt have dvd players. So the crowd that might only buy one or two games a year wanted the console more. Finally, by the end of its life cycle the PS2 had a massive library of games. It was like a perfect storm of opportunity.
 
S

Shazz_rulez19

Member
I dont think so, consoles will come close to be beating it but the competition now is much greater back then the OG xbox was just launched and the PS2 was a successor to a much known and respected console plus it was powerful for its time and it was also a cheap DvD player. The 360 and Wii took alot of momentum away from PS3 along with how much sony messed up with the price of PS3 and the retardedly hard cell processor to work with but in the end they somehow recuperated with software . Nintendo already had fans and the Xbox snatched some portion of the playerbase. With PS4 sony did almost everything right and ts one of the reasons its selling its comp by a margin but some playerbase that was converted to Xbox 360 in the PS3 era chose to stay there. It'll have to be PERFECT conditions to beat the 150 mill PS2 not only because it was coming off the success of the PS1 but because the library of games was ENORMOUS.
 
C

Cess007

Member
No.

I don't think the very specific circumstances for the PS2 can be replicated again for a console (specially at the end of it's life cycle) to hit the 150m mark.
 
J

JusDoIt

Member
PS2 had three things going for it.

1. It was relatively powerful.
2. It was cheap enough to be an impulse buy.
3. It was also one of the best home media players at the time.

I can see a console doing the first two again, but not the third.
 
K

kyser73

Member
OCD Guy said:
Not likely that we'll have consoles racking up sales like the PS2 or Wii again. But if someone was ever going to do it, then my bets would be on Nintendo.
Click to expand...

The Wii didn't sell as many units as the PS1.

OT - there are two main factors two consider in the case of the PS4:

1. How low can Sony get the price down to. This not only affects how likely it can become an impulse purchase in more mature markets, but also how much Sony can expand its user base in growing ones.

2. How long Sony choose to keep selling it. About 1/3 of PS2 sales came after the launch of PS3 and it had a 13 year lifespan.

Depending on how Sony manage the transition to PS5 will determine the chances the PS4 has of reaching that level of sales.
 
MrCunningham

MrCunningham

Member
The PS2 had quite a few things going for it upon release. It was riding on the success of the PS1. It had no competition in the "next gen" gaming market upon release. The Dreamcast was sadly dead, and the Xbox OG and the GameCube showed up on the market almost a year later. The PS2 was also many people's first DVD player, as well as the cheapest DVD player on the market at the time. It was also the best selling DVD player too, and really helped the medium gain a lot of traction. Also the PS2 had a really strong global presence, which allowed it to hit some really high sales margins.

The current console market is much more crowded than it was in 2000, all three current systems have their dedicated markets, and the Switch is showing signs of being a strong seller for Nintendo. The ne incremental consoles need to be considered as well. It it much harder now for a single console to be a breakaway success like the PS2.

The PS2 had everything going for it at release. It is hard to duplicate that success.
 
Megatron

Megatron

Member
JusDoIt said:
PS2 had three things going for it.

1. It was relatively powerful.
2. It was cheap enough to be an impulse buy.
3. It was also one of the best home media players at the time.

I can see a console doing the first two again, but not the third.
Click to expand...

It also pulled us out of gaming's awkward teenage years. The ugliest era in gaming history. People were excited just to get away from that. (I know DC was first, but ps2 was way more mainstream)


It was the first point where people thought games were approaching real life. Games like GTA3 were an incredible novelty.
 
Caffeine

Caffeine

Member
HYDE said:
DS already did

Oops consoles
Click to expand...

this is 5 years old and he was banned but all i could find it was close but didnt.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=45575675#post45575675

Aquamarine said:
Nintendo DS - 152.5 million as of September 30th, 2012:

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/library/historical_data/pdf/consolidated_sales_e1209.pdf


Sony PS2 - 155.1 million as of March 31st, 2012:

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/fr/viewer/11q4/slide/15_slide.html

That's as official as it's going to get. The DS has yet to surpass the PS2.

Code: 
Hardware Sales   Ap-Jn    Jl-Sp    Oc-Dc    Ja-Mr     FY       LTD

FY 2006/07        2.3      3.4      6.7      2.4      14.8     115.6 

FY 2007/08        2.7      3.2      5.4      2.4      13.7     129.3 

FY 2008/09        1.5      2.5      2.5      1.4      7.9      137.2 

FY 2009/10        1.6      1.9      2.1      1.7      7.3      144.5

FY 2010/11        1.6      1.5      2.1      1.2      6.4      150.9

FY 2011/12        1.4      1.2      0.9      0.6      4.1      155.1
Click to expand...
 
Raven117

Raven117

Member
Purely as the question is asked. Probably not. Too many trinkets out there.

Now, in terms of actual Games that can be played across consoles. (IE, if they do this whole half step thing into the future), then maybe.

Like: Uncharted 5 plays on ps4 pro Ps5 and ps5 pro!
 
Green Yoshi

Green Yoshi

Member
low-G said:
Is it possible to get a strong console market in China... India afterwards?

That's all it'd take.
Click to expand...

Are they interested in Western games?

And will they be able to afford consoles, HDTVs and games in a few years?

Most people in China play free-to-play games on PCs and mobile devices as far as I know.
 
R

RedSwirl

Junior Member
Probably not.

The landscape of gaming was completely different back then. You didn't have mobile, and PC back then wasn't what it is today. The combination of mobile and casual PC games has siphoned a lot of the casual audience that bought PS2s back in the day. Then you have the contraction of the Japanese console market and the relative stagnation of the western console market compared to other sectors that have exploded.

Even emerging markets like China are going towards PC and mobile more than consoles. If consoles ever want to grow that much again they probably need to get in on emerging markets like, I don't know, India or Eastern Europe or something. It might be an issue with the inherent nature of a TV device built only to play video games, versus gaming on more portable devices people are already buying for other purposes. That's why consoles tried so hard to be general-purpose living room devices, including the PS2 being a DVD player.
 
Shin

Shin

Banned
I'm under the impression that the market has shrunken somehow and no they didn't go to PC because most games end up selling the most on consoles.
During PS3/Wii/X360 era there were about 270m consoles sold (85/85/100) even with double dipping that's still far from where we are right now.
At the end of this generation you might have 45m Xbox, 115m PS4, Switch ain't gonna sell gonna sell 110m I think as successful as it is ATM.

If anyone is going to do it then it would be PlayStation (based on consoles/handheld sold, Vita is an exception), but $99 price tag just ain't possible anymore.
If they build a PS5 that's strong enough to last 2 generations (we'll be stuck on 4K for a long long time) then they could, it just won't sell as fast due to price.
 
1

120v

Member
i'd say 80-100 million is the ceiling what you can expect a modern console to aspire to. and that's being generous. it's just a dfferent world and reasons for spending over $300 for a "game box" in your living room are dwindling
 
Q

QuixoticNeutral

Member
It really can't be understated how much the PS2 benefited from being perfectly aligned with the explosion of DVD as one of the most successful physical media formats in history, one that (unlike Blu-ray) was a huge and widely desired leap forward unburdened by the uncertainty of a format war. I don't see that kind of success matched again without a similar mass-market hardware revolution transcending games.
 
W

whyreggielie

Member
Apexhell said:
this is 5 years old and he was banned but all i could find it was close but didnt.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=45575675#post45575675
Click to expand...

There were unmentionable sources that claimed the ds had surpassed the ps2. The ds was still selling 5 years ago though so I don't doubt that it could have reached ps2 numbers but officially the numbers as of 2015 put the ds at over 154 million. The ds online shop was just discontinued earlier this year.
 
F

frankie_baby

Member
whyreggielie said:
There were unmentionable sources that claimed the ds had surpassed the ps2. The ds was still selling 5 years ago though so I don't doubt that it could have reached ps2 numbers but officially the numbers as of 2015 put the ds at over 154 million. The ds was discontinued just this year.
Click to expand...

Oh ok ds at 154 could actually be enough possibly for the chinese sales to put it ahead but we'll probably never know what they were
 
M

Mooreberg

Member
Other markets would have to make up for Japan's aging/declining population, and that could take a long time. Some markets will end up skipping the decades of routine console and PC usage that the west has had and go straight into mobile devices. I think PS2 will remain the top selling console for a while yet. The upside these days is that there is more money to be made on software due to expansions and less commendable methods of pulling in more revenue.
 
HYDE

HYDE

Banned
Sorry guys, at work...I meant that DS has sold about as much as PS2 by surpassing 150 million units.

OP mentioned consoles selling like the PS2.
 
T

THEaaron

Member
120v said:
i'd say 80-100 million is the ceiling what you can expect a modern console to aspire to. and that's being generous. it's just a dfferent world and reasons for spending over $300 for a "game box" in your living room are dwindling
Click to expand...

The market is bigger but also more divided. The PS2 had absolutely no competition sales wise. PS360 era sold way more consoles than the PS2(in terms of when you make the cut, since that console sold for a looooong time) era and its competitors.

Its just that the number for a single console is pretty high.
 
I

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
No

The combination of factors to get PS2 to that number will never be replicated
 
M

mavo

Banned
If consoles keep being popular, yes.

There are a lot of countries with a fuckton of people that are still .developing
 
P

PillarEN

Member
As certain entire regions gain more purchasing power and free time. Doing away with taxes that kill consoles in Brazil would help too. People love videogames. Just not necessarily that many people can afford to support that habit on a worldwide scale.
 
K

kyser73

Member
Green Yoshi said:
Are they interested in Western games?

And will they be able to afford consoles, HDTVs and games in a few years?

Most people in China play free-to-play games on PCs and mobile devices as far as I know.
Click to expand...

Sony just saw 66% quarter on quarter revenue growth in China, and is investing heavily in local developers. Sony will develop both markets the way they developed PS previously - using localisation, nurturing local talent & marketing tailored to local market tastes,
 
daTRUballin

daTRUballin

Member
HYDE said:
Sorry guys, at work...I meant that DS has sold about as much as PS2 by surpassing 150 million units.

OP mentioned consoles selling like the PS2.
Click to expand...

While the DS did sell over 150 million units, from what we officially know at the moment, it still technically didn't sell as much. So the PS2 still remains the best selling game system in history, console or handheld.

Also, yeah. DS is a handheld and I see what you're saying by saying that the DS sold about as much, but mentioning it in this thread still doesn't make any sense considering it's about consoles specifically.

Unless it really was just a mistake. In that case, I understand. :p
 
W

Wyndstryker

Member
PS2 was the perfect storm.

1: Coming after the successful PS1
2: DVD Player
3: Cutting edge graphics tech at the time
4: Massive library of games
5: That entry price
6: Massive marketing push

It would take another perfect storm to overtake the PS2
 
K

K.Jack

Knowledge is power, guard it well
JusDoIt said:
PS2 had three things going for it.

1. It was relatively powerful.
2. It was cheap enough to be an impulse buy.
3. It was also one of the best home media players at the time.

I can see a console doing the first two again, but not the third.
Click to expand...

Riding on the heels of the godlike PS1, with the backing of every developer not named Nintendo, should definitely be somewhere on your list. At the top really.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Competition killed ambition in regards to consoles. It is why consoles has become more stagnant over time.
2
88
5K
fart town usa replied
Take-Two CEO Says Competing Xbox and PlayStation Consoles Are a 'Benefit' but Not a 'Necessity'
33
2K
FunkMiller replied
Resident Evil 2 Remake Now the Best-Selling Resident Evil Game Ever [after passing 12.6 million cumulative lifetime sales across console and PC]
News Business Sales-Age
41
2K
K' Dash replied
Phil Spencer on what the hell is happening in the games industry and why exclusives have become a risky business
Business Game Dev 3 4 5 6 7
301
19K
ProtoByte replied
Financial Times: Sony and Nintendo left to battle in console wars as Microsoft signals exit
Opinion Business 2 3 4 5
222
15K
Solidus_T replied
Top Bottom