PlayStation 2 reaches 50 million sold mark in North America

by Randy Nelson on Jan 13th 2009 9:45PM

Buck up, Sony. Sure, the PS3 might be taking on water in stormy seas and you're facing a fairly dramatic corporate shake-up, but at least you can take solace in the fact that you done real good with the PS2. Heck, you said so yourself today, announcing that 50 million of them have been sold in North America.

The future of last generation's best-performing console also looks bright, with new releases in the pipeline for 2009 -- and possibly beyond. Even SCEA's hardware marketing head, John Koller, said, "We don't intend on discarding the system anytime soon." (And with a return of backwards-compatibility on PS3 via software emulation still but a rumor, we don't imagine many PS2 owners will be discarding the system anytime soon, either.)

Source

Tags: hardware-sales, ps2, sales, scea, Sony-Computer-Entertainment-America

Reader Comments (62)

i have worked hard in my lifetime to provide a good life for my child the ps3....

and yet my son does not take care of me,oh my son..

Your son also needs to hit the gym. I mean look at him compared to the new you.

Well done.

Now you should learn, your son is waiting for you to drop dead and hand over the inheritance and maybe some advice on defeating your evil rivals the xbox. :P

@ vegeta,why thank you good sir.

Sadly, if they don't include an emulator into new models of the PS3, we may see this number grow to 51 million and beyond...

It seems that it's impossible to please everyone. When they included emulation via hardware and software people bitched and said they wanted a lower price. Now, they still want a lower price but want all the features added back in. Luckily for me I purchases a 60 GB will full BC. There is a rumor going around that they will offer some sort of emulation for select PS2 titles or will make some of them available for purchase on the PSN store.

Wasn't the high price due more to Blu-Ray technology rather than PS2 emulation?

it wasn't emulation at first, it was basically a ps2 inside the ps3

Xbox 1 titles are available on the Xbox Live marketplace, there is no reason why Sony can't do the same with Ps2 titles. I'm also confident that the Wii 2.0 (as i like to call it) will have substantial storage space (100gb+) and add in GC games to the VC.

@Foetoid:

"there is no reason why Sony can't do the same with Ps2 titles"

Yeah, except for that little detail of...you know...no existing PS3 software emulation for PS2 software.

The emulator chips are rumored to have cut about $20 out of the cost of the console.

Rumors are fun.

Foetoid, good idea, but it's nintendo we're talkin about here.

They didn't even consider voice chat when launching the Wii and you hope they'll do what!?

good job PS2!!! this is the greatest console ever created!!!

hmm I'd have to put it in a tossup between that and the snes. However, while the snes provided a lot of fun when I was a kid I can't play the games today because they bore me for the most part. I can still play ps2 games though and I'm confident I could 10 years from now so yeah I guess I too would go with the ps2.

I think my personal favorite was the dreamcast. However, I agree that the PS2 has the best selection of software of any home gaming platform.

exactly!!! i loved mario games and old nes games but i was playing a few of those titles on my ps3 (they removed emulation via a firmware :[ ) it didnt feel the same, they were.. boring!.. but games like god of war and god of war 2 will never get boring!!! that's why i'm saying that the ps2 is the greatest console ever..

change "greatest" to "most popular" and I'll agree 100%.

C'mon dude, the Dreamcast is the greatest console ever created, every real gamer knows that!

HOW CAN YOU FORGET ABOUT THE SEGA 32X????

ok tell me why is the dreamcast the greatest console.. and if it was why did it failed?? im not hating but i'm being realistic. dreamcast had a few good titles but ps2 has the best library of games out there.. so dude come on just admit it..

I'm sorry. Not only did the Gamecube have more quality titles than the Ps2 (and a far better good games/bad games ratio) but the Nintendo 64 is better than both, by a significant margin. And yes i've played more than enough Ps2 games to know the GC games were better (100+ easy). Yes the Ps2 had tons of great games i finished and loved, the GC had more. Don't even get me started on the Xbox 1, that thing had 2 games worth owning: Fable: The Lost Chapters and Ninja Gaiden. I don't even have to mention the GC had the best controller of last gen, everyone knows that.

YES TOTALLY.

In second, it's a tie between SNES/Dreamcast/DS.

PS2 was amazing though, so many games that I could play forever. Sometimes I wouldn't be able to choose between 3 different 5 year old games. Such a good system :P

Yeah, I'll give it to ya. No system has matched the variety and quality of the games on the PS2. My launch one is still alive and kicking.

Ok, I was secretly wishing it would die when the sexy slim model was released, but it never did. Over 8 years old and I still love it.

Gamecube didn't have anywhere near the amount of good titles the PS2 did. That's just retarded. It's an opinion so you are entitled but retarded none the less.

I say the Dreamcast because it was just a beast of a console. It had online play, interactive memory cards, great controller and some epic games. In fact, my dreamcast still works to this day without ever having a single issues - that's quality!

I also think it has something to do with nostalgia purposes and that it was SEGA's last console. I just love the damn thing so much. It really ushered in many of the new features we have all come to love on home gaming consoles. I will never forget playing NBA 2K & Powerstone on the Dreamcast.

I'd have to say the SNES was the best system as well. That one and the PS2 were the systems that really took console gaming to the next generation. The dreamcast, while it has a huge list of great games, was left sort of floating between generations.

Oh, and the gamecube? lol.

I agree Serpent.

I love playing as the Trailblazers in NBA 2k. Brian Grant, Scottie Pippen, Rasheed Wallace, Damon Stoudamire, Greg Anthony, Stacey Augmon, Arvydas Sabonis, Steve Smith, Detlef Schrempth, Bonzi Wells & Jermaine O'neal. Don't remember if 2k had Dale Davis or Jermaine O'neal because that was right around the time they made that awful trade.

That has to be the most loaded squad from top to bottom in the last 25 years. At the time Dale Davis was a 10 and 10 player and O'neal was a beanpole high school draft pick so I don't blame them for that. Brian Grant & Scottie Pippen are my all time favorite players.

The heat & kings were also pretty good around that time. I think that was when Mourning, Hardaway, PJ Brown, Majerle and Mashburn were on top of their games. The Kings has a top of the line Webber, Vlade, White Chocolate (J-Will), Doug Christie, Turkgolu, B-Jac and Peja.

Damn I miss those days ... crazy times man ... NBA 2K remains the pinnacle of basketball games in my mind.

The Dreamcast was a fucking revolution at the time.

Thank god most of the features live on, like L R triggers, Online play, Microphone interaction, Full online browser,DLC, 128 bit among others.

My opinion is LAW!!!! BOW BEFORE MY OPINION, MORTALS!!!!

Whoa, what is the installed base of the PS3 comparatively?

around 20 million or so world wide.

Yakuza 2
Persona 3 FES
Persona 4
Kingdom Hearts Unchained Memory

Sadly, the PS2 is still the go to consoles for RPGs. I thought Eternal Poison completely sucked but the above titles were my personal favorites of 2008 on the PS2. It's still a relevant platform. It's probably the best starter console for someone who want's a huge catalog of games at an affordable price.

hang in their baby! you'll make it some day.

pic related
http://loot-ninja.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/lolcat7.jpg

I don't mean to be a dong, but .. I wonder how many of those PS2s broke? Still, impressive enough of a library that people kept buying the systems. I know I did. I swear I have like 3 broken PS2s around here somewhere...

As much as I loved the PS2, I'll never forgive it for crushing the Dreamcast's, um, dreams. :(

"As much as I loved the PS2, I'll never forgive it for crushing the Dreamcast's, um, dreams. :("

I know what you mean...I still see Sony's PS2 as the single product that brought Sega down so hard and far that they were forced out of the hardware business and are still struggling to make good software.

Cant blame Sony for that........

Dreamcast SHOULD have played DVD and SHOULD have not tried to prevent pirating with that godforsaken GD-ROM.....point blank period.....Dreamcast for all that is was.....just wasn't good enough....

@Aggie Of course.. but I still blame the PS2 for being better. :P

Keep going PS2 dont let that Wii beat you

best console EVER:KH, GOW series, GTA, etc...

the good times with ps2 keep going. i might play a game on mine later.

J,

You really need to pick up Yakuza 2 if you haven't already. The game is the spiritual successor to Shenmue.

Imagine how much better the PS3 would do if it still supported PS2 titles via backwards compatibility.

It is kind of sad that Sony never picked up on that. Let's face it, there's no doubt they'd like to funnel some of the PS2 numbers to the PS3, but the BWC lineup being what it is, a major advantage (being able to play all your PS2 games for the next X years) has become a major disadvantage (you can't; however, you can try the Xbox games you're curious about on the 360, your Halos and Ninja Gaidens and such).

I might've gotten more use out of my PS2 if my brother hadn't broken it like 2 months after I bought it.

i dunno. a huge part of me will miss the days when a single console ruled it's generation. NES, SNES, PS1 and PS2 all offered some of the most memorable games in history (SMB, Link to the Past, Suikoden, SotC, to name a few), and even the systems they dominated had memorable gems. this seventh-generation, not so much, at least not yet.

stop that

The little console that could. It still has an enormous game library and is dirt cheap. Lots of third world markets are eating it up since it's the most affordable console that's still in production.

I think Sony made a major error in not keeping the full ps2 chipset in the PS3's (I have a launch 60gig just so I could play my PS2 games and any newer ones worth playing). it'd be very smart of them to include the emulation--but I could see where they'd want to limit that and cash in on their PSN Store.

as far as the debate for best system I dunno....the original NES seems to have had the best amount of quality and variety of games. the PS2 I think has more games than the NES, but having grown up with all the systems my nod is for the NES--most of the successful franchises can be traced back to it.

I still have a Dreamcast and it's great in that you can burn NES ROMs onto a CD and play most NES games on the Dreamcast, but Sega never really made a great controller (I hated their 3-button controller!).

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PlayStation 2 reaches 50 million sold mark in North America

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