Outgoing Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO, Jim Ryan, has revealed that the PlayStation 2 has continued to be the best-selling console for the company. Ryan revealed in a recent episode of the official PlayStation Podcast that the PS2 has sold 160 million units worldwide.
“The 2000s? That would be, I would say, 160 million, which is the number of PS2s that we sold,” said Ryan when asked about the 2000s for PlayStation. “A high watermark.”
The reveal comes just as Ryan gets ready to leave his position at Sony Interactive Entertainment. Ryan will be stepping down from his position as president and CEO of Sony’s gaming division on April 1. The podcast itself was a way for Ryan and PlayStation to celebrate his time with the company.
While the console has been out of production for over a decade at this point, the PS2 has continued to be one of the most popular video game consoles ever released. Back in 2012, Sony had revealed that 155 million units of the PS2 had sold.
While the PS2 was quite popular, Sony’s current-gen console, the PlayStation 5, has been on track to be quite successful as well. Back in January, a report had indicated that the PS5 had sold more than 2.6 million units in Japan over the course of 2023—the highest number of sales seen in single year be a PlayStation console since 2004- by the PS2, incidentally. PS5’s worldwide total stands at 54.8 million units sold as of the end of 2023.
Interestingly, though the PS2 has been the highest-selling gaming console of all time for years, the Nintendo Switch has been threatening to topple it for a while now. As of the end of 2023, it has sold 139.6 million units worldwide, but it should be interesting to see if it can overtake the PS2’s newly revealed 160 million figure.