Kotaku have done a good job of putting things into perspective. Yes, the DS has passed an impressive milestone in shifting over 100,000,000 consoles, but they’re still a long way behind the Playstation 2 on 136,000,000 and rising. And the venerable console that held impressive exclusives like ICO, God of War and the Katamari series may have slowed a little, but at 9 years old it remains a key part of Sony’s plans.
There are rumours it will take another price cut to give it another sales boost, and it’s definitely about to enter new global markets including Latin America and Eastern Europe. The system has a particularly impressive back catalogue with over 1,900 games released and 70 new ones due out this year as developers still continue to support the system – usually with ports of Wii games.
Personally, I’m pretty sure the DS will outrun the PS2 sooner rather than later. The DSi is nearly upon us, and I think that will put it well on the way to overtaking, especially as the system has age on its side – at a sprightly four years younger than Sony’s black box, it certainly has the upper hand.
So how do these heavy weight sellers fit into the greater spectrum? Here are the approximate worldwide sales figures courtesy of Wikipedia – some of these are a little out of date, but it should give you an overall picture…
1. Sony Playstation 2 – 136,000,000
2. Nintendo GameBoy/GameBoy Colour – 118,700,000
3. Sony Playstation – 102,490,000
4. Nintendo DS – 100,000,000
5. Nintendo Game Boy Advance – 81,360,000
6. Nintendo Entertainment System – 61,900,000
7. Sony PSP – 50,000,000
8. Nintendo SNES – 49,100,000
9. Nintendo Wii – 44,960,000
10. Nintendo 64 – 32,900,000
11. Sega Mega Drive – 29,000,000
12. Microsoft Xbox 360 – 28,000,000
13. Microsoft Xbox – 24,000,000
14. Nintendo GameCube – 21,740,000
15. Sony Playstation 3 – 21,300,000
16. Sega Master System – 13,000,000
17. Sega GameGear – 11,000,000
18. Sega Dreamcast – 10,600,000
19. TurboGrafx-16 – 10,000,000
20. Sega Saturn – 9,500,000
Seeing the Dreamcast outsold by the GameGear must make Sega question the existence of a just God. I’m also left a little surprised at how well the PSP has sold – so why has the support for it virtually dried up?
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