Video game console sales worldwide for products total lifespan as of May 2014

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This statistic shows the total number of selected video game consoles sold worldwide across the products entire lifetime on the shelves as of May 2014. At this time the Nintendo DS was the second best games console having sold a total of around 154 million units worldwide.

Gaming info

According to the graph above, amongst the most popular game consoles around the world are the PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS/3DS and the Game Boy. This statistic also shows specifically how these and other consoles sold in their first week on the shelves. The PlayStation, designed by Japanese company Sony has a loyal following with many millions of registered accounts on their network worldwide. The number of registered PlayStation accounts has been increasing steadily over the past few years.

Around the world there are millions of gamers who play on a daily basis (261262). Daily gaming is particularly prevalent in the Asia Pacific region and also across Europe. Thanks to modern advancements there are now a wider range of mediums available to the public to access gaming, for example: online gaming, social network gaming, mobile gaming, handheld consoles, more traditional home based gaming consoles and more. More recently the most popular online game on the social-networking site Facebook, is Candy Crush with more than 15 million daily active users. This game has in fact proven itself to be so addictive that there is even a rehab program available in the United States, specialized in treating addicts of the popular game.

[blackbeld]

Nice to see Sony doing well again.

[3-4-5]

GBA sold just as much as PSP and it was only around for like 4 years. That is kind of impressive.

Nothing against PSP, it's an awesome handheld.

[blackbeld]

Nintendo is still king of handhelds :) Sony just can't beat that.

[NewMonday]

@blackbeld

the 3DS is starting to slow down, it had a strong but short life-cycle, same as the Wii.

[Gaming101]

Reggie from Nintendo should talk more about handheld success if he's going to spout Nintendo's strengths. When he starts yammering about the Wii U's sales figures all he can muster is "Well we're technically in second place" even though the PS4 outsold the Wii U's entire install base after being on sale for just 2-3 months while they Wii U had been out over 15 Months at that same time.

Here's how it will look when the dust has settled:
http://i.minus.com/iHzXFvuX...

[Mr_Writer85]

Blackbled

And Sony are the king of consoles.

Despite its numbers the 3DS numbers are less than half of the DS, with the rise of tablets and mobiles Nintendo may see their market shrink even more.

[UltraNova]

I thought PS3 overtook 360 in global sales? Is this legit?

[insomnium2]

@ultranova

I thought so too and in addition afaik that happened a good long while ago. These numbers are outdated.

[calis]

"I thought PS3 overtook 360 in global sales? Is this legit?"

Nope, they've taken the numbers from vgcharts.

[Retroman]

Addiction to CANDY CRUSH ??? and rehab centers ?? good LAWD they need rehab centers for call of duty , halo gamers .

[bigfish]

Why is xbox 360 the same as ps3 on 80 million. Surely xbox360 should be in last place for sales!

[SmielmaN]

Happy Sony is doing well, as well.

Speaking of consoles, my wife just got me a Wii U for Father's Day so Mario Bros/Kart/Party here I come! Lol

[djplonker]

That kind of implies your wife is also your daughter lol

[F4sterTh4nFTL]

Xbox 360 + PS3 = 165 Million, no wonder most games are still cross-gen.

[blackbeld]

Yep, you got that right.

[mochachino]

Yet they all sell better on next-gen.

[OpenGL]

Of course they are, both next-gen consoles have 16x the amount of RAM.

[thehobbyist]

Yeah, that's what happens when your generation lasts 3 years longer than it normally does. Thank god we're finally done with it because the graphics/framerate balance on last gen was starting to get REALLY BAD.

[alb1899]

then SONY did not win last Gen.
both have 82.3millions sold

[MasterCornholio]

Nope Nintendo did with the Wii for now......

[Jay70sgamer]

@ Master that is not gonna change ps3 and 360 are 18,000,000 consoles behind and they are starting to really slow down to a crawl ....look at ps3 Usa sales per week under 10,000 ...wii won generation 7 lol..I don't care how many price cuts they use they are not gonna sell 18,000,000 units when they have a brand new system on the market to replace it

[choujij]

Right. The same Nintendo that people have been saying is doomed since the N64 days.

[GameSpawn]

@Jay

Where do you think the extra PS1 sales came from when the PS2 was released?
Where do you think the extra PS2 sales came from when the PS3 was released?

There are "third world" markets that get the console VERY late in comparison to the major markets increasing sales for previous gen LONG after the transition. Yes it may be in the weeeee tiny little numbers per week, but over the course of 4-5 more years past the generation transition point they add up. It also helps when your competitors drop ALL support for their previous consoles while you keep on going with overlapping lifespans.

Will the PS3 see the numbers the PS2 and PS1 did?
PS1...maybe
PS2...probably not because of the 360

Now if Microsoft drops the 360 like a bad habit after a year or so and Sony keeps pushing the PS3 in the "extra" markets they might get much closer to the PS2 sales (I still don't think they will surpass them).

Also when the PS3 hits the $99 point (it will eventually) it will see a surge for a little while to pickup some last minute sales in the lifespan.

[rsnotz]

@Gamespawn your right. Where I live the PS2 was still being heavily advertised till 2012. And games were still being released here. In fact the eyetoy bundle was being heavily pushed in 2012.

[MasterCornholio]

@Gamespawn

Yep and look at how long production of the PS2 lasted. They just stopped producing the console a year or two ago. The GameCube and Xbox stopped production way before that. I can imagine the PS3 will continue to be in production while Microsoft and Nintendo cancel production long before that. Remember a generation ends when all systems from that generation cease to be produced. Just because the PS4s out doesn't mean the PS3 has stopped selling all of a sudden.

[Jay70sgamer]

Yes ..old consoles continue to sell after the new releases but ...we are talking 18,000,000 consoles not 5,10 or 15 lol sorry it's not gonna happen .....especially with all the new game systems handhelds and computer games this is a different time and era than when the ps2 was released .....people have a lot more options than what they had in the past just look at what you said.... Sony lost about half their fans in one generation (ps2 154 million to ps3 80 plus million ..you know why because of computers games ,tablet games handheld and competition etc and remember the japanese market was strong when ps2 and ps3 was out these days home consoles sell about only 10,000 systems a week let me break it down for you in math terms xbox360 or ps3 would have to sell 360,000 ps3 or xbox 360s a month for the next 4 years which would have ps3 on the market 12 years or 85,000 thousand ps3 or xbox 360 a week to catch wii @100,000,000 million lol do you really think they can sell that much in 4 years come on lets use some common sense here lol they are only moving 40,000 plus a week worldwide lol plus all three new consoles will be way cheaper by then lol Sony and Microsoft fans get over it the 7 generation is over even if not technically lol I'm finished

[MNGamer-N]

Of course Sony didn't win. Nintendo "won" last gen. Review the numbers again. Nintendo DS+Wii, 254.5 million units of hardware.

[uth11]

But if you owned a Wii, you sure didn't feel like you had the winning system from the kinds of games you got (crap shovelware mostly, no AAA apart from some excellent first party stuff)

[MNGamer-N]

@uth11
But the Wii system had the "Game of the Generation". Yes alot of shovelware, but you cant say there were "no good games". It's just silly. I played a ton of good games on wii, I feel like it was definitely worth investing in.

http://www.ign.com/top/game...

[Spotie]

I would say the game that more outlets deemed GOTY would be GOTG. Especially with that game being part of the most awarded franchise of last generation, made by the most awarded studio of last generation.

[johndoe11211]

@Mngamer

Yeah, because ign editors represent the rest of the world right? Smh.

[Mr_Writer85]

When did the Wii get The Last of Us?

#confused

[insomnium2]

@mngamer

Sorry but no matter what proof you show me I will never think that TLOU and Mario Galaxy are even on the same effing planet when it comes to my gaming. Same with COD vs Disgaea for example. There is a difference between a 30+yo gamer and a 10yo gamer you know.

[nthstew]

this is impressive. XB360 got a year head start but still Sony managed to equal it.
now imagine the figures if they were released at the same time.... ;)

[darthv72]

Even more impressive is how much the 360 surpassed the original xbox and yet the PS3 didnt come close to the PS2...or PS1 for that matter.

[Sharky231]

Imagine the 360 numbers without the red ring of death. I know 10 people that bought 3 or more 360's.

[xDHAV0K24x]

impressive. xb360 got the yr head start, NEVER got support in Japan, no blu-ray, not wireless for a few yrs AND far less exclusives! imagine that!

[choujij]

@xDHAV0K24x

It's funny when Xbox fanboys pick and choose convenient times to admit the 360 had "far less exclusives" (your words).

Don't forget to mention, the 360 also was considerably cheaper, and the US market (it's strongest market) grew, while the gaming market in Japan only shrunk. ;)

And I'm sure the 3RRoD played a small part too:
http://www.gamesradar.com/x...
http://www.1up.com/news/tal...

In fact, just this week I found my old excel files and calculated how many consoles I personally serviced in 2010/2011. I tallied them up: 0 Wiis, 5 PS3s, and 100+ Xbox 360s. Imagine that!

Edit: For the fun of it, I thought I'd share my old service records. I've upped them here with the sensitive info covered:
PS3 https://www.sendspace.com/f...
360 https://www.sendspace.com/f...

[MysticStrummer]

"I'm sure the 3RRoD played a small part too"

It definitely did with my real life gaming friends. All but one of them bought a 360 when it released, and ended up buying more than one because of RRoD. By about halfway through the generation they had all switched to PS3, but in total they bought more than twice as many 360s among them as PS3s. We'll most likely never know the overall numbers but I doubt my friends were the only ones who did that.

[BullyMangler]

Sony will never win if their daddy nintendo is in the game.

regarding sales ignore that, for gameplay and grafix determine a winner, not sales.

you guys seriously believe that Shakira is better than Tech9 because she has more sales ??

Please hand me the gun so i can blow my F***** brains out !

[SpinalRemains138]

Right, because the PS brand has never outsold the Nintendo brand.

I guess that's the case if you're 15 years old and don't know any better.

[MysticStrummer]

"Please hand me the gun so i can blow my F***** brains out !"

You think Sony has never outsold Nintendo, so are you sure you didn't do that already?

[avengers1978]

PS1,2,3 combined sales are more than NES, SNES, N64, GameCube, Wii, and Wii U sales combined sales that's 3 conses to 6...

Here's the gun

Maybe it's time to leave the gaming discussion, because you clearly know nothing about it.

[Jay70sgamer]

Avengers@anyone can make a scenario when a console is concerned to favor their system ...look at this.... wii and ds 254,000,000 sales combined home and portable consoles > sold more than ps3 ,xbox360 and playstation portable combined total hardware sales ...... See how that works ...don't get so caught up in numbers ....it can work against you at times lol...nintendo dominated both console home and portable generation 7

[avengers1978]

Oh and best graphics go to PS, god of war, infamous, KILLZONE, uncharted, the last of us...
Best game play again PS god of war, infamous uncharted, grand Turismo ...

You just got nothing really

[pandaboy]

Don't forget that the source is VGChartz. These are just ballpark estimations based off of official shipped numbers.

[avengers1978]

Pretty much says all you need to know right there... Might as well put this in rumor not news worthy. VGCharts has been proven wrong time and time again

[choujij]

Wow. I didn't realize they used VGChartz as a source. SMH.

Edit: I was curious to see how VGC managed to boost the 360 numbers to catch back up to the PS3 on their "chartz". I traced their fail to Jan's 2014 total global sales. Get this:

X360 (Weekly worldwide, total worldwide)

28th Dec,2013: 213,391 (week) 80,020,037 (total)
04th Jan,2014: 76,245 (week) 80,096,282 (total)
11th Jan,2014: 59,470 (week) 81,352,075 (total)

So according to them, 80,096,282 total + 59,470 sold the following week = a new total of 81,352,075. lol What a bunch of assclowns.

[rainslacker]

According to this chart, Sony hasn't sold a single PS3 console since about this time last year when they announced they were at 83 million sold. Yet somehow, MS kept selling consoles in that same time frame, because they were not at 83 million at that time.

Strangely enough, PS3 is still doing pretty well, and I'd imagine they're still pushing at least 10 million PS's a year(conservative estimate) Not sure if it'll get close to PS2 numbers though, since the PS4 is significantly cheaper than the PS3 on launch, so the entry to next gen may be more appealing to more people.

[Magicite]

For a JRPG fan like me, PS3 won hands down (won with games).

[medman]

@alb1899
You do realize the ps3 launched more than one full year later than the 360, right? And at a higher price? And did not have the benefit of selling multiple units to the same customers do to an outrageously high failure rate?

[SilentNegotiator]

The last official counts had ps3 in the lead and ps3 has been eclipsing 360 constantly. I doubt that they're tied.

[Gamer1982]

They surpassed Xbox 360 but since the launch of the PS4/Xbox One the PS3 sales have dropped and 360 sales are still pretty much the same meaning Xbox 360 gained some ground back.. They will end about the same but it means Sony has nearly doubled Xbox One sales and MS have been forced to support 360 e.g. Forza Horizon 2.. Thus hurting next gen games..

[grashopper]

I'm kind of amazed the Wii never caught the PSone. I thought it would have had higher numbers and I didn't realize the PSone did so well.
Crazy numbers for both of them.

[Jay70sgamer]

Grashopper. The only reason why the wii didn't catch playstation 2 is because nintendo stopped supporting it after the 5 year and playstation was sold for over 12 years

[thehobbyist]

That's both true and false. In Japan they were still supporting it for more than five years. Meanwhile in every other country it faded away. Same with PS2. Sony kept supporting it and it was sold for longer in the west than PSX. But it still went away in the west before it stopped in Japan.

[OtakuDJK1NG-Rory]

No because in 2010 Project Cafe was rumored.

In 2011 Wii U was revealed they then shifted their developers over after Xenoblade, Zelda Skyward Sword and Kirby Return to Dreamland.

[Mr_Writer85]

The Wii never surpassed the PS2 as it was a fad.

Whilst the PS2 was not.

[LAWSON72]

Every console is a fad, look at PS2 today it is unpopular and not used, while 10 years ago it was huge.

"A fad is any form of behavior that develops among a large population and is collectively followed enthusiastically for a period of time, generally as a result of the behavior being perceived as popular by one's peers or being deemed "cool" by social media.[1] A fad is said to "catch on" when the number of people adopting it begins to increase rapidly. The behavior will normally fade quickly once the perception of novelty is gone."- Wikipedia

Any system fits this bill really if it became popular. Look at 360/PS3 now that they are perceived as old they are perceived as irrelevant. PS2 however was a very long fad,but once that perception of novelty was gone it went away

[Fireseed]

My question is where the heck did the Sony numbers go?!? I mean it goes;

PS1: 104.25
PS2: 157.68
PS3: 82.3

That's A LOT of people who seem to just give up on games. O_O

[LazyMinion]

Half of them bought the 360

[Fireseed]

I sincerely doubt that some 70 million people are the entirety of 360 consumer base. Cause plenty of people bought both.

[uth11]

The rest went to the wii

[SilentNegotiator]

It was both the Wii and 360. Ps2 was both the perfect casual AND core console because it was cheap AND had a strong lineup.

But then the 7th gen came and Microsoft's console was a LOT more competitive for core gamers and Wii dominated the casual gamers. Ps3 didn't have any chance of keeping all 157m ps2 owners with its high price and weaker (relative to ps2) lineup.

[JBSleek]

What happens when there is competition.

[mt]

PS2 era competition was fierce because PS2 was the underdog but PS2 killed all the competitors.

[darthv72]

If by underdog you mean underpowered....then mt you would be correct.

But it wasnt the underdog in the sense of the term. Meaning it wasnt in any way up against a better competitor. unless you want to count sony's other platform at the same time. the PS1.

Many dont realize that competition is not just against the "other guy". It also means competing with themselves. Its like that still to this day.

While the sale of a system is great in the grand scheme of things...the sale of a previous system in comparison to the newer one from the same company is still a loss to the newer platform they are trying to promote.

But there does come a point where the newer does finally out pace the former and then the former can retire in style.

[mt]

yes I thought it was clear I didn't need to explained it further.

PS2 was underpowered.

[F4sterTh4nFTL]

Moved to PC.

[Sharky231]

Those consoles sold for a lot longer and they had no competition in the hardcore dept.

[HappyWithOneBubble]

People go by what is hip and trendy. Back then PS3 was too much and the Wii was the better value. 360 got a year head start and took some exclusives that was once PS exclusives. Now PS4 is the hip and trendy console and it will stay that way til the next consoles.

[SpinalRemains138]

This is exactly right.

Excellent.

[ShowGun901]

its sad, but thats probably most of what there is to it...

[MysticStrummer]

PS2 dominated big time, then PS3 launched a year after it's cheaper competitor, and had early multi-plat woes because of the Cell. Also, see my answer to LazyMinion below...

@LazyMinion - Nearly all my friends bought a 360, and all of them ended up buying more than one because of RRoD. By about halfway through the gen they all switched to PS3, but the result was more than twice as many 360 sales between them.

[greenlantern2814]

Or went to Xbox360, Wii both being far cheaper. Or PC the PC market did see a large increase over the last decade

[HighResHero]

PS3 isn't even $99 yet.

[rainslacker]

Those numbers for PS1/2 were for it's entire lifetime. Both the PS1/2 sold well into their successors life. PS3 was down by about 10 million units from PS2 sales in the same time frame last year when Sony announced selling 83 million units. I imagine in another 5 or so years, the PS3 will be somewhere between those two numbers.

Some people went to Xbox, but in the same time frame for the generation, the console market doubled in number of consoles sold(excluding Wii).

[LAWSON72]

I have heard alot of PS2 buyers wanted the DVD drive. Same actually happened with PS3 due to the better features and price it had over blu ray players at the time. Nobody in their right mind would ever choose a regular old blu ray player when the PS3 is better in every damn way. I wold not be surprised if it was pushed on customers interested in blu ray at stores like Best Buy

[Milesprowers]

I still have my PS2 :)

[Tetsujin]

I have the original first gen PS2 with the fire wire port; I'm still grateful it runs with no issues.

[scark92]

Me too, All those people who bought a PS2 in my mind should be happy with their purchase, such a fantastic console with amazing games, deserves its place on top :D

[Milesprowers]

For Christmas, my father let me choose between a Gamecube, PS2 and an Xbox, the obvious choice was the PS2 (i later saved up for a Gamecube), never had an Xbox which is why i have no love for the Halo Series.

I have about 250 PS2 Games in my collection :)

[Lou Ferrigno]

PS4 is moving up and will join it's older bro the PS2 hopefully by the end or before this gen cycle. ..
Here is hoping to a gen of more games and more gamers...
:)

[xDHAV0K24x]

this MUST mean that the PSP was better than the NES...lmfao gtfoh

[choujij]

How's your PS2 holding up, Dennis-sin Alexandre?

[LightDiego]

But, but, consoles are dead according to some "specialists".

[Tales RPG addict]

The list is Incomplete what about the other consoles they forgot to include in this list such as SNES, N64, Sega Saturn, and Nintendo Gamecube.

How could they forget these consoles.
Excluding PSP & PS VITA the entire Playstation line of consoles has sold about 400 million Worldwide alone. A feat that not even Nintendo got close to. Plus while I love Nintendo they haven't had much in the way of great 3rd party support since the 16-bit era with the SNES.

This is the 8th Generation of video game consoles and from what it looks like Wii U is getting to become really awesome, and so is PS4.

I have Zero interest in the Xbox One.

[DeadIIIRed]

Of all the consoles left off the list, the SNES should have been on there.

[ninjahunter]

Lol, vita is ahead of next gen. Not for long obviously, but that still amuses me.

[thehobbyist]

It's also been out even longer than the Wii U and barely exceeds PS4's sales. Not very impressive. And it being shoveled into a position as a "PS4 accessory" makes me unhappy. Oh well, it's getting a lot of Japanese games and that's why I bought it.

[hello12]

Don't know were those stat's came from, but Microsoft sold 84 million last week.

82.3 million doesn't seem accurate to me, the sales are wrong.

http://www.gamespot.com/art...

[greenlantern2814]

Based off VGchartz, that's all you need to know

[joeorc]

100% Exactly and to further point out

this sites data is from VGchartz own data, just slightly changed in order to be Quote "seen an another indie part for stat's" when in truth its just another attempt to pass off more of the same Data to be quote "were accurate as they come"

trying to gather Vgcharts cred to be increased

Someone is trying real hard to get thats site's DATA to be seen better than it really is.

LMAO

[JasonKCK]

Based on how far back the graph goes, it's incomplete.

[JasonKCK]

I see Playstation but no Sega, N64, or original Xbox.

Like I said, the list is "incomplete". It's just a fact. Next time don't just disagree and run like a coward.

[meganick]

No SNES either, even though NES is shown. Wut up wit dat yo?

[paulcek]

Honestly, I don't think anything will ever reach those amazing PS2 numbers again!

[mochachino]

All I know is that a PS3 with PSN Plus was and is the best place to console game...that is if you care about value and having the most and best games.

As an owner of 360, PS3 and Wii, PS3 won this gen imo, although I think 360 had better graphics....at least more consistently.

In terms of devices that game, Apple would have won with more games and devices sold if you think in terms of sales alone:)

[moparful99]

Better graphics?? Umm based off of what? Starting with motorstorm, to heavenly sword, then metal hear solid 4, up to uncharted 1-3, and most recently the Last of Us PS3 clearly established itself as the graphical benchmark for consoles.. If you're referencing the multiplat disparity that plagued the PS3 early on that issue existed purely because the 360 was the lead platform for most 3rd party titles.. When the Ps3 was the lead platform ala Final Fantasy 13 the Ps3 fared better..

[mochachino]

I admit that PS3 probably had games with the best graphics with Uncharted 2 and 3, GOW3, and LoU (although Halo 4 looked damn impressive too), but for most of the gen multiplats looked and ran noticeably better on 360. Games like Skyrim and Mass Effect had pretty amazing graphics at times too.

[Tzuno]

I wonder if next generations of consoles will surpass that PS2 king. The games on that console...oh boy, were many and the diversity is there, something i cannot say about the current generation especially when i see the lack of true jrpg's.

[Inception]

Where's Atari, SNES, Sega Genesis, Saturn, Dreamcast, N64, Gamecube, and Xbox 1 number? Did the writer forgot to add them?

[JMyers]

I think the numbers are a bit outdated for some units. PS3 is higher than 360 at the last count.

However good chart representation of eveything.

[nope111]

How accurate are these numbers? just curious.

[joeorc]

@nope111

"How accurate are these numbers? just curious."

A:

About as accurate as Vgchartz: and someone trying to pass off that sales data in the form of another site trying to have a "leopard trying to be changing his spots" to confuse his prey..and that is the prey trying to gather hits..lol

your not fooling anyone...down vote on that stat site, and No i do not like the site..lol

[Geobros]

Same numbers as VGchartz. I don't understand the point of this article when vgchartz is open 24/24 hours to see numbers....

[sebzhd]

PS3 is1 or 2 millionsmore than x360, vgc are liars.

[king_ps4]

Ps4 is dominating the tvbox one in sales, no surprise there.

[cellur111]

I don't understand why they group all the DS models together. The original DS is different from the DS lite and the DS lite from the DSi and so on. By that logic they should also be grouping all the xbox's and playstations together.

[Godmars290]

Neither the first Xbox, the Game Cube nor the Dreamcast were even considered it looks like.

Likewise its a bit depressing to see where the PSV stacks up against the PSP much less the DS.