Topic: The Nintendo Switch has outsold the PS2

Surely then with that in mind that makes the PS2 even more impressive because portable games consoles get broken, dropped and easily damaged so one person may have to buy replacement units separately. The PS2 was a reliable console and didn't have a lithium ion battery pack that wears out or a screen to smash. It was a home console so its replacement numbers should be far, far less. So with that in mind it makes the PS2 numbers far more impressive. I have to add I'm not a fan of the PS2 myself I much preferred the original xbox, gamecube and dreamcast of that generation. I remember reading that in Japan many people have replaced their Switch's multiple times because they use them everyday for their commute and they get damaged and dropped and if I remember rightly one person was reported to have replaced their Switch 6 times. You only have to look at the Switch 1 sales numbers in Japan to see how high they are even this late into the generation. They mainly use the Switch 1 as a portable game system with commuting being the most common time to use them it seems. Maybe its different in other countries but here in the UK it seems like 1 in 15 people or something like that are using a mobile phone with some sort of damage on it like a big crack on the screen or worse. Using devices portably will obviously mean more damage on average. I tend to be quite careful with my stuff but use a android tablet strapped to my exercise bike so I've got something to watch when cycling and remember knocking the android tablet off and it hitting the floor and from them on the screen would no longer respond to touch and the case came apart a bit. So I had to replace it and that was just in the house. Looking online it looks like a portable device like a smartphone or android tablet lasts 2-7 years. So 4 years on average. I personally own 3 Switches. My original Switch in pretty rough condition, my Switch Lite (my main out of the house device) and my Switch OLED (around the house device). When I had a PS2 I had one PS2. I should add for fairness all my Switches were bought second hand though.

The Wikipedia count would be games with pages which would explain the gap. There's almost surely some omissions there, and probably rightly so given the number of..... not particularly countable releases on the eShop......

@BonzoBanana
Sure, but how many people really drop or break their system? BILLIONS of people have phones and carry them EVERYWHERE, constantly pulling them out of their pockets and holding with one hand. Way less people have portable consoles, they don't take them everywhere they go, they don't constantly pull them out of pockets and carry one handed while walking down sidewalks, all of them are in carry cases and any damage can be repaired by Nintendo for less than a new system anyways- only catastrophic damage out of warranty would result in an extra sale... it's not even comparable.

Even so, I'll grant you that.

But when you consider PS2 was essentially the cheapest DVD player on the market at a time DVD was booming (Switch had no such feature to boost sales), and the fact it had multiple price drops (Switch not only had no price drops, it had a price increase), and the fact it took PS2 a whopping 12 yrs to reach 155m when Switch has done it in less than 9...

It actually makes PS2 seem less impressive than ever. Not to say it isn't impressive- ANY console selling that much is an incredible achievement, but I fundamentally disagree it's "more" impressive than Switch. Quite the opposite- all things considered, Switch's accomplishments in 75% of the time without any media add-on functionality to drive sales, without any price drops and an actual price increase... seem far, far more impressive.

I do appreciate that the objective peak Nintendo console that reliably had games that pandered to me specifically and the winner of the best console generation are the best selling ones. Good job society.

@JaxonH I think also there’s the fact the PlayStation is a vocally more popular brand than Nintendo, especially taking into account the Wii U era. Sony was always consistently popular to some degree amongst gamers so its sales seem normal compared to a hated company rising from the ashes of their last system.

@JaxonH People love to downplay the success of the best selling systems. I always hear the DVD excuse for PS2. But by your logic, you can also excuse a lot of the Switch sales because households tended to buy multiple, especially since there were three different versions. A lot of people double/triple dipped. Since the Lite was so cheap, every family member could have their own.

@BonzoBanana I'm surprised you liked Xbox more. GC, Dreamcast, and PS2 had so many more exclusives. Lots of the Xbox ones found their way to PC. Besides Halo, KOTOR, and a few Sega exclusives, I felt Xbox was lacking in games.

I used a PS2 as a dvd player for ages and used my Wii to watch Netflix for ages. They were extremely useful secondary benefits at the time. I doubt people bought a new console just for that, but the side benefits might have helped tip the scale. Second-hand PS2s, on the other hand, were definitely traded around as dvd players for awhile.

I'd think that the PS2 time it pretty much perfectly as it came out right at the time that DVD was spreading from being a format aimed at videophiles to a mass market one. You could get a DVD player and a console in one, for less than the price of a name-brand DVD player.

For the vast majority of its commercial life though, there were far cheaper options, so I don't think that it's that big a factor overall. You can contrast it with the PS3 that was a couple of years ahead of the curve with Blu-Ray and didn't do much to drive adoption for a format that most homes weren't yet wanting.

While the PS2 definitely did benefit from being the first cheap DVD player, the idea that this is supposed to somehow be a "bad thing" is absurd. It fully deserves praise for holding the "best selling console ever" title for 20+ years.

The only complaint that is legitimate, is the "Sony pulls an extra bunch of sales out of their ass several generations after the PS2 ended support, not-coincidentally right when the Switch was going to exceed it". That behavior rightfully deserves mockery and disdain.

@JaxonH it's a matter of perspective which system's run was more impressive and it shows that it's simply an imperfect comparison. Switch has basically reached the PS2's numbers in 75 percent of the time, but the video game market is larger now, as is the population, and Nintendo had better availability. For example, the PS2 had a limited run in China, while the Switch had much better availability there. It's really tricky to compare the sales directly as a result. Plus there are other factors such as games shipped(though digital games probably put Switch ahead), and attach rate. Switch has a better attach rate from what I have seen, but largely just for Nintendo's games. For third-party games, the numbers resemble PS2 numbers, so that's less impressive.

There's even a counter for those who ding the PS2 as benefiting from being a DVD player. Nintendo had to consolidate their handheld and console businesses into one. At their peak, they were simultaneously selling two systems that surpassed 100 million. In the end, I think they're both impressive in different ways and the times were different enough to make things impossible to compare directly.

Consolidation of two platforms doesn't really count for a lot when you consider that the Wii U only sold around 13 million units. Nintendo were dead in the water as a home console maker when the Switch launched.

Had it followed on directly from the Wii and DS it might have sold better still, but the technology just wasn't available to do the concept justice at the time.

Anyway, the main thing about the PS2 was that it was pretty much the entirety of gaming, barring handhelds which were dominated by the GBA, in its prime. Other consoles were very niche markets in comparison, PCs were expensive and tricky to setup, and mobile was barely a thing. I'd be surprised if we ever see the like of that, even if the Switch manages to definitively overhaul it in sales.

@sdelfin
My response about how impressive it was, posted previously, was in direct response to someone attempting to dismiss the Switch's achievement and claim PS2 was way more impressive. To which I rightfully pointed out those bulletpoints such as PS2 benefitting from the DVD boom (and that was a legitimate factor that immensely benefitted it- even I bought one because it was a DVD player for less than the $400 alternatives, and the reason PS3 didn't benefit from blu ray is because the blu ray market is substantially smaller than DVD and there were cheaper alternatives), and the fact Switch has reached the same milestone in 75% of the time.

But as I said, any system that reaches 155m deserves credit, regardless of how it got there. And I do acknowledge the largest factor for its success was the simple fact it was a great system with tons of great games. Plain and simple. I don't want to take that away from it. After all, its not the fault of the PS2 Sony is manipulating numbers to insulate their egos.

But ya, if someone doesn't want to compare them directly that's fine, but I'd point out for the last 20 years nobody hesitated to compare it directly and boast of its crown, never mentioning anything about "different times" until Switch snatched its glory.

@Matt_Barber I considered that, but the Wii U was a marketing failure. The Wii was not that far in the rear-view mirror and showed that Nintendo's potential audience audience was much higher. When the Wii was current, Nintendo had two of their best-performing platforms simultaneously, the Wii and the DS. Despite its slow start, the 3DS did well too. Nintendo reached way more than 13 million people before the Wii U, and after it. They had the potential to have two strong platforms at the same time then, and they achieved that with the Wii/DS. Consolidating the two eliminates that scenario as even a possibility. So I would say that it does count as a lot, despite the Wii U sales performance.

@JaxonH Thanks for explaining further. All your points are fair in your reply and your prior post. There's so much context and nuance with these things that it is not a clean comparison. I agree with you, surpassing 150 million(or even millions less, like 120m) is not a small achievement in either time. Just sitting here thinking about it, I remembered a detail that reflects well on the Switch's sales performance. It was competing against smartphones and mobile gaming while PS2 was not. While we might not find that appealing, it is significant enough and probably does eat into potential sales to a degree, especially among casual games Nintendo reached before and may not be able to reach now. PC gaming also is easier than ever and might eat into things a bit too.

Regardless of the sales of the PS2, I would say Switch is more impressive as a platform due to the attach rate for Nintendo's games. Some of the best selling games did crazy numbers.

@sdelfin
To me, besides achieving the milestone much faster, what truly impresses me with Switch is the fact it never received an official price drop, and in fact, actually saw a price increase which is absolutely wild.

If they'd dropped Switch Lite to $99.99 like they did for 3DS in the latter years of its life, with a base Switch at $179.99 and an OLED at $249.99 it would still be a huge accomplishment, but no discounts and a price increase as the cherry on top, and it still hit 155m sold in 75% of the time?

That's crazy to me.

Idk how much mobile really stole from Switch, because I see mobile having taken it's biggest chunk from 3DS, but I suppose those are all people who may have been potential customers if mobile didn't exist. But they could also be potential PS/Xbox customers too. So it's hard to say.

I'm skeptical that mobile "stole" that many users from the Switch, due to the difference in price. The majority of the people playing games on mobile ( but not Switch ) are likely people who would have been either unable or unwilling to pay to buy a Switch and games for it ( given the cost would be far more than the "smartphone you already own" and "free*" that they are for mobile ). Anyone who would be both able and willing, probably actually did buy a Switch.

I'd think that mobile did most of the "stealing" towards the end of the Wii/DS era. Pretty much all of Nintendo's gains in the casual market evaporated by the launch of the 3DS and the Wii U, and that particularly hurt the latter.

The Switch was more of a fight back. Obviously mobile gaming is still way bigger, both in terms of players and revenue, than console gaming today. However, Nintendo's position alongside it looks a heck of a lot less threatened.

@JaxonH That's a great point. I think that's the strongest argument in favor of the Switch on this topic. There's just no counter to that because it really is crazy, as you say. It's just unheard of. And a price drop likely would have boosted total sales, whether enticing new buyers, or people buying extra hardware. If the goal was to surpass PS2's total numbers, whatever they were, a price job would seal the deal. PS2 certainly benefited in sales from the price drops, whether as a DVD player or a game system for late adopters. Even my own experience reflects that. I went with the Gamecube(and GBA) when the systems were current, but I eventually bought a PS2 slim and some games toward the end of its production run when it was in stores for $100. The price was a big part of that. In a funny coincidence, I also bought a PSP toward the end of its production run too. The lack of a price drop for Switch shows that its appeal was very strong, both in terms of concept and marketing.

The point about mobile gaming is hard to quantify, but it's logical that it would pull some casual players away from the Switch, and all platforms really. But those players are also likely to be ones who wouldn't necessarily buy a lot of software.

@sdelfin
I bought my first console with my own money as an adult when I watched my brother play Metroid Prime start to finish, and snatched up that $99 platinum GameCube Metroid Prime bundle with the Metroid Prime 2 demo disc, along with Metroid Prime 2 and F-Zero GX. Only games I ever owned for that system.

After that I bought a Wii at launch with Wii Sports packed in for Metroid Prime 3 and tried Zelda Twilight Princess at my brother's recommendation, later grabbing DKC Returns. Bout the only games I owned for that system.

That was my "casual gaming era" in my 20's, when life was more about girls and partying and all that jazz you get into when young and foolish. But it's a reminder of how many people behave and view consoles. They can be random impulse purchases for a single interesting game, then left to collect dust afterward.

Had a PS2 briefly with The Matrix and EA Sports Hockey 2001, which I played with a friend all night on psilocybin mushrooms lol (tracers on the puck like crazy- I do NOT miss those days but they're comical to think about), and a DS with Mario 64. 3DS was also an impulse purchase in 2012, as I saw a magazine talking about glasses free 3D.

But after Resident Evil Revelations and Street Fighter IV, I got a Vita and then a Wii U and then PS4 and it was off to the races. Gamer ever since.

Switch is on track to sell 4m this fiscal year. If it lands around 156m by March 31st, I think it actually has a chance to surpass even the production numbers of PS2 by the time they shelf it for good.