It’ll be a tough haul but Sony is daring to dream that the PlayStation 4 might sell as many units as the legendary PlayStation 2.
The PlayStation 2 sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 155 million units in its lifetime. That’s like one console for ever man, woman and child in Bangladesh, with enough left over to cover Albania. Maybe that’s not a great analogy, but you get the idea: Sony has sold an awful lot of PS2s over the years.
The PlayStation 4 came out of the gate awfully hard, selling 4.2 million units between November 15 and December 28 of 2013, but does it have what it takes to match the PS2? Of course not. That’s crazy talk, and it’s not going to happen. But dare to dream, right?
“As we all know, unfortunately the sales of the PS3 didn’t even get near the sales of the PS2. It may be difficult for a home console now, but I think we shouldn’t say it’s impossible unconditionally,” Sony Computer Entertainment Japan President Hiroshi Kawano told Inside Games. “However, I believe it’s possible to expand the popularity of the PS4 by providing a rich gaming experience and making use of the fusion of network service and high performance that is possible only on home consoles.”
The plan, he said, is to continue promoting the unique features of the PlayStation 4, which some people still aren’t aware of. “When we talk on whether it’ll match the sales of the PS2 numerically, we’ll have to do our best in the future,” he said.
Doing your best seems like a fairly solid strategy overall, certainly better than just half-assing it and hoping for the best, but matching the PlayStation 2? To put it in perspective, the original PlayStation sold a little over 102 million units, according to Wikipedia, the Xbox 360 has thus far moved 83 million units, the PlayStation 3 sits at 80 million and the great NES, 62 million. The only systems to approach the PS2 are Nintendo’s DS and Game Boy handhelds, which achieved sales of 154 million and 119 million units respectively. Can the PlayStation 4 really live up to that?
Source: DualShockers
