Well, this ought to put a nail in the consistent bickering of the console wars; PlayStation has been recognized by the Guinness World Records for the best-selling console brand in history. It’s a mind-blowing achievement, and one not readily challenged by any other company at the moment (or for the near future).
In December 1994, the initial PlayStation was launched using discs akin to SegaCD (that was released in 1991) for content storage. Infamously, Sony initially wanted to work with Nintendo. Differences in style led to the project being scrapped, and Sony came to the market with their own console. Yet more than the console, the corporation also brought about outstanding developers, resulting in classics such as Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy 7, Tomb Raider, Crash Bandicoot, and Gran Turismo.
On the back of those monstrous titles, the original PlayStation sold roughly 102.5 million units.
The PlayStation 2 was released in early 2000 and was produced until 2012. Once again coupling cutting-edge technology with ground-breaking titles, the console became one of the best selling of all time. Manufacturing delays forced the console to miss their desired holiday launch in North America, and technology woes brought about Sony offering fixes for disk read errors. Despite these small hiccups, Sony once again found themselves well ahead in the console wars. Massive titles were found in the North America launch, with Dead Or Alive 2: Hardcore, Kessen, SSX, and Unreal Tournament.
The consoles best-selling titles would be Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec, and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. The PlayStation 2 would ultimately go on to sell over 155 million units internationally.
The PlayStation 3 would bring about the closest the console wars would get, with PS3 battling against Microsofts Xbox 360. PlayStation 3 slightly eked out the victory with roughly 87.5 million units sold, versus Xbox 360s 84 million units sold. The PS3 came out in 2006, and brought with it Blu-ray functionality. With a $600 price point, the PS3 came to NA market with even more titles: Call of Duty 3, Need for Speed: Carbon, Tony Hawk’s Project 8, and Resistance: Fall of Man being only a few of the games the console would release with. This iteration also saw a wide number of variations; from differing case models to a variety of internal memory solutions ranging from 20GB to 250GB, the PlayStation 3 kept Sony on top with multiple iterations of a similar OS.
Following goofs and gaffes at Microsofts E3 conference when they announced the Xbox One would have cameras to identify how many people were watching a movie; if it found too many faces, they proudly announced that users would be charged automatically. Microsoft then, in the same press conference, also proudly announced that users wouldn’t be able to exchange and borrow games from friends without paying additional fees directly to Microsoft. They would later announce that they were confused about what gamers wanted from a system.
This made the PlayStation 4 launch relatively painless for Sony, with their greatest concern being how to field enough units for everyone that was lining up to purchase them. The PS4 was released in 2013 and continues to be sold. While PS5 is on the near horizon, the PS4 doesn’t show signs of slowing down in terms of units being pushed. Thus far, the console has sold 102.8 million units, compared to Xbox One’s 46.9 million.
While the next console releases are on the horizon, it doesn’t currently look like Sony will be capitulating the title in the foreseeable future.
