Jim Ryan Stirs Up An Old Debate, Claims The PlayStation 2 Sold 160 Million Units

Jim Ryan’s time as the chief executive officer of Sony Interactive Entertainment and as head-honcho of everything PlayStation is officially over.

He leaves behind a near 30-year career with PlayStation that began before the first console even released, while banging his chest about how successful PS5 has been and could continue to be.

He’s also leaving while stirring the pot one last time, and bringing an old debate back to life, as in an ‘exit interview’ of sorts with the Official PlayStation Podcast, Ryan claimed that the PlayStation 2 has sold 160 million units.

What’s been debated for years isn’t whether or not the PS2 is actually the best selling console, because official numbers from PlayStation and Nintendo, who hold second place with their DS show a clear winner.

What is debated is just how many PS2’s were actually sold in the end, as it was a console plagued with

“160 million, which is the number of PS2s that we sold,” Ryan casually stated on the podcast, a figure that was given no push-back from podcast host Sid Shuman.

The last reported official numbers we had for the PS2 claim the console has sold upwards of 155 million units, which already makes it the best selling console of all-time, a hair ahead of the Nintendo DS.

This new number now adds another 5 million units, something that is rather difficult to properly validate, as Niko Partners director of research and insights, Daniel Ahmed, points out.

In a post on Twitter, Ahmed breaks down the sales history of the PS2, which could very well sit at 159 million by his count, a best estimate from the unknown number of consoles sold in the 9-month period between the last official report of 155 million and when the console was actually discontinued.

Ahmed’s final round-about figure that puts the console anywhere between selling 158.6 million-161.8 million units is just what it sounds like – an estimate.

Unless Sony were to actually dig up the number of PS2’s sold, and updates the official stats, we’ll seemingly have to take Ryan at his word. You could also, as Ahmed points out, be pretty comfortable in saying it sold just shy of 160 million.

Either way, the PS2 is still the best-selling console of all time. Unless Nintendo begins to count whatever its next console will be as part of the ‘family’ of Nintendo Switch consoles, and adds the numbers for its next hardware device on top of the Switch’s 139.36 million already sold.

If that happens, this debate is sure to spark up again, as fans will probably continue debating which actually sold the most.

Source – [Daniel Ahmed on Twitter, Official PlayStation Podcast]