Sony PlayStation 2 global shipments top 100 million units

[Deepak]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051130/tc_afp/japangameelectronicscompanysony

TOKYO (AFP) - Sony said that total global shipments of its Playstation 2 game console had exceeded 100 million units since its launch in March 2000.

Global shipments of the PS2 included 40.65 million to North America, 37.14 million to Europe and 22.22 million to Asia, including Japan, Sony's computer entertainment division said.

The original PlayStation took nine years and six months to clock up total shipments of 100 million.

 

[Bad_Boy]

The original PlayStation took nine years and six months to clock up total shipments of 100 million.

Thats pretty impressive on the PS2's part. Has anything come close to 100mil? Im guessing one of those old nintendo systems or somthing right? If so, any numbers on how long it took them?

 

[Gholbine]

And they'll rake up another 5 mil. this holiday season. Incredible really.

Bad_Boy, I'm fairly certain the Gameboy has well surpassed 100m units. But that's over almost 15 years, I believe.

 

[drpepper]

Yah, i think the Gameboy and playstation 1 are the only ones reachin 100 million.

 

[Titanio]

To think it is still $150!

 

[mckmas8808]

To think it is still $150!

And has at least 2 more Christmas seasons to go.

 

[PC-Engine]

Probably half of those PS2s are secondary replacements, pretty impressive nonetheless.

 

[Mmmkay]

Probably half of those PS2s are secondary replacements, pretty impressive nonetheless.

Giving a tie ratio of 17:1. I guess that say's a lot about the quality of the software eh?

 

[jvd]

Probably half of those PS2s are secondary replacements, pretty impressive nonetheless.

alot of people are buying pstwos and selling back ps2s .

We have 18 old school ps2s sitting in the back. They just aren't selling used even with the lower price tag (over a used pstwo)


I'm also sure some of the original shipments are needed to be replaced (of the ps2)


Still even if we say 5 million is going to replacements or people who want a smaller one , its still crazy high numbers.

Prob will hit 110-120m shipped by the time its dead

 

[PC-Engine]

Giving a tie ratio of 17:1. I guess that say's a lot about the quality of the software eh?

There are a lot of good games under $20 in the PS2 bargain bin.

 

[Mmmkay]

There are a lot of good games under $20 in the PS2 bargain bin.

400 million of them?

You show me your sales data and I'll show you mine.

 

[PC-Engine]

400 million of them?

You show me your sales data and I'll show you mine.

Show me the real tie ratios...

 

[Mmmkay]

Show me the real tie ratios...

http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/release/pdf/050603e.pdf

As of June 2005:
"On the software side, more than 5,000 game titles are currently available for PlayStation 2 worldwide, with cumulative shipment reaching over 800 million units."

I inferred up to 850million* software shipments for the 100million units announcement (the silly buggers decided to combine PSOne and PS2 in that press release).

*The US sells around 4.5-5m PS2 software units a month, given the 7 month gap between that press release and the 100m mark, that estimates conservatively around 31.5m units sold. That actually puts my 850m a bit low I guess pushing the tie ratio higher. C'est la vie. It's a rough estimate anyway.

[edit]Ooh, here's some juice for you. I'd almost forgotten about this article:
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=59719

He argued that the delay to launching the hardware in Europe meant that more of the bugs and issues could be ironed out, thus heavily reducing the company's return rate.

"Consequently, we have a very, very low return rate," he commented, "less than 2 per cent."

In referral to the PSP delay, but obviously quoting currently available hardware return rates(PS2). So thats 2% off 37.14m for Europe out of that 100m figure. We're gettin there... 49.26m defective PS2's to go

 

[PC-Engine]

The US sells around 4.5-5m PS2 software units a month, given the 7 month gap between that press release and the 100m mark, that estimates conservatively around 31.5m units sold.

The current installed base of PS2/PSTwo in NA is 40million..of those I'd say there are only about 30 million actual PS2/PSTwos that are working..10 million being replaced or upgrades with PSTwo.

Also there is no proportional correlation between shipped consoles and shipped games. I'm only interested in number of sold games to date.

 

[Mmmkay]

The current installed base of PS2/PSTwo in NA is 40million...

My Sister lives in London... I can post unrelated statements too

That 31.5m was software sales for 7 months (7x4.5).
Take my 4.5m figure and place it at a ~40% share of global monthly sales. That equals around 78m software sales since June. I suppose given the slower summer months, a 50m estimate wouldn't be so bad.

 

[PC-Engine]

My Sister lives in London... I can post unrelated statements too

That 31.5m was software sales for 7 months (7x4.5).
Take my 4.5m figure and place it at a ~40% share of global monthly sales. That equals around 78m software sales since June. I suppose given the slower summer months, a 50m estimate wouldn't be so bad.

What is the global monthly game sales?

What is the tie ratio?

 

[Lazy8s]

That percentage for returns which was quoted implies nothing about the PS2, only that Sony considers a 2% return rate to be very, very low.

 

[Mmmkay]

What is the global monthly game sales?

What is the tie ratio?

A statistic I made up for the purposes of approximation. Without the full sales data for Europe and Japan/Asia, we can only assume proportional sales in line with installed base. It'll do for the short time period we're addressing here, but obviously it's not very good in the long term. For instance that press release quoted 240m software sales for 2004 which is around 20m per month globally whereas mine is a conservative underestimate. Of course 2004 had GTA:SA and a Christmas period so removing those would bring it somewhere closer to my estimate. Basically I'm clarifying that I wasn't overestimating.

The tie ratio, is at least 8.5:1, though I imagine it will be somewhere nearer 10:1, if we take off around 10% of hardware due to repurchasing PSTwo's and failure rates and throw in a couple of hundred thousand software sales from underestimating. I think 10:1 sounds about right.

Lazy8s: It's hardly a leap of faith given the context that he's talking about the PS2.

 

[PC-Engine]

That percentage for returns which was quoted implies nothing about the PS2, only that Sony considers a 2% return rate to be very, very low.

Exactly...I think someone's been reading that book titled "How to Lie with Numbers."

For instance that press release quoted 240m software sales for 2004 which is around 20m per month globally whereas mine is a conservative underestimate.

If we assume at the end of 2004 the actual working installed base of PS2 was around 20 million in NA with sales of 98 million pieces of software, that comes out to a tie ratio of about 1:5 which makes sense and supports my theory of defective unit replacemens/upgrades.

Even at 15 million actual working PS2s through end of 2004, the tie ratio would still be 1:6.5...nowhere near your 1:17 claim factoring in defective units.

 

[Mmmkay]

Exactly...I think someone's been reading that book titled "How to Lie with Numbers."

You can do better of course. A SCEE president who is accountable to his shareholders making a statement about return rates carries more weight than a wink.

Oh and you're counting life to date hardware against year to date software there. That's not helping anything here.