Of course, to do that, it would have to dethrone the PlayStation 2, and the head of Sony Interactive Entertainment, who is leaving the company tomorrow, has an interesting fact to share about the world’s most successful console.

Ryan was a guest on the Official PlayStation Podcast in connection with his retirement, where he talked about the state of the PlayStation games industry and expressed his optimism: “I’d say we’re at the top of our game right now. We’ve been very clear and very consistent about what we stand for: great consoles, great console experiences and great games. I would say we’re at the top of our game right now.

PlayStation 5 is on track to be our most successful console ever across multiple vectors, and I think the games and the experiences you’re seeing on PS5, led by PlayStation Studios, are the best we’ve ever seen. The number of games we’ve released so far on PlayStation 5 at this point in the cycle far exceeds anything we’ve ever done before,” Ryan said.

While he didn’t elaborate on what he was praising PlayStation 5 for (and perhaps he was including the re-release of older games on PlayStation Plus Premium in the game lineup…?), the facts don’t lie: the console is expected to maintain its sales momentum, while PlayStation 4’s player loyalty and retention numbers are predicted to be surpassed by PlayStation 5 when it launches in November 2020.

Sony had originally planned to ship 25 million PlayStation 5s to stores in the fiscal year ending today, but has reduced that to 21 million. In the October-December quarter, it shipped 8.2 million, climbing to 16.4 million for the year; the PlayStation 5 won’t catch the PS2 at this rate! They wouldn’t have lowered expectations if the console could really keep up…

During the podcast, he was also asked what he would associate with each of the decades he spent at Sony. For the 2000s, he said 160 million. That’s how many PlayStation 2s he said were sold. The previous official figure, according to Sony, was 155 million, so the PS2 raised the bar even higher, and this is likely the final official figure for the hugely successful console.

The Nintendo Switch may yet catch up: the Japanese company previously reported total sales of 139.36 million, so unless a successor arrives in 2024, 20 million more will have to be sold this year to become the dethroned console. Except that this year’s game lineup doesn’t look very strong…

Source: VGC, VGC, PlayStation Blog