Key Takeaways
- The console with the most sales is considered the true winner in the console wars.
- Some retro consoles, like the PS2 and Game Boy, maintain top sales positions due to their long market presence.
- The Nintendo Switch is a top-seller, standing at 143.4 million units sold, with potential for the top spot.
In the fierce fires of battle that is each generation of the console wars , it is the system with the most sales that fans can prop up as the true winner. One could argue better games or features make a console greater than the rest, but at the end of the day, the console that sold the most is the one that will be remembered. After all, that’s what these companies want most of all, right? They may pretend it’s all for the love of the game, but really they just want to see those numbers get bigger and bigger .
You might assume that, as gaming gets more popular over time, the newest consoles will always outsell the old ones. That’s sometimes true, but there are a handful of retro consoles that were on the market for so long, or were such a phenomenon at the time, that their places near the top of the list may never be threatened. Let’s look at the hard numbers and see which consoles, as of this moment in time, are the best-selling of all time. Odds are you will have owned one or more of these!
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1 PlayStation 2
Game console and DVD player
Sony
The PS2 was THE console to have in the early 2000s. Sony had to make the PS1 more appealing by allowing it to play CDs, but struck gold by including DVD functionality in the PS2. That might sound obvious today since anything with a disc drive can play basically anything disc-shaped, but this wasn’t the case when the PS2 came around. DVD players themselves were still brand new, and the Xbox and GameCube couldn’t play them either. The ace in the hole, however, was that the PS2 was somehow cheaper than most dedicated DVD players. Kids all over the world suddenly had the perfect selling point to get their parents to invest in the console.
The last officially reported sales numbers put the PS2 at 155 million as of 2012, however, former CEO Jim Ryan claimed on a podcast in 2024 that it had sold 160 million at this point.
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2 Nintendo DS
It just prints money
Nintendo
Leave it to Nintendo to abandon the tried and true handheld design it itself pioneered and swing for the fences with the DS. I mean, a handheld with two screens? How would that even work? Well, it turns out it worked a little too well because this little console has outsold any other Nintendo hardware before or after. The secret sauce, and thing Nintendo is so good at, is marketing its products to all ages. Games like Brain Age and Animal Crossing, as well as the intuitive touch screen controls, broadened the appeal to gamers young and old.
The Nintendo DS fell just shy of the number 1 spot selling 154.02 million units as of 2021.
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3 Nintendo Switch
It might crack the top spot
The only current system to even crack the top 10 is the Nintendo Switch. After the bomb that was the WiiU (which sold a mere 13.5 million units), Nintendo needed to open its bag of tricks and pull out a miracle. The Switch turned out to be that and then some thanks to the ingenious idea of combining a home console and a handheld. Yeah, it’s way underpowered compared to even the PS4, but you can’t argue with the software lineup and price. Even seven years into its lifecycle the Switch is still selling at a competitive pace to the PS5. The only question now is just how far it can go before the Switch 2 comes and cuts off current Switch sales.
As of this year, the Nintendo Switch has sold 143.4 million units and is still growing.
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4 Game Boy + Game Boy Color
The little handheld that could
Nintendo
You might think current console generations are long, but the Game Boy and Game Boy Color were around for over 10 years before the GBA came out. Nintendo bundles these sales numbers together, which I think is fair since the Color isn’t any more powerful, doesn’t run any games the OG can’t, and just adds color. The Game Boy was the first handheld that showed that you could really get console-level experiences on the go. Other companies have tried to compete in this space, but up until the Steam Deck and other handheld PCs, nothing has ever managed to match the phenomenon that was the Game Boy.
Last official numbers put Game Boy sales at 118.6 million.
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5 PlayStation 4
No competition
PlayStation couldn’t have wished for a better setup for the PS4 launch. The Xbox One was getting dragged through the streets for its DRM, bundled Kinnect, and general anti-consumer marketing. All the PS4 really needed to do was let Xbox hang itself, but it took it a step further by coming in cheaper and better performance on many games. From there, a generation of outstanding exclusives put Xbox in a hole so deep it still hasn’t recovered from and gave the PS5 enough momentum to already hit number 14 on the list of best-selling consoles with plenty of time to grow.
PS4 are still for sale, but the latest sales data states it has sold 117.2 million.
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