PlayStation Hits 100 Millionth Shipped

Thanks to Yahoo/AFP for its story noting global shipments of Sony's original PlayStation console have exceeded 100 million, explaining that "overseas sales of PlayStations jumped after the company launched its lightweight 'PSOne' model in 2000." Although sales are slowing (though not by as much as GamePro is claiming), since: "In the year to March 2004, the company produced and shipped 3.31 million PSOne units", the PlayStation 2 may be on course to beat its predecessor, as it "has shipped 70 million units... since March 2000."

Comments

How many dupes?

[wheresdrew]

Too bad they can't factor in multiple sales to the same household. I know both the early PS1 and PS2 models had reliability problems, forcing some people to replace their systems if they wanted to keep playing.

I still remember having a model 1000 series PS1 that had to be turned upside down to get games to play, since the plastic rails supporting the CD drive would warp if the system go too hot.

Re:How many dupes?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Playstation's failure rate is NOT as high as many people believe (people tend to think it's anywhere from 10-50%), because if it were Sony would not still be on top of the entertainment electronics business."

That's illogical. Being #1 in sales is no guarantee of quality. For the sake of the Microsoft Windows fanboys, I'll spare them from the obvious comparison. Instead, I will happily point out that McDonald's sells more hamburgers than anyone else in the world.

Disclaimer: I deal in used games hardware, from handhelds and consoles to (soon, hopefully in the next year) arcade cabs, joysticks, monitors, etc. It's a small side business so far, and I only run it out of the house right now. :/

Playstation hardware has *always* been of inferior build in comparison to pretty much any other console hardware imaginable. It's not provable except with anecdotes, so I'll simply say that this is the conclusion I've come to after seeing a WHOLE lot of faulty Playstations and Playstation 2s with the same (laser/PUH/motor/chassis) problems. OTOH, I've never seen a single broken N64 (a system which sold ~35 million units). Not a single one - and that thing tended to run pretty hot. And of course, among other popular systems like the Saturn, the Dreamcast, the PC Engine Duo, I see broken units, but not at the same high broken:functional ratio that I do with Sony goods.

If Sony's on top, fine, but it's not because of build quality. Be assured of that.

I like video games because of the replay value

[Anonymous Coward]

If every movie I went to gave me the movie on DVD or gave me a key to download it at my leisure when I left the theater I would feel satisifed but they don't and I can get a 5-10 dollar playstation game off ebay and be content with my purchase for years. 10 bucks is not chump change to me.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Is this why...

[shadowcabbit]

No, the reason XS Games and other companies are still cranking out PS1 software is the combination of Sony no longer requiring licensing fees for the software (IIRC), and because there's a cheap buck to be made in porting games which four years ago would never have passed Sony inspection, but squeak through now because Sony feels, "hey, who's really going to buy it now? Everyone who matters already has a PS2 and it's not like we'll be losing money or anything."

Sadly, I was one of those people... picked up a copy of "High School League Dodge Ball" or something (not the good one from about a year ago), was pleasantly surprised to see it was an anime-styled game, and then got disgusted with the awful play control and sold it back two weeks later for $7.

Environmental Concern

[superpulpsicle]

I am glad the PSone is still selling like hot cakes. If it was Xbox controllers selling 70 million units, the earth would have ran out of materials.