Best-selling desktop consoles in history
The consoles have a complex panorama before them: those who say that the future is in the streaming of video games - and they all bet on it - seem to be condemned these products that have marked the entertainment of entire generations, and we may actually be attending the beginning of the finish.
Of course: there will be at least one new generation of consoles after the current one. This is what Sony has guaranteed with the details of that future console that surely has rivals on both Microsoft and Nintendo. What probably is not achieved is to achieve the success achieved by the latest generations of these devices, with tens of millions of units sold throughout history.
Sony, queen of console sales
The graphic is clear, and shows an intractable PlayStation 2 that with 157.7 million units sold worldwide is the most successful desktop console in history. But long. We have not included portable consoles in this classification: we wanted to focus on desktop consoles.
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Behind are the persecutors, of which only the PS4, the Nintendo Switch and the Xbox One could climb positions in that ranking: the rest of the models of that graph have been discontinued - nostalgic words aside - and it seems clear that Sony has conquered that particular segment at least if we stick to the number of units sold: the four models of its PlayStation are among the five best-selling in all history.
The PS4 may end up surpassing the Wii, the Xbox One may outperform the SuperNES - reaching the NES seems more difficult - and the Switch will surely be at the level of the Xbox One (if it does not exceed it), but the final classification does not seem to be too different from what it is now.
The impact of the latest from Sony and Microsoft is a mystery
En esas ventas de la actual generación de consolas lo que no queda claro es lo que ha ayudado la aparición de los modelos más potentes tanto de Sony con la PS4 Pro como de Microsoft con la Xbox One X.
Neither company has offered specific sales figures for these models, although some analysts such as Mat Piscatella, NPD Group, pointed out that at least in the case of Microsoft the Xbox One X "has behaved phenomenally."
There is no data about other elements that may have affected those sales either. In the case of Sony the most obvious is the appearance of PSVR, its virtual reality glasses, which certainly have been sold in a remarkable way (4.2 million until March 2019) and could have encouraged new buyers to bet on the PS4.
In the case of Microsoft consoles there has been no release of that style, but we just received the news of the arrival of the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition without disk drive. It is difficult to know if users will warmly welcome this particular console, but what is clear is that it certainly prepares us for a generation of consoles in which digital downloads will become more relevant than ever.
The successors have it complicated
The current scenario poses additional difficulties for next generation consoles. The details Sony has given on the future PS5 - if it is finally called that - are certainly promising (maybe too much), but that might not be enough for that generation of consoles.
In fact it is likely that Microsoft also put all the meat in the barbecue with its future console. Nintendo goes to another rhythm and it is not the direct competition of these models, but anyone is that the three of them will no longer compete with each other: they will compete with streaming games.
That is the great obstacle that endangers the sales of all these models, and that will also cause that the struggle of those future models to occupy prominent positions in that particular ranking is especially complex. Whatever happens, interesting times await us.