Ranked: The Best-Selling Video Game Consoles of All Time

Pallavi Rao
2025-06-21 14:51:00
www.visualcapitalist.com

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Ranked: The Best-Selling Video Game Consoles of All Time

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Key Takeaways

Sony’s PlayStation 2 ranks first in the list of best-selling video game consoles of all time (160 million units sold).
Nintendo’s hybrid Switch is closing in on that record at 152 million units—and its newly launched Switch 2 is poised to keep the momentum going.

It’s been half a century since the first home consoles hit living-room televisions, and the battle for gamer loyalty has produced runaway hits and painful flops.

We rank the best-selling video game consoles ever, spanning four hardware generations and three major brands.

The lifetime sales figures come from Statista and other public disclosures, rounded to the nearest 100,000 units. They represent total shipments through March 2025.

Nintendo Switch: The Best-Selling Console of All-Time?

While Sony’s PlayStation 2 still reigns supreme at 160 millions sold, Nintendo’s versatile Switch has mounted a serious challenge, coming in at 152 million units as of March, 2025.

Rank	Console	Release date	Unit Sales (as of March, 2025)
1	PlayStation 2	March 4, 2000	160.0M
2	Nintendo Switch	March 3, 2017	152.1M
3	PlayStation 4	November 15, 2013	117.0M
4	PlayStation 1	December 3, 1994	102.4M
5	Wii	November 19, 2006	101.6M
6	PlayStation 3	November 11, 2006	87.4M
7	Xbox 360	November 22, 2005	85.8M
8	PlayStation 5	November 12, 2020	77.7M

These figures come just as its successor, Switch 2, arrives on store shelves.

Together, these figures reveal how technological leaps, price points, and deep game libraries shape long-term success.

Sony Really Knows How to Make Consoles

Sony owns five of the eight spots on the list, a testament to consistent hardware design and an enormous first-party catalogue.

The PS2’s DVD playback and vast game library is still the industry’s gold standard two decades later.

Even newer entrants like the PS5, already at 77.7 million units despite supply-chain woes, suggest that Sony’s brand loyalty remains strong.

Nintendo’s Hybrid Masterstroke

After the Wii U stumble, Nintendo rebounded with the Switch, a handheld-to-TV hybrid that has now surpassed 152 million sales.

Its appeal to both casual and core audiences, plus a steady cadence of exclusive titles, have helped it nearly tie the PS2 benchmark.

Early signs point to the Switch 2 extending that trajectory, with 3.5 million units sold in just four days.

In fact, Nintendo expects to sell 15 million Switch 2 consoles in its first year of release, which is more than the original Switch (around 12 million).

With a price of $450 USD, the Switch 2 costs significantly more than its predecessor, and is priced more in line with the Playstation 5.

Microsoft’s Single Top-Ten Entry

The Xbox 360 remains Microsoft’s lone entry in the all-time top tier at 85.8 million units.

Aggressive online features, competitive pricing, and a broad Western game lineup propelled the 360 ahead of Sony’s PS3 in North America, though it fell short globally.

Subsequent Xbox generations have struggled to repeat that runaway success, underscoring how hard it is to build momentum without dominant exclusives.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

That’s the briefing on the consoles, what’s the breakdown on games? Check out: The Most Popular Games of 2024 on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

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