The popularity of video games has grown rapidly since the turn of the century, resulting in an industry that now brings in hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue each and every year. A significant proportion of this revenue is generated through console gaming, allowing the likes of Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo to make an absolute killing when it comes to hardware sales.
The ten best-selling video game consoles have shipped more than a billion units between them, with many of those sales having come in the past decade or two. With the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles still near the beginning of their respective life spans and a Switch successor expected in the not-too-distant future, this trend looks set to continue for many years to come.
10 Game Boy Advance (81.51 Million)
The Game Boy Advance marked a huge leap forward for handheld video games, placing 32-bit gaming into the palm of players' hands. It's worth noting that despite having a 32-bit processor, the performance of the system was more akin to a Super Nintendo than a PlayStation; not that this wasn't still incredibly impressive at the time of the console's release.
Being able to play SNES-quality games on the go was huge and led to millions of people clamoring to pick up the console at launch. Together, the standard GBA and its foldable SP variant sold more than 80 million units, with more than 350 million software sales worldwide. Pokemon played a big part in this, with the popular creature-collecting franchise claiming the top three spots on the list of best-selling GBA games.
9 Xbox 360 (84 Million+)
When the seventh generation of home consoles first began, Sony held a comfortable lead over Microsoft, with the PS2 having sold more than 130 million units more than the original Xbox. By the time the generation had come to an end though, that lead had been slashed to just a few million thanks to the incredible success of the Xbox 360.
Despite some fairly well-publicized hardware issues, the Xbox 360 managed to ship more than 84 million units worldwide and would likely have beaten out the PS3 entirely had it been able to find a foothold in the Japanese market. That it ultimately ended up being the worst-selling of the big three seventh-generation consoles is a testament to just how popular console gaming was around that time.
8 PlayStation 3 (87.4 Million+)
Despite being one of the ten best-selling video game consoles ever made, some see the PlayStation 3 as having been a bit of a failure. With around 87 million PS3s sold, the console performed relatively poorly when compared to both its predecessors and its direct successor; allowing Xbox to catch up and Nintendo to take a fairly commanding lead.
A big part of this was down to the decision to use a Blu-ray drive in the console, which led to the PS3 launching at a much higher price than its two main competitors. Granted, it's easy to see why Sony opted to go down this route given how important the PS2's DVD drive had been to its success, but the high launch price arguably really hurt the console at launch.
7 Nintendo Wii (101.63 Million)
When the Wii first arrived on the scene, gaming was mainly confined to the bedroom, with a significant portion of players being either children or young adults. That all changed pretty quickly though thanks to the intuitive motion controls that the Wii brought with it, allowing just about anybody to pick up and play games with relative ease.
Nintendo marketed the Wii as a console for all ages and this really paid off for the Japanese giant. Countless families all over the world were quick to jump on the bandwagon, thanks in large to the consoles' excellent mix of fun and fitness-themed games. Once all was said and done, more than 100 million Wiis had been sold, making it Nintendo's best-selling home console of all time.
6 PlayStation (102.4 Million)
Originally, the PlayStation was to have been a disc-based collaboration between Nintendo and Sony. However, when the former opted to go in a different direction, Sony decided to go it alone despite fierce competition. Its now-iconic little gray box first hit Japanese shelves in December of 1994 and made its way West the following year.
The switch from cartridges to compact disks allowed game developers to cram a lot more detail into their games, leading to a huge leap forward in terms of both audio and graphics. This, and a vast selection of top-tier console-exclusives led to the PlayStation selling more than 100 million units; making it the first home console to achieve this impressive feat.
5 PlayStation 4 (117 Million +)
If the PS3 really had been a disappointment, then the PlayStation 4 marked an emphatic return to form. With more than 117 million PS4s sold across the world, the console shipped more than 1.5 times as many units as its predecessor and reportedly outsold the Xbox One by more than two to one, overtaking the original PlayStation on its way to becoming the second best-selling home console of all time, excluding hybrids.
The success of the PlayStation 4 was driven largely by the console's stellar selection of first-party games, which included God of War, Marvel's Spider-Man, and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. These three games alone are estimated to have sold more than 55 million copies between them, which is around 20 million more than the ten best-selling Xbox One games managed combined.
4 Game Boy & Game Boy Color (118.69 Million)
Some will perhaps argue that the smaller size of the Game Boy Color and its ability to display up to 56 different colors simultaneously are more than enough to differentiate the handheld from its older, much chonkier brother. However, Nintendo clearly thinks otherwise, at least when it comes to the way that it reports hardware sales, anyway.
According to the Japanese giant, the Game Boy and Game Boy Color sold just shy of 119 million units throughout their respective lifespans, which is perhaps unsurprising given how long they were in active production. The first and second-gen Pokemon games played a vital role in this success, bringing in more than 75 million sales between them.
3 Nintendo Switch (125 Million+)
Whether or not the Nintendo Switch has enough gas left in the tank to make it to the top spot remains to be seen. Even if it doesn't though, the Switch's 125 million plus lifetime unit sales are still an incredible achievement, especially when one considers how far into the eighth console generation it arrived and how underpowered it is when compared to its main competition.
Those looking for evidence that graphics alone don't make a great game can find it right here, with the Switch trading largely on an incredibly effective mixture of charm and convenience rather than trying to match the raw power of its peers. Wii U aside, it's a formula that has been working pretty well for Nintendo for some time now and will likely help to shape the Switch's successor when it does finally arrive.
2 Nintendo DS (154.02 Million)
The decision to drop the Game Boy label in favor of the DS abbreviation was a pretty bold one on Nintendo's part given the brand recognition that the former had built up over the years. To say that this gamble paid off would perhaps be a bit of an understatement, with the dual-screened handheld going on to outsell its predecessors in a much shorter amount of time.
Interestingly, had Nintendo opted to combine the sales data for the Nintendo DS with that of the 3DS like it did with the Game Boy and Game Boy Color then the DS would be the best-selling console by some distance, as the combined total sits at a monstrous 230 million. As things stand, however, the DS just misses out on the top spot.
1 PlayStation 2 (155 Million+)
Released back in the year 2000, the PS2 took everything that made the original PlayStation so successful and somehow made it even better. In addition to being more powerful, the PlayStation 2 had a broader library of games, considerably larger disc capacity, and even doubled up as a DVD player, which, around the turn of the century, cost almost as much as the PS2 itself.
Thanks to games like Final Fantasy 10, Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec, and the Grand Theft Auto 3D trilogy, the PS2 decimated the competition, selling almost three times as many units as the GameCube, Dreamcast, and original Xbox managed between them. By the time production of the console ceased in early 2013 the PS2 had sold more than 155 million units, making it the best-selling video game console of all time.