Farewell Playstation 2 - Best-Selling Console of All Time

The most successful video game home console of all time, Sony's PlayStation 2, has officially been discontinued. Six weeks before announcing the PlayStation 4 on February 20, Sony had confirmed to the Guardian, that production of the landmark console had been halted worldwide.

Launched in 2000, the PlayStation 2 sold more than 155 million units in its unusually long lifetime. In its generation, the Playstation 2 competed with Sega's Dreamcast, Nintendo's Gamecube and Microsoft's Xbox, but none of the latter even came close to matching Sony's success with the PS2.

Due to its large installed base, the PlayStation 2 was supported by software publishers until the very end. By the end of its lifetime, the PS2 boasted a game library of more than 10,000 titles, the best-selling title being Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas with 17.3 million sold copies.

It seems very likely that the PlayStation 2 will remain the best-selling video game console of all time, as current generation consoles are far from matching its sales (even the hugely successful Nintendo Wii is more than 50 million short of the PS2's total). The upcoming generation of consoles will have to compete with tablets and smartphones for the gamers’ affection and is by many tipped to be the last generation of traditional standalone consoles.