Console sales: 59 machines, 1,975 million units

Hardware sales next to Game of the Year awards. The best-selling console ever is the PlayStation 2 at 160 million units — but selling the most hardware and winning the most awards are two different competitions, and the table below shows they do not line up.

• 160MPlayStation 2
• 9Generations covered
• 59Machines tracked
• 1,975MUnits total

Hardware sales vs Game of the Year awards

Awards counted for games released on each platform family, against units sold. A multiplatform game counts for every platform it shipped on, so the award column measures presence, not exclusivity — which is exactly why the ratio is interesting.

PC has no hardware row because it is not a console — its award count is shown for scale, not as a like-for-like comparison.

Every generation sold more than the last — until it did not

Hardware sales climbed through seven generations straight. The eighth is the biggest ever at 369 million units; the ninth is still in progress.

Who won each console generation

Generations are a convention, not a fact — the Switch is filed under the eighth or the ninth depending who you ask. Handhelds are left out because they are numbered on their own track. This table follows the common home-console numbering.

Every console by units sold