The PS2 was fairly big outside of the gaming circle, but that was largely just because it was one of the cheapest DVD players at the time; it wasn't something that got people outside of gaming super excited, something that had morning talk shows talking about it and the news doing big reports on it.
Except for when Saddam was going to launch his missiles with them. And the thing was sold out for the first year because Sony couldn't make them fast enough. DVD players were like $50 by 2002. Probably 80+% of the PS2's were sold after GTA III came out.
It's like how Zootopia was a really good and really successful movie, but it didn't become a phenomenon like Frozen.
Compare three year old movie that's had years to percolate to three month old movie that just came out on home video a month ago but is only the second highest grossing Disney animated film ever.
These are things that weren't just really good and popular. These are things that were phenomenons.
But as far as gaming goes, I think Nintendo wins.
Pong.
Space Invaders.
Pac-Man.
wtf, none of these are even mentioned once in the thread
Space Invaders made nearly $3 billion from 1979-1982. In 1982 dollars. Pac-Man made nearly as much off quarters alone in its first decade, not counting the Ms. and etc.
The freakin Atari 2600 was selling for the equivalent of $800 and it made $2 billion in 1980 (in 1980 dollars) which is more than Sony did last year.
