Sony ships 50 millionth PS2

Sony has announced that combined world shipments of PlayStation 2 have now exceeded 50 million units - that's 16.02 million in Europe/PAL territories, 21.48 million in North America and 12.53 million in Japan.

The landmark comes almost four months to the day after Sony announced it had shipped its forty-millionth unit, on September 17th 2002. This is partly due to a strong festive period, which saw Sony ship 6.5 million consoles worldwide between Thanksgiving in November and Christmas Day 2002.

In the UK, Sony has reportedly sold close to two million PS2s in the last year, with roughly four million shipped total. This sees the console rapidly gaining on its predecessor, which shipped close to seven million units in the UK over its reign of several years.

Meanwhile, its two competitors' combined sales in the UK for the year just ended topped one million units by a few thousand.