PlayStation 2 sold one fifty five million that was more than it's main competitors combined. I believe there's a lot of great reasons why it did so well. It was the best advertised out of all the consoles. More developers were interested in making games for it. The official library also greatly out numbers it's competition by a huge amount.
Sega Dreamcast got it's US run cut short because Sega was running low on money due to Sega Saturn commercials. They felt they would go out of business sooner if they would've stayed to compete against GameCube & Xbox. Two of Sony's competitors by late in their console's run was already working on their successors.
I am a huge fan of Xbox 360 with an passion. PlayStation 2 had the longest run ending in 2012 in Japan while 2013 in the United States. PlayStation 2 did attempt doing online gaming service. Considering Xbox was already doing that with Xbox Live. Not a lot of people know but GameCube has a select few games with online as well.
Before all of that, Sega Dreamcast beat them all to online gaming. Which led to most newer game consoles doing the same thing. PlayStation 2 had one of the best controllers although it wasn't that different from the previous console. Personally Dreamcast & GameCube had the best overall controllers.
PlayStation 2 also had a smaller, later model that was easier to place wherever you want in your house. None of it's competitors done that. In a lot of cases, PS2 gets a fair number of best versions. This obviously doesn't include games like RE4 despite most later ports do take after that version. Sure it was more powerful than Dreamcast but two of it's competitors had more power in different ways.
I would say all four of them are simply to hook up. Of course if you don't have a proper TV you do need some extra stuff in advance to get them working. PlayStation 2 also had a cleaner in the form of a disc. I would say Sony did an amazing job with their commercials. I think in a way PSP did help a little bit to keep it going.
Despite what that & PS3 started that's still going today doesn't include PS2 directly. Of course some of their PS2 games are on their service that can be played on PS4. This console had an interesting look for it's time. Sure out of the four consoles it is the easiest to break. I hate to say it, this could've been a factor in more people buying it.
Maybe it was because of games like Grand Theft Auto series. PlayStation 2 even competed for a short while against their previous console too. PlayStation 2 has a nostalgic opening that still reminds in my mind to this day. Personally I do prefer Dreamcast & GameCube's opening more. I would say working with your save data was the easiest on PS2.
PlayStation 2 also had a great variety of accessories including Game Shark. Most code books had more pages in general on PS2 than anything else. Some of the finest spin off games are present on PlayStation 2 as well. Such as Resident Evil Outbreak that begin a tread of games going online. Sure you had to know what you are doing with a piece sold separately otherwise you can break your console.
There is a strong chance it sold well because so many people enjoyed PlayStation 1. In fact you could play PS1 games requiring nothing at all on your PS2. A feature lacking during this console generation. All of it's competitors came in different colors while there wasn't as many for PS2. I actually seen more different colors Nintendo 64 consoles.
GameCube did allow you to play Game Boy Advance games to a degree. Some of them unlock stuff for both sides. The perfect example of this are two Metroid games that are from what I heard are great games. Sadly this feature isn't as present in today's market which is a shame. Xbox was easily the heaviest game console by far.
I think because PS2 was slightly lighter than Sega Dreamcast. More people rather move that console around than it's competitors. The fact you can have it laying down or standing up was different for it's time. Now look at so many consoles doing the same exact thing PS2 done many years before. I think another huge reason has to be the shape buttons.
You see it's competitors used letters on almost every button. As stated before PS2 controller wasn't much different from a PS1 one. But the famous saying goes "If it isn't broken don't fit it." works perfectly here. I believe there was a study about people remember shapes easier than letters. Three of these consoles took advantage of the rumble feature.
I felt PS2 & GameCube nailed it the best. Keep in mind, three of those consoles used similar cases for their games. Dreamcast had cases similar to those of PS1. Which would make it the easiest to stock up games on shelves. I think people wanted a bigger case with longer manuals at the time. Even with data corruption being the highest on PS2 it had a lot going for them.
As of right now, PlayStation 2 is the best selling game console of all time. I think a great reason it also sold well was because it was also advertised as a CD/DVD player. At the time it was expansive to buy an DVD player. Right now you can score them dirt cheap thanks to stuff like Blu-Ray players. Only Xbox had that among it's competitors.
Let's be honest a lot of people stock up on DVDs like no tomorrow. You could easily use a PS2 to watch several movies or shows with no problem at all. In fact it is one of the few controllers I tried this on that works perfectly with Xbox 360 being the other successful one. Clearly marketing in more ways than one greatly increased PS2's chances at selling.
I think the best possible way to sum all of this up is in place it fails in it greatly made up for. Sony really put their best foot forward to win another game generation. PlayStation 3 loss to both Xbox 360 & Wii respectively. Right now PlayStation 4 is dominating the newest game generation. Clearly Sony has a very bright future despite pulling away from the handheld console market.
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