Nintendo’s comments (Link dead) say that their Gameboy console has sold 120 million worldwide and that it was the top selling console of all time. I’m kind of curious as to which of their consoles are rolled into this fact. Where do you draw the line on what is the same console or not?
If you go strictly by the formfactor and generation, there’s no way that any one of the gameboy line has produced 120mil on their own. There was the classic Gameboy, Gameboy Pocket, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Advance SP, Gameboy Advance Micro… How do you divide these into different game consoles? Do you do it based on hardware? In this case it’s still a bit of a tossup without the raw data, because the PS1 and PS2 both had two hardware form factors. I doubt any of the single hardware releases from either company have 120million though. Backwards Compatability? In this case the PS1/2 annihilate the gameboy line with over 200 million in total sales and the Gameboy Micro can’t be counted due to lack of GB compatability. By name? The Playstation brand wins that way too. By chipset? That’s a tough one. Do you put the GBC in with the GB/GBP? They’re very similar but with a doubled processor speed and different screen. What about the GBA/GBASP to the GBAM? The latter is missing several chips which the former has.
I really would like to see the exact source of their numbers though.