PS2 shipments reach 50 million

Sony Computer Entertainment has today announced that cumulative worldwide factory shipments of its PlayStation 2 console have topped 50 million units. The announcement comes a little less than four months since it was announced on September 17 that global shipments of the PS2 had reached 40 million units.

The breakdown of shipments by region is as follows: North America: 21.48 million units
Europe/PAL: 16.02 million units
Japan: 12.53 million units

Worldwide shipments: 50.03 million units

SCE also revealed that, in addition to the 9,000 PS2 Software Development Kits it has shipped to third-party developers and publishers since the console's launch, a further 1,400 were shipped to developers in 2002.