Are the most hacked systems, the most selling systems?

[dekupk5]

I have been noticing that the most hacked systems have sold one of the best sales. I found a list on Wikipedia heres a link."

Manufacturer Platform Released Units shipped Sony PlayStation 2 2000 154.59 million^[1][2]Nintendo Nintendo DS 2004 147.86 million^[3] Nintendo Game Boy/Game Boy Color^[4] 1989 and 1998 118.69 million^[3] Sony PlayStation 1994 102.49 million^[5] Nintendo Wii 2006 87.57 million^[3] Nintendo Game Boy Advance 2001 81.51 million^[3] Sony PlayStation Portable 2004 72.99 million^[6][7] Nintendo Nintendo Entertainment System 1983 61.91 million^[3]Microsoft Xbox 360 2005 57.6 million^[8] Sony PlayStation 3 2006 51.8 million^[9] Nintendo Super Nintendo Entertainment System 1990 49.10 million^[3][10][11]Sega Mega Drive/Genesis 1988 39 million^{[cn 1]} Nintendo Nintendo 64 1996 32.93 million^[3]Atari Atari 2600 1977 30 million^[15] Microsoft Xbox 2001 24 million^[16][17] Nintendo Nintendo GameCube 2001 21.74 million^[3] Sega Game Gear 1990 11 million^[18] Sega Dreamcast 1998 10.6 million^[19][20]NEC TurboGrafx-16 1987 10 million^[20] Sega Saturn 1994 9.5 million^[20] Sega Sega CD 1991 6 million^[20] Nintendo Nintendo 3DS 2011 4.32 million^[3]Atari Atari 7800 1986 3.77 million^[21]Mattel Intellivision 1980 3 million^[22][23][24] Nokia N-Gage 2003 3 million^[18]Magnavox/Philips Magnavox Odyssey² 1978 2 million^[25]Panasonic 3DO Interactive Multiplayer 1993 2 million^[20]SNK Neo Geo Pocket/Neo Geo Pocket Color 1998 and 1999 2 million^[18] NEC TurboExpress 1990 1.5 million^[18] Sega Nomad 1995 1 million^[26]"

 

The Playstation2, Nintendo Ds, and Nintendo Wii.

Those systems got hacked so hard its surprising to see how they sold one of the most sales.

Maybe homebrew encourage people to buy more of these systems, maybe because the NDS and PS2 were region free.

How do you think this came to be? Why?

[Secant]

I am almost positive the PS2 was not region free (I've heard about several people needing to mod their NCST PS2 consoles to get it to recognize Kingdom Hearts' Final Mixes which were Japan-only). Not sure about the DS, never got one myself.

 

Popular consoles are the ones that are fun to hack. Would you bother trying to disassemble and/or write custom code or somesuch other for, say, the Intellivision? Maybe, but that's a big if considering many people haven't even heard of it. There's also the factor that people who take apart consoles don't very often succeed the first time. So if something goes wrong, either they give up or buy another console. That's another sale for the company right there.

[dekupk5]

I am almost positive the PS2 was not region free (I've heard about several people needing to mod their NCST PS2 consoles to get it to recognize Kingdom Hearts' Final Mixes which were Japan-only). Not sure about the DS, never got one myself.

 

Popular consoles are the ones that are fun to hack. Would you bother trying to disassemble and/or write custom code or somesuch other for, say, the Intellivision? Maybe, but that's a big if considering many people haven't even heard of it. There's also the factor that people who take apart consoles don't very often succeed the first time. So if something goes wrong, either they give up or buy another console. That's another sale for the company right there.

 

It seems I was wrong on my info about the PS2, but the DS is most definitely region free. Thanks for the info.

I see what you mean their, popular consoles fun to hack.

[xdaniel]

While the PS2 wasn't region free, it did have some other factors going for it that contributed to its success: 1) at least for its first few years, it doubled as a cheap DVD player in an era where those were still several hundred bucks, and 2) it's still being sold in stores to this day, roughly 11 years after its Japanese, American and European launches.