Sony has celebrated seven years since the arrival of the PS2 in the US by announcing that the machine has now sold a colossal 120 million units worldwide – a long way ahead of its former rivals Xbox and GameCube which both failed to beat the 25 million mark.

The PS2 remains the best selling console the world has ever seen – hitting the 100 million mark within six years of its launch.

The PS2 won’t be celebrating its seventh birthday until November 24th in Europe, but ahead of that SCEA’s VP of marketing Peter Dille stated: “Never before has an in-home game system experienced this type of worldwide success on such a long-lasting scale.

“PS2 is a perfect example of our ten year product life-cycle promise and is a testament to the design and technology that continues to be at the core of the product.

"We’re very excited for its future.”

The best-selling PS2 games to date include Gran Turismo 3 (11 million), Metal Gear Solid 2 (7 million) and Final Fantasy X (5 million). However, it’s the Grand Theft Auto series that leads the way, with Vice City enjoying sales of 13 million, San Andreas 12 million and GTA III 11 million.

Sony states that a further 160 new titles will arrive on PS2 before the end of March ’08, and that it expects to sell 10 million units in the current financial year.