While I am a huge Xbox fan, I also doubt it will be able to top PS2 sales. I think it will get pretty close in the U.S., give or take a couple million. But the year lead and the lineup of games will keep the PS2 at number for quite some time.
"Sony Computer Entertainment announced today that it shipped a whopping 1.46 million PlayStation 2s in North America by the end of the 2000 calendar year. This means that the company shipped to retail approximately 160,000 more PlayStation 2 units than its target of 1.3 million by the end of the year.
Despite the reduction of units available at launch from one million to 500,000, this also means that there were more PlayStation 2s available during the holiday shopping season than were ever promised by the company. This is based on the fact that when the company first announced that it would ship one million units for the system\'s launch, it also claimed that it would have 1.3 million units on the market by the end of the year. So, despite the halving of the number of available units at launch, the company met and even exceeded all of its expectations for the 2000 holiday season. "
Anyway, Xbox managed to sell 1.5 million in about the same time frame ( both had 35-45 days ) PS2 sold approx. 1.3 million.
With an amazing 2002 lineup of games, Xbox could be heading right up there with the U.S. PS2 numbers.
Worldwide sales is a different story. I see Xbox topping out at around 25-30 million in it\'s lifespan. I predict PS2 will top out at around 50 million.