The PS2’s 25th anniversary in North America just passed, and with it came a tidy piece of gaming history: a definitive rundown of the console’s top 20 best-selling titles in the United States. Compared with modern charts, the list feels different — there’s no Call of Duty carving up the rankings — and the usual heavyweights like GTA and Madden dominate. There’s also a notable showing for Kingdom Hearts and some surprises for Final Fantasy fans.
“The PS2 sold over 46.5M units in the US, with Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas its best-selling game in both units and dollars,” Mat Piscatella of industry analysis group Circana notes in a Bluesky post. “Over 147M accessory units sold for PS2, with the PS2 8 Meg Memory Card moving 28.3M units with a 61% attach rate.”
That 61% attach rate refers specifically to the official 8MB memory card — other official and third‑party cards were available, so not every PS2 owner used that particular model. Most intriguing is the chart Piscatella attached: it ranks the top 20 PS2 games in the US by both unit sales and revenue, revealing some differences between popularity and profit.
Happy 25th, PS2!
The PS2 sold over 46.5M units in the US, with Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas its best-selling game in both units and dollars.
Over 147M accessory units sold for PS2, with the PS2 8 Meg Memory Card moving 28.3M units with a 61% attach rate.
Source: Circana Retail Tracking Service— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2025-10-28T15:49:53.260Z
Unsurprisingly, the 3D Grand Theft Auto trilogy — GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas — occupies the top spots. This was the generation when Rockstar’s open‑world formula became a cultural phenomenon. Another Rockstar title, Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition, also appears on the list, which means other notable Rockstar releases like Bully didn’t make the top 20.
Perhaps the most eye‑catching placement is at number nine: Kingdom Hearts. The Disney/Square collaboration is the highest‑placed RPG on the list, ahead of Final Fantasy X, which lands at 17. That ranking doesn’t necessarily settle any debates about which is the “better” RPG, but it does suggest Kingdom Hearts had stronger commercial traction in the US.
Much of the roster is predictable — multiple Madden entries and several racing games feature heavily — but the revenue rankings tell another story. Games bundled with expensive peripherals, like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, climb higher on the dollars chart even if their unit sales weren’t the absolute highest. In other words: selling plastic instruments boosts revenue even when it doesn’t dramatically change unit counts. And, for now, the Call of Duty era hadn’t yet reshaped the bestseller lists.
Forget the sales list for a moment — these remain some of the best PS2 games ever made.
Source: gamesradar.com
