100 million PlayStations sold

A decade after its release, the original PlayStation has reached a milestone worthy of Ronald McDonald's high-volume burger empire. Sony announced today that, as of Tuesday, it has sold 100 million units of its first console worldwide.

While Sony trumpeted the fact that the PlayStation is now available in 120 countries, it only broke down its sales by three regions--North America (39.67 million units), Europe (39.61 million units), and Japan (20.72 million units).

When it first hit the market in 1994, the 32-bit PlayStation was on the cutting edge of technology. The console itself enjoyed a second wind of sorts when a smaller, sleeker, and cheaper version--called the PSOne--was released in 1999.

Sony claims that since then, more than 7,300 original PlayStation games have been published. This impressive figure was no doubt helped by the backward-compatibility of the PlayStation 2, which has itself sold more than 70 million units in under four years.

Perhaps as a portent of things to come, Sony recently trademarked the term "PStwo."