Naming conventions don't guarantee success, that is true for any and all technologies. For example, just because brands like HTC, Google, Sony etc keep mobile naming conventions, doesn't mean their devices sell as much as iPhones. The same is true for consoles, as evidenced with the Wii U and Xbox consoles.
But I am not talking about success at all, it's just how the record is phrased that is really odd. It's a record that Sony would have regardless, but if you only count a specific naming brand they just have no competition to begin with.
I'll explain this in an easier way. All Sony's home consoles sold 450m+ units. All of Sony's home consoles are named PlayStation. So Sony's home consoles sold over 450 millions is true, and so is the fact that PlayStation brand sold over 450 million units. If you take companies as a whole, Nintendo's home consoles amount to approx. 300 millions (with many more generations), Microsoft's home consoles stop at approx. 155m (with one generation less), SEGA around 80m and so on. They still have every other company beat.
But since this record talks about the PlayStation
brand, it means that it only competes with single names in the gaming console world. The Wii is only summed to the Wii U, not to the NES, SNES, N64, getting to just over 110m. The various SEGA consoles are not summed because they're different brands, so the biggest one they throw in the mix sold a whopping 35m or so. Only Microsoft, out of the recent consoles, has a more consistent branding with the Xbox, so Xbox can boast 155m, a number higher than the Wii brand but obtained in 3 generations as opposed to 2. So they are taking the PlayStation
brand, putting it against console
brands that had less installments, declaring that the PlayStation brand has them beat. It's such a stupid limitation to impose because Sony as a whole beats Microsoft, Nintendo, etc. home consoles as a whole, regardless of their naming convention. In fact, for calculations' sake, the 4 home consoles Sony released are only marginally under the total sum of units sold between ALL home consoles released by Microsoft and Nintendo combined. And that's 4 pieces of hardware against 9/10 (depending on where you're putting the Switch exactly).
The record is obvious. It would have been obvious either way: the 4 PlayStation consoles combined outsell any other company's units sold regardless of how many generations they took part in. The only way anyone can compete is if you sum the Nintendo handhelds: then, even with Sony's two handhelds, Sony would be beaten, but they would have achieved their number with 6 consoles whereas Nintendo reached that sum with a whopping 15 consoles (without counting the single-game consoles they had going before the NES). Sony's record was never in discussion, but the way they framed the record they just increase the volume of their record by disallowing competition that would still be beaten for some odd reason.
It's really irrelevant at the end of the day. But I would not have used the record for the PlayStation brand but for Sony as a whole.