PSP was Sony's best-selling console in 2008
Naysayers can take a widescreen smack around the chops
There are several reasons behind the headline "PSP was Sony's best-selling console in 2008," but before we get into those, let's just enjoy the statement.
Almost, always, the butt of negativity, for the nine months between April and December 2008 the PSP outsold PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2. There were 11.98 million PSPs sold (technically shipped from Sony to retailers) versus 8.45 million PlayStation 3s and 6.53 million PlayStation 2s.
Indeed, this was the case for the second year in a row. During the company's financial year 07-08, 13.86 million PSP were sold/shipped, compared with 13.73 million PlayStation 2s and 9.24 million PlayStation 3s.
But, of course, there are those reasons...
All three of Sony's consoles have sold less in 2008 than in the same period in 2007. Obviously PlayStation 2 is on the way out, while the wider economic crisis has seen PlayStation 3 sales plateau: otherwise it would be number one.
Still, the drop in PSP and PS3 sales over this period at 12 per cent and 9 per cent respectively are broadly similar, suggesting that the PSP isn't less less popular than its bigger brother.
So however else you want to describe the PSP, the word 'success' can't be ignored, at least in terms of hardware sales.
What is required is a lot more effort from Sony in terms of PSP software sales, and especially in terms of marketing the digital PlayStation Store, both for consumers and in terms of encouraging developers to make games for it.
After all, there do seem to be a lot of PSPs out there now, so you'd think their owners might want to do something with them.
