PSP is booming - and not just in Japan

We've been reporting a lot lately on PSP's success in Japan following the launch of Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G at the end of March. The handheld has been sitting atop the hardware sales chart ever since, beating the second place console, Nintendo's DS, with double its sales.

However, GameDaily has reported the latest NPD software sales for March across all formats for the US and revealed two PSP games in the top 10. Both God of War: Chains of Olympus and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII appear in fifth and sixth position respectively, after each managed over 300,000 copies during the month.

The rest of the chart is made up of games on Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 formats, so the PSP games are effectively the only handheld titles to break into the top 10.

With God of War tipped for becoming a (if not the) best-seller on Sony's portable, it's off to a promising start in the US in its first month on sale. Hopefully it can repeat the success in this month's UK software charts, too.

Meanwhile, PSP's appearance in the US software sales charts gives an indication the format is gaining significantly in popularity in markets other than Japan. Which is obviously good news.