Sony Revels in Second Place
The DS is on top, but Sony is quite happy with the way the PSP has been doing.
Everybody wants to be a winner but in some cases coming in second isn't too bad either. Consider the game system market in the UK, which was dominated this year by the DS. That's not surprising. What is surprising is that the second best selling platform in 2006 was the PSP.
Sony told MCV this week that it is expecting to sell a million PSPs in the UK by the end of the year. This is a long way off the 2 million DSs sold here, but it's enough to put it ahead of the Xbox 360 and even the PlayStation 2 for the year.
"People mention us in the same breath as DS because we're both handheld products, but we're actually going after very different markets," Sony's Kevin Jowett told MCV.
While Nintendo has positioned the DS as a handheld for the everyman, Jowett says the success of the PSP is down to its appeal to boys and older gamers.
Globally, the DS is pulling away from the PSP, thanks largely to the handheld's overwhelming success in Japan. This massive audience is giving companies such as Square Enix the confidence to bring their biggest franchises to the DS.
Sony is hoping that adding extra functionality to the PSP will help it do even better. The company has both GPS and camera attachments coming for the portable, and it will be able to hook up to the PSP as a remote terminal in future too.
Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo
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