PSP Smashes Sales Records in the UK

404Ender writes "According to recent numbers the PSP has sold more than 185,000 units since launching September 1. This blows the previous record away, which happened to be set by the Nintendo DS. This is wonderful news for fans of the Sony handheld, and it certainly quiets many of the naysayers who have been pointing to the success of the DS sales compared to the PSP. Does this solidify Sony's position in the handheld market with a firm foot in the door?"

Comments

Re:As a DS owner

[justin_w_hall]

As a previous DS owner, I realized a month or two after I bought it that the only reason I'd done so was, simply, I'm a Nintendo fanboy at heart. The console is an innovative idea but for someone who liked the genres that I do, the DS just didn't have the software when I got it in December '04. It didn't when I sold it in February '05. It still doesn't. It won't by the end of the year. A handful of decent titles (WarioWare, Mario 64, Mario Kart, Castlevania) that are all just ports of old games, with the exception of Castlevania... and I couldn't justify holding onto a system for a single good game for one year. My attention span is far too short.

(don't get me started on Metroid Prime: Hunters, what an abomination)

So I sold it back and got a PSP. Sure, the PSP wasn't leaps ahead software-wise when it was released and so far it still isn't. It's also got mostly ports of PS2 titles. But by the end of October I'll have Madden '06, GTA: Liberty City Stories and Burnout: Legends. Next year I'll have Street Fighter Alpha 3. Right now I have a web browser and a very good portable media device on top of the games (with really weak volume, IMHO, or my hearing just sucks).

Slashdot readers and gaming site writers want to make it a one-or-the-other confrontational thing between the two systems, and I guess to a point they compete... but I feel like it's almost apples/oranges. They're not meant for the same target audience, like Nintendo has been saying for years. There's a group of people that will buy the 360 and the PS3, probably Sony/Microsoft's target audience of MTV-addicted ADD kids... and there's a group that'll buy the Revolution, and there'll be some overlap, but it'll be people like me who still have a place in their heart for Zelda / Metroid / Mario titles and people that believe in Nintendo's conceptual vision.

That said... right now Nintendo's conceptual vision doesn't really line up with what I want to play. That's all. If I still owned a DS, right now I'd probably be really excited about Nintendogs and Electroplankton. And I doubt I could look at myself in the mirror without crying. :)