PSP shipments up 2 million in 2007

Sony's released its financial figures for the crucial three-month period between October 1st and December 31st 2007 and things are looking up, at least when it comes to sales of the new PSP Slim & Lite.

Sony sold (albeit sold into shops, so technically shipped) 5.76 million PSPs compared to 4.71 million during the same period in 2006, a jump of 22 per cent. Of course, all of these shipments would have been the new Slim & Lites, which demonstrates, once again, the power of a redesign when it comes to handheld devices.

In total, Sony sold 9.8 million PSPs in its FY2006, but in the nine months of FY2007, it's already sold 2.3 million more than the comparable period and so is now expecting to break the 13 million barrier by March 31st 2008.

Such sales also made the PSP Sony's most popular hardware during the period as 4.9 million PlayStation 3s were shipped and, impressively, 5.4 million PlayStation 2s.

However, things weren't so impressive when it came to PSP software. Compared to the same period in 2006, sales were down 14 per cent from 21.3 million to 18.3 million, reflecting that many publishers have scaled back their PSP development in lieu of support for DS (and Wii).