PSP – Sony's best ever launch
Over three million widescreens on European streets, trains and planes
Nintendo might be making the most noise about its handheld sales, but that doesn't mean Sony isn't equally happy about how well PSP is doing. According to recent comments by Sony head honcho David Reeves, PSP has been the most successful PlayStation launch in Europe ever. Faster even than PlayStation2: since its September release, over 3.3 million handhelds have been sold.
But perhaps more interesting has been the success of downloads for games such as WipeOut Pure, with 2.7 million extra maps and other bits of content downloaded onto European memory sticks.
Reeves reckons this will be a big factor in the future success of PSP, with more games having special downloads available. And in time, Sony will also launch a network platform that will enable you to buy whole new games and levels online too.
Until then we're stuck with buying UMDs, and in terms of software sales, over eight million PSP games have been sold – an average of 2.5 games per PSP. Called the tie-ratio in industry circles, this is an important figure, as the higher it is, the more money publishers make, and so the more they're encouraged to release games for PSP in future.
In comparison, the tie-ratio for Xbox 360 is about four, while PlayStation 2 has a massive ratio of ten. So driving up PSP's tie-ratio ranking is the next big task for Sony, which has just unveiled its spring marketing campaign.
