First-Week U.S. PSP Sales Total 600,000

Sony Computer Entertainment America confirmed the PSP's performance in its first week on the market, by releasing figures indicating that slightly over 600,000 units of the new handheld have sold through to consumers. Though the figure falls short of Sony's expectations of a total sellout of the 1 million units shipped to stores for the system launch, it is still a strong performance for the PSP's first week. Over 500,000 of the total were reportedly sold in the first two days, with sales settling down over the rest of the week. By way of comparison, the PSP did not achieve sales of 600,000 in Japan for three weeks -- though that was partly due to supply issues, since the system only launched with 200,000 units there. Compared to the first-week sales of the Nintendo DS's Thanksgiving 2004 launch, the PSP came out ahead slightly: the DS sold over 500,000 units in its first week, during the typically high-demand holiday season. Though the PSP has now met with success in Japan and the U.S., the system has not yet launched in Europe, and no release date has yet been given, although an Internet-enabled South Korean release has recently been confirmed.