Sony Sells 1 Million PlayStation Portables In Two MonthsSony Sells 1 Million PlayStation Portables In Two Months

Sony's PlayStation hasn't met sales expectations, but its handheld cousin called the PlayStation Portable appears to be doing well.

Sony Computer Entertainment, the unit responsible for the PlayStation brand, said it has sold 1 million units of the new PSP in Japan as of Nov. 22, about two months after its Sept. 20 launch. Sony reached the milestone with the latest version of the handheld device two weeks earlier than when the company launched the original PSP in Dec. 2004.

The slimmer and lighter PSP has a 4.3-inch high-resolution liquid-crystal display (LCD) that has been popular with buyers, according to Sony. Also helping sales is the increasing number of games. More than 500 titles are available in Japan, and more games are set for release during the holiday shopping season.

Sony Computer Entertainment's Japanese studio plans to ship several PSP games during the holiday season, including "Everybody's Golf Portable 2," "Kick The Cheeky Hero," "TalkMan Travel," and "Patapon." In addition, SCE plans to release Dec. 13 in Japan PSP bundles that include accessories and peripherals.

Sony hopes the latest version of PSP will eventually help it surpass Nintendo, which leads the market with the DS. PSP is second.

While the new PSP appears to be doing well, Sony has had trouble meeting expectations for the PlayStation 3 console that the company launched a year ago.

Sony has been forced to cut prices on the PS3 in order to compete against the Nintendo Wii, the hottest selling console. As of October, Nintendo, which launched the Wii about the same time as Sony released PS 3, reportedly shipped 13.2 million units of the console worldwide, and expects to sell a total of 17.5 million Wiis by the end of the fiscal year March 31. Sony, on the other hand, has shipped only 5.6 million PS3s as of the end of September.