The launch of the PSP Slim and Lite has seen sales quadruple during the system’s first week on sale in the UK, with over 17,000 units sold, according to British trade paper MCV. With hardware sales figures not available on a regular basis in the UK it is unknown how this compares to current sales of the Nintendo DS.
Earlier this month PSP hardware sales had reached their lowest ebb in the UK, down 32.1 percent on the same time last year – although this was widely attributed to anticipation for the new model.
The sudden increase in sales mirrors that of the console’s performance in Japan, although there the boost has been the result of the release of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, with only a limited edition version of the PSP Slim and Late currently available.
Despite the increase in hardware sales for the PSP there seems to have been little appreciable increase in software sales in the UK, with only two titles in the bottom half of the top forty. With no confirmed release date for Crisis Core in the West the most prominent PSP titles for the reminder of the year are likely to be Star Wars: Battlefront - Renegade Squadron and assorted multiformat releases.
"We expected sales in the previous weeks to be low as we moved old stock through the channel. But now we are back on track and preparing for new products such as Go! Explore and Go! Messenger," said a Sony spokesperson to MCV.
