The Sony PSP brand celebrates its fifth birthday

The past week has marked a significant time for one of the most recent entries into the handheld gaming market, as it has marked the fifth anniversary of the American launch of the Sony PSP (although, of course, it should be noted that the European launch didn't follow until September of the same year). While this handheld console has never reached the same high sales of its rival, the Nintendo DS, it nevertheless remains an important part of Sony's gaming portfolio.

The original PSP (or, to give it its full name, the PlayStation Portable) was developed at a time when Sony were still riding high on the success of the PlayStation 2. The PS2, over the course of its lifetime, has gone on to be the highest selling games console ever released, and with the PSP, Sony intended to recapture that same success within the handheld market. The Sony PSP would, of course, face stiff opposition in that arena, as Nintendo had long dominated that particular market sector, first with their various Gameboy handheld consoles, and later with the aforementioned Nintendo DS. Nevertheless, despite facing such tough competition, the PSP has gone on to become, in the words of Gamasutra, 'the most successful non-Nintendo handheld game system ever sold'.

But how did it achieve that? One of the main reasons is undoubtedly that the Sony PSP was targeted at a different audience. Its graphical prowess and processing power outstripped Nintendo's rival console by a considerable margin, allowing for gaming that was much more high end, with graphics that were comparable to home consoles (it is often stated that the graphics seen on the PSP are only slightly less impressive than those on the PlayStation 2, an impressive achievement for a handheld console).

As well as more processing power, the PSP also had a feature that the Nintendo DS lacked. Thanks to the inclusion of a UMD (Universal Media Disc) drive, the Sony PSP was able to play UMD movies, allowing the user to watch movies on the go, through their handheld console. That feature undoubtedly tempted many users to buy one, and while the sales figures never approached those of the DS, it was still a moderate success.

Following that success, the original PSP design was further refined into the PSP-2000, and then the PSP-3000, each bringing extra benefits such as new software versions, and inbuilt microphones.

While the core PSP platform has remained fairly consistent since its initial launch (excluding hardware and software improvements), Sony released an entirely new version of its handheld console in 2009, to complement the standard PSP in the market. This device is the PSP Go, and it differs from the PSP-3000 (the console it is designed to complement, not compete with) in several key areas. Most obviously it features an entirely new form factor, with the control buttons being placed on a slide-out back panel. However, the biggest difference is in how users get games for the PSP Go; unlike earlier models, it doesn't feature a UMD drive, and instead, games are bought online through the PlayStation Store, in a sales model not dissimilar to the Apple App Store found on the iPhone.

Ironically, it is mobile phones such as the iPhone which represent the biggest threat to the PSP Go. In recent times, there has been a definite move by games publishers to embrace mobile phones as gaming devices, and because many phones can now rival the PSP Go in terms of processing power, the extra features that come from them being phones (such as voice calls, texting, 3G connectivity and so on) may well make them a more appealing purchase, in the long run.

The price of the PSP Go is also an issue, as it is an expensive device. It goes without saying that when buying a PSP Go, a handheld console which is easier to lose, damage, or have stolen, games console insurance would be a very smart purchase, purely for peace of mind.

However, even with these issues, it is worth taking to time to congratulate Sony on what they have achieved with the PSP range, and to wish it a happy fifth birthday.