Kingdom Hearts Leads U.S. PSP In 2010, But Sony's Handheld Still Flagging

Author: by Staff

Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep was the only new PlayStation Portable title released in 2010 to break 300,000 units at U.S. retail last year, with all other PSP games falling well below 200,000, according to NPD stats reported by Gamasutra analyst Matt Matthews. Retail sales of PSP software have declined continuously over the past couple of years, and while the handheld segment is down in general, the PSP in particular has suffered. Sony's PSP strategy has split sales between retail stores and its own online PlayStation Store. Digital sales are not included in the retail sales chart below, though Birth by Sleep and Toy Story 3 from that list are not available from the PS Store. For the other eight games, there is no reliable third-party means for verifying sales made through the PS Store and Sony is not releasing sales figures. However, most of those titles have received fewer than 100 public ratings from PS Store purchasers, with the most-rated game, God of War: Ghost of Sparta, only receiving 463 votes. Sales from software bundled with hardware were also not included in the sales chart, meaning hardware packages that included Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Madden NFL 11, MLB 10: The Show and God of War: Ghost of Sparta during 2010 were not reflected in the numbers. Sony has recently shifted attention away from its flagging PlayStation Portable system and onto its successor, the codenamed Next Generation Portable. For more details on 2010's top-selling U.S. retail games by platform, read Gamasutra's exclusive NPD Group report.