I have a friendly little bet running with a few friends that’s been in place since before the launch of both current generation handhelds. My claim basically goes that the DS will outsell the PSP (we’ve since agreed to decide the "winner" by Christmas).

Battery, price, Nintendo’s experience and brand strength in handhelds, the precedent of countless "Game Boy-beater" failures, Sony’s complex hardware (hence the inevitable shortages and late Euro launch)… the list goes on. A bit late to be blogging this since reports have now surfaced of the PSP not selling out in the US as anticipated - hindsight is 20/20 as they say. But even so,  no doubt both will be successful enough (I sure as hell want both) but those predicting that the PSP would stomp all over the DS purely based on its superior graphics and media options just weren’t looking at the bigger picture, I’m still convinced that’ll be conclusively proven by this christmas.