After a raft of online fanboy disdain and hype surrounding its home console rivals, the PSP has managed to comfortably outsell both PS2 and Xbox 360 in 2006 – leaving its performance at UK retail second only to Nintendo’s DS.

“People mention us in the same breath as DS because we’re both handheld products, but we’re actually going after very different markets,” Sony UK’s commercial director Kevin Jowett told MCV. “We’ve put in just under £300 million of turnover at retail with PSP because we’re such a boys console and we’ve hit the mark with older gamers.”

The PSP arrived in the UK to much fanfare last September, and quickly became the fastest selling console the territory had ever seen. But the rise of the DS and the troubling performance of UMD have dampened enthusiasm surrounding the format.

However, ChartTrack’s statistics bear out the fact that 2006 has truly been the Year Of The Handheld – and that PSP has been a dominant force. And Sony sees much more to come next year.

Jowett added: “The evolution you’ll see on PSP will be greater than any console Sony has ever released, starting with new peripherals like the PSP camera, which is out in early 2007.”