“Where we are today is the result of a development cycle from 18 months ago,” said Koller. “18 months ago PSP hardware wasn’t doing quite as well in terms of sales. Since then, it’s taken off. We’ve been talking to a lot of developers and really trying to change their thinking about how PSP is doing and they’ve realized it from what they’ve seen at retail.” This isn’t just hype. PSP has been the best-selling system in Japan for months, outselling the Wii, DS and PS3. This is a big change from 18 months ago when DS was still dominant. Credit is given to the introduction of the slim PSP late last year and the continued success of Capcom’s “Monster Hunter” series on Sony’s handheld.

“Going towards the end of the year and going into 09 and beyond, we’re going to see a lot of very large franchise games come from third-parties,” he said. “They’re going to be a bit of a surprise, they’re going to be like ‘Wow, that’s coming to PSP?’”