• PSP Slim sold more in first two months only because DS Lite couldn't.The PSP-2000 may have reinvigorated the platform, with Sony shipping 2 million units in the first two months. And that's impressive, especially since total DS figures were only 1,828,621 over the same period of time. The difference? Nintendo didn't sell/ship more because they were out of hardware—DSs were sold out everywhere. And it didn't start with the DS Lite, either. From hardware importer Play Asia at the DS launch:

Hardware supply of the Nintendo DS™ has been tight since end of 2005, most shops were completely sold out for weeks and once supply arrived, all units were sold out like hot cakes. When Nintendo announced the new Nintendo DS™ Lite in the end of January, everyone was hoping for a hold back and increased supply upon release of the improved hardware...

• Nintendo has the one-two brand punch of Wii, which is the leading home console in the world. Since its launch, the Nintendo Wii has not been outsold for a month worldwide ever by the Xbox 360 or PS3. There's simply no stronger brand right now in video games than Nintendo.

• The PSP doesn't offer an alternative experience so the PSP will inherently always battle the PlayStation brand for market share. What do I mean? The PSP is exactly what it promises to be: a portable PlayStation. And while that's great, the lack of a different interface on the PSP means that other than its portable nature, there is little gaming-wise drawing consumers to the product. In other words, Sony is essentially selling oranges and smaller oranges. Nintendo, in its two screens and use of touch, is selling oranges and apples. While this was a gamble originally, the public likes the unique taste of both flavors of gaming. Buying a Wii cannot replace the experience of buying a DS, or vice versa. So people are more tempted to buy both.

• The DS supports more than just the DS through backward compatibility. Sure, the PSP is great at playing PSP games. But with the DS, Nintendo took a lesson from Sony's PS2 and made their portable compatible with Game Boy Advance titles (GBA). Is it a huge deal? Maybe not. But one thing's for sure: backwards compatibility never hurt a console's sales, especially when it supported such a large library.

• DS games sell better. Way better. Let's turn away from consoles sold for a minute and look at the software moved—a stat just as important for the success of a platform. The PSP has no titles whatsoever in the top 100 of all time video game sales charts. Their best selling title is Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories which has moved a meager 4.5 million units...at least when compared to the success of the DS. From my count, the DS has 8 titles in the top 100 charts, with Nintendogs breaking the top 10 with 15.41 million copies sold worldwide. And it's not the only title to move more than 10 million copies. Oh, and Mario and Pokemon and case closed.

• The casual market is the real deal. Whether you love it or hate it, casual gaming exists and it's big. We've seen estimates as high as $2.5 billion a year (even if that number is a little questionable). Bottom line: the DS attracts both casual and "hardcore" gamers. Does the PSP do the same? I don't think so.

• The DS just had the most successful week in history with Black Friday. Nintendo moved 653,000 DS units, the most consoles in one week ever.

So while the PSP is a wonderful machine and probably doesn't get enough credit—honestly, it looks like two handhelds can get by just fine in this market—the PSP is not dethroning the DS. Sorry, it's just not happening (see above). But a future PSP2 or PSPP or whatever? Who knows? Sony has done pretty well during their first foray in the portable industry.

[all sales data taken from vgchartz]

• 1 Million new PSPs were sold in Japan in around two months. This first point got us curious as to why the PSP was doing so well. Was it because of the redesign, which lead to 250k sales in four days, or has it actually become time (thanks to various factors listed below) for the PSP to catch up, if not surpass, the Nintendo DS. This point alone wouldn't make for a strong argument, but we've found seven more.

• Sales figures for PSPs are going up, sales figures for DS Lites are going down (in Japan). According to the Japanese sales charts Kotaku loves to drool over, the last four weeks for the DS looked like this: 76243, 78552, 78854, 76069. The last four weeks for the PSP looked like this: 59792, 59714, 58964, 65609. DS sales seems to have plateaued (the slight dip probably means nothing), whereas the PSP sales got a nice spike this past week. Has everyone over there finished the new Zelda game already?

• PSP actually has more good games to play. According to metacritic, the site that aggregates major game reviews, the PSP has 53 games that are rated 80 (out of 100) or higher, whereas the DS only has 44. Although the DS has three games that score higher than any of the PSP's (Mario Kart DS, Advance Wars: Dual Strike, Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass), on the whole it seems the PSP gets you better bang for your buck.

• The PSP has better PS3 integration compared with the DS and Wii. The recent upgrades to both the PS3 and PSP firmware allow for much, much better compatibility between the two than compared with the DS and the Wii. Remotely starting up your PS3 may be a neat gimmick, but they've also got remote play, which lets you access videos, music, and even games wirelessly through your PSP whether you're at home or outdoors at a Wi-Fi access point. There's been talk of using the DS as a Wii controller in many games, but the most we've seen is transferring Pokemon to your Wii or using the Wii to download DS demos—a function that the PS3/PSP also has.

• The PSP has better media capabilities. Ignoring the failed UMD movie initiative, you can still use the PSP's giant screen to play back movies off of your memory stick. There's also picture viewing, music playing, as well as remote play off your PS3, which lets you stream content from home.

• The PSP has better add-ons. Some of these are only in Japan, but the add-on camera, GPS, TV Tuner, and LocationFree TV give you four things to do with your PSP when you're not playing games.

• The PSP actually sold as well the PS2. We hate to bring up sales numbers again as proof that the PSP is picking up steam, but as J Allard famously found out, the PSP sold just as well as the PS2, hitting 10 million units within a 12-month span (give or take).

• Sony's planning a PSP Phone. Whether the PSP phone will actually support PSP games is uncertain and possibly unlikely, but the mere fact that there's a PSP phone that supports some of the PSP's functions and has some PSP connectivity will be enough to give both platforms a boost.

Does this mean that we think the DS is doomed? Certainly not. If you look at our gaming distribution between DS time and PSP time this past Thanksgiving holiday, the time spent on the DS dwarfed the time spent on the PSP about 1,000 to 1. And the DS just sold 653,000 units over Thanksgiving.

We just think this means the PSP's time has come to step out from behind the DS's shadow as the uglier, fatter, less fun cousin and show itself off as the full-featured portable media powerhouse that it really is.