Take-Two, the parent company of Rockstar Games, needed some financial help. They looked to the PSP as a source for the big bucks, and it looks like they're making a healthy return. Within one week of sales, the PSP-exclusive Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories debuted at number 6 in the UK game charts, making it the top-selling handheld game for the week. With Bully also ranking high, and nary a DS game in sight, it appears that both Take-Two and PSP can breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy their success.

[Via Gamespot]

Well, look how the mighty have fallen. The Nintendo DS Lite, which is the PSP's biggest competitor, saw a 50-percent decline in hardware sales last week. Never mind sales numbers ... who cares about those anyway? It's all about percentages, baby.

The PSP surged on with a six-percent jump in sales that can most likely be attributed to Tales of Phantasia Full Voice Edition's total domination in the software sales chart.

- DS Lite: 113,831 115,108 (50.28%)
- PSP: 29,141 1,642 (5.97%)
- PS2: 19,882 2,821 (12.43%)
- GBA SP: 2,104 647 (23.52%)
- Game Boy Micro: 1,801 10 (0.56%)
- Xbox 360: 1,094 156 (12.48%)
- DS Phat: 1,058 738 (230.63%)
- Gamecube: 696 159 (18.60%)
- GBA: 13 9 (40.91%)
- Xbox: 5 5 (infinite%)
- Wii: 0 0 (0%)

The PSP needs to keep looking in its rear-view mirror, however, because the DS Phat also saw a big spike in its percentages with a whopping 230-percent increase. But, I expect this to be short lived due to its "teh suck."

Also, look at how crappy the Wii is selling. Hah hah, it's being outsold by the original Xbox and hasn't even sold a single unit! Those percentages look pretty bad.

(Via Joystiq)

Isn't it great when the king of the hill is dethroned? Well, if you agree, then you may be happy to know Sega has done what Sony hasn't been able to by outselling all Nintendo games with its new online RPG Phantasy Star Universe.

1. Phantasy Star Universe (PS2) - 120,202 / *NEW
2. New Super Mario Bros. - (DS) 72,763 (2,974,027
3. Brain Age 2 - (DS) 46,662 / 3,119,857
4. Final Fantasy III - (DS) 45,949 / 549,001
5. Tingle RPG - (DS) 45,496 / *NEW
6. Cooking Navi - (DS) 35,689 / 419,733
7. Mario Hoops 3 on 3 - (DS) 34,001 / 267,763
8. Animal Crossing: Wild World - (DS) 32,605 / 3,181,735
9. Rythm Tengoku - (DS) 28,361 / 123,432
10. Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop 2 - (DS) 27,540 / 458,474

Aside from PSU, there has been some shuffling of Nintendo DS titles, but there are still no PSP games that have made it in the top 10 for the second week straight. Hopefully, this isn't a trend that continues, but it's always nice to see my beloved Sega doing something right every once and awhile.

(Via Games Are Fun)

Fanboys love the numbers game, because nothing tells you the quality of a system like the profit margins of a multi-billion dollar corporation. Sony revealed that as of a week ago, 20 million PSPs have been shipped worldwide. Mind you, these are not representative of sell-through numbers, but it is impressive nonetheless. You can see that the PSP is far more successful in the American and European markets than in the Asian ones (Note: JPN includes shipments to the rest of Asia). Although the PSP has been successful, it appears that Sony's not meeting its own sales expectations: you may remember that Sony anticipated shipping 20 million PSPs in 2006 alone. In order to do that, it'll need to ship 15 million more by year's end. Will the Christmas season prove to be the injection of sales Sony's looking for?

[Via IGN Boards, Insider membership required]