Sony Sells 1 Million Slim PSP-s and ... a Big Part of the Company

It seems that Sony's ready to deliver both good and bad news to us, fans of its consoles and gaming titles: the company's reached 1 million Slim PSP-s sold (in Japan) and it has also welcomed a "substantial investment" coming from a private equity company. As I'm not sure you've figured out the last part, the whole transaction involves selling the essential part of Sony's assets to the Dubai-based firm.

Could Sony be ready for an early retirement from the gaming industry? They've already sold their Cell processor-producing facility and now they've taken things one step further. On the happy side of things, the company's representatives are probably celebrating right now, since the PSP's just reached the 1 million units sold marker, only in Japan. It took two more weeks for the original version of the console to reach such sales and a huge period of 8 months for the PS3 to succeed and reach the same sales marker. Don't get overexcited though, as the the DS has sold 54 million units, while the PSP only boasts with 26 million units sold in the same period of time.

In the meantime, probably following the two above-mentioned pieces of information, Sony's shares rose by 4.6%. Let us remind you that the PS3's doing great too, at least in Japan, where it's even managed to beat that prolific Nintendo Wii. Although things seem to be working out great for Sony, for now, in its homeland, the company's approaching the end of a 3-year restructuring process, started by CEO Howard Stringer. Although we're not financial analysts, we can see that something major's about to happen back at Sony's HQ, but not now and not in the following year.

I'm curios to see where the Japanese company that brought the PlayStation console into our gaming universe will be in ten years time. Will it be making PSP Phones, focusing on gaming software or simply quit this industry segment forever?