9 years later, former PlayStation boss gives the PSP a long-overdue funeral

Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden has given the PSP a long-overdue funeral, and with it, revealed a few previously unknown details about the beloved handheld's life.

In an image posted to Twitter, Layden showed off a specially engraved PlayStation Portable that effectively serves as a headstone for the system. On one of the back panels, it says "In memory of PSP last production." On the other side, it notes a "production achievement" of 82,523,607 units manufactured between November 9, 2004, and September 26, 2014.

"Not bad, lil buddy," Layden says. And, indeed, the replies to Layden's tweet suggest that there's a lot of fondness for the PSP still in the air. With a library that includes the likes of Lumines, Patapon, Jeanne d'Arc, and numerous excellent spin-offs of console series like Metal Gear Solid, God of War, and GTA, the ranks of the best PSP games are tough to beat.

Both the total unit production numbers and the precise dates of manufacturing were previously unknown, as far as I've been able to find. Sony's last officially reported sales numbers for PSP were 76.4 million as of March 31, 2012. It's possible some of the manufactured units never ended up getting sold to consumers, but it's unlikely Sony's sitting on millions of unsold PSPs in some warehouse.

The PSP got its follow-up, the PlayStation Vita, in 2011. While the Vita was an unequivocal upgrade in terms of hardware, it never found the same sales success as its predecessor - perhaps partially due to the simultaneous rise of smartphone gaming.

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