Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) sold 185,000 PlayStation Portable handheld consoles in the UK this past weekend, smashing the previous three-day record, set by Nintendo's DS in March.
Sony's sales, said market watcher Chart-Track, which provided the statistic, makes the PSP's UK debut the most successful console introduction in the territory yet.
The PSP went on sale in the UK on Thursday, 1 September, and Chart-Track's total combines sales on that day plus those of Friday and Saturday.
Nintendo sold 87,000 DS handhelds in the first three days' of the device's availability.
Many of the sales had already been made, thanks to pre-order campaigns run by retailers and online suppliers once Sony formally announced the handheld console would ship on 1 September. The PSP had originally been planned to arrive in the UK at the end of March, just after the DS debut. But the demands of the US launch, scheduled to take place in the same timeframe, forced SCEE to delay the European ship-date.
Chart-Track said 24 games were available at launch, more than any console has shipped alongside here. Twenty of them went straight into the company's Top 40, and nine entered the Top Ten. Sony's Ridge Racer took the number one slot, pushing the previous sales leader, Brian Lara International Cricket 2005 into second position. ®
Sony PlayStation Portable

The Sony PlayStation Portable went on sale in the UK on Thursday, September 1. In the three days following the release, more than 185,000 PlayStation Portables were sold. This sets a new sales record on game consoles. The record was previously held by Nintendo, who sold 87,000 Nintendo DS handhelds the first three days after its release. The PlayStation Portable is being sold for £179 in the UK.

Twenty of the 24 games launched with PlayStation Portable are in the top 40. PlayStation Portable games also occupy nine of the top 10 slots on the sales charts. The game Ridge Racer was the most popular, with one in every five people buying both the PlayStation Portable and Ridge Racer  at the same time.

Sony's main competitors in the handheld gaming console market are  Nintendo with the Nintendo DS and Nokia with the nGage. Like Nintendo and Nokia, Sony is marketing the device as being able to do more then just play games. The PlayStation Portable can play specially created versions of poular movies and surf the Internet wirelessly. Sony expects to sell a million PlayStation Portables in the UK before Christmas.