PSP turns five, sells over 17M units in the US to-date

Sony's celebrating the five-year anniversary of PSP today, which was released in the US on March 24, 2005.

Since its debut, it has sold 17 million units in the US to-date.

“Five years ago, PlayStation had yet to break into the portable market,” SCEA vice president Peter Dille.

“Today, the PSP system is a well-established handheld platform that continuously redefines portable entertainment with quality that’s unparalleled. As PSP celebrates its fifth anniversary, the best is yet to come. We’re very excited about the vibrant 2010 lineup and are committed to continuing to offer entertainment experiences and immersive gameplay only possible on the PlayStation platform.”

Since 2005, more than 245 developers have created software titles for the platform, and there's over 520 software titles available in the US on UMD and more than 300 for it on PSN.

PSN was introduced to PSP in 2007 and, according to Sony, "offers PSP owners tens of thousands of digital entertainment choices, including over 20,000 movies and TV episodes, “minis," digital comics, original programming, as well as more than 300 games, many of which are exclusive".

PSP hardware has evolved from the original PSP-1000 which at launch had a 4.3 inch high-resolution LCD display, more than 125 games, and built-in wireless communications.

In 2007, SCE released the PSP-2000 system, which was 33 percent lighter than the original model. In 2008, the PSP-3000 system debuted, which featured an enhanced LCD screen with five times the color contrast ratio of previous models.

In fall 2009, the PSPgo system was made available in North America, becoming the first and only all-digital, full-game handheld entertainment system on the market.

Happy Birthday, then. Let's all have a  piece of cake.