Back in 2003 Sony's Ken Kutaragi, "the father of the Play Station", made a bold prediction.
Announcing Sony's plans to enter the portable gaming market, he claimed the PlayStation Portable (PSP) would become "the Walkman for the 21st Century".
At that time conventional wisdom dictated that any attempt to break into the handheld market, dominated for so long by Nintendo, was doomed to failure.
To suggest that Sony's console would not only make an impact on the market, but also match the success of the 1980s cultural icon that was the Walkman seemed to argue a self-confidence bordering on arrogance.
After all, Sony shipped more than 50m Walkman units in the first ten years of production, reaching a total of 150m units produced by 1995.
The name Walkman has even joined that select group of brands like Hoover and Xerox whose name defines the product.
So four years down the line has the PSP lived up to "Papa" Kutaragi's prediction? Has it succeeded in breaking Nintendo's apparently unshakeable hold on the market?
