Writing about the announcement of the new PSP brought the following little ditty to mind - one we’ve been meaning to write for a while.

You may be thinking that the Sony PSP hasn’t been the hit that it might have been, because in and around Europe you don’t see many on the street.

It’s easy to lull yourself into a false state of knowledge when you’re in a major capital, leading you to think that the behaviours that you see around the street are representative of the world as a whole.

This was clearly show in our recent visit to Beijing, where PSP usage told a distinctly different story. There were tons of the things knocking around, primarily on the Beijing Underground.

Used mostly by the under 30s, but not limited to males, we often saw people playing games on them during the crushed morning rush hour (and it was a serious crush). The other frequent use was using them to catch up on TV or film programming.

Alongside the genuine PSPs, we also spied quite a few copy PSPs having a similar form factor, but a rougher, less-engineered finish.

On this day, years gone by ...

• Microsoft Gets Huge €uro Fine - 2006
• MySpace Becomes Number One US Website - 2006
• Shaun Woodward Paints A Rosy Picture For UK Digital TV Switchover - 2006
• Accenture 'Digital Home' Study Finds Big Barriers To Convergence - 2005
• .mobi Domain TLD Approved For Mobile Phones - 2005
• EU Raids Intel Offices - 2005
• Skype Zones Offers Wi-Fi VoIP On The Move - 2005
• Digital Identity Management Summit - 2004
• UK Film Companies Launch New Anti-Piracy Offensive - 2004
• Internet Radio - On a Radio - 2004