In a recent interview with MCV regarding Sony's planned release of the PSP in Europe next week, Phil Harrison, Sony VP of SCEE, says he doesn't view the DS as competition at all, but rather a short-lived gimmick.

"The idea of a handheld rivalry with Nintendo is an irrelevance," said Harrison. "Those formats don't appear in our planinng. It's not a fair comparison; not fair on them, I should stress. That sounds arrogant, maybe, but it's the truth. With the DS, it's fair to say that Nintendo stepped out of the technical race and went for a feature differentation with the touch screen," Harrison continued, "But I'm afraid that it won't have a lasting impact beyond that of a gimmick - so the long-lasting appeal of the platform is at peril as a direct result of that."

Since the DS's release in Europe, it has already sold more than 1.3 million units, and according to Nintendo of Europe's president, they are expecting a 50% jump in handheld sales this year. He predicts that Nintendo will have sold more than 3 million DS units by the end of 2005.