The PSP Go launched recently, boosting PSP sales once again to become a high end PlayStation system. However, Sony has stated several times that it’s the best handheld system on the market. When they reference this, not only are they targeting their rivals Nintendo, but the market as well, which is beginning to open up to Apple and Microsoft. Neither Apple nor Microsoft have truly made a portable gaming device, but they both believe that their new gadgets can in fact steal some of the PSP’s future consumers. So how will this turn out? How will the PSP fair down the road? Does Apple truly have a foot in the game industry? And how is the portable gaming market slowly becoming a thing of the past?

Well we will answer these questions by looking at several different factors, all listed below. Each one has a major impact on why to buy that device, and each one has a rivaling feature.

The Long Sought After App Store

This seems to be the only thing Apple advertises these days, “we have a huge app store waiting for you.” This app store provides applications ranging from games, useful tools, all the way to thousands of useless junk. While it’s nice to have anything you want in the store, a major concern for Sony is how the game market will affect the PSP. So in opposition, Sony dropped the bomb called PSP Minis along with making PSP Go fully download-only, and Microsoft followed suit by releasing an App Store of their own for the Zune HD.

The PSP Minis store is similar to App Stores, but instead of being open to everyone like Apple's, it is only open to certain developers. With this in mind, PSP Mini games are just that, smaller games than normal. Everything in the store must be below 100 MB and be basic, nothing too complex. The downfall of this store, other than not being open to indie developers, is all the restrictions. Currently developers cannot implement wireless features, online, or multiplayer, and are allowed nothing but a core single player experience. So far it seems the only thing coming its way are games like Tetris, with no current plans of useful apps anytime soon.  Sony also provides a PSP Store on the PlayStation Network where almost every UMD based (and full retail games) can be purchased at a low price.

The Zune and iPod App Stores share tons of similarities. Microsoft currently only has 7 Apps in their store, all free, which include games and two tools (calculator and weather). Come November, Microsoft plans to release fully fledged games to rival those of the PSP and iPhone, including Xbox titles such as Project Gotham Racing. However, Apple has the advantage over everyone by opening their app store to users from around the world, creating whatever they want. Microsoft, much like Sony, only opens their development of “apps” to certain developers, even though the older Zunes were open to anyone. Both Sony and Microsoft say they have plans to further open development down the road, but that isn’t going to help them now when Apple boasts their thousands of Apps to the world, no matter how useless half of them may be.

Winner – iPod