Dear journalists around the world, the PSP and PS Vita are two completely different handheld devices. Sure, they're both made by Sony and have struggled in their fight against Nintendo, but that doesn't mean they are the same thing.

You would think I wouldn't need to clarify the difference between the PSP and PS Vita, but the photo below tells a different story. This is a still I took from an Associated Press article (which ran on Yahoo News) titled, "Sony to Stop Selling PlayStation Portable."


It's true; after nearly a decade, the PSP's life is finally coming to an end. However, the portable game system being held up in the AP story Sony's follow-up, the PS Vita. You can tell because it says "PS Vita" right under the screen. And while it's certainly lagging behind the Nintendo 3DS/2DS, the PS Vita is not the system that is being discontinued by Sony. But that is not immediately clear when you look at the picture above.

As the article notes, the PSP managed to sell nearly 80 million units across ten long years. That's on par with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. More importantly, total PSP sales are 69 million more than Sega's Game Gear and 78 million more than the Neo Geo Pocket Color by SNK. Sure, it didn't come anywhere close to matching the total sales of the Nintendo DS, but Sony's handheld still deserves better.

Is it possible that the AP didn't have a picture of the PSP and it was either the PS Vita or nothing at all? Turns out even that flimsy excuse wouldn't get the job done. Cycling through the slide show reveals a photo of two women holding Sony's short-lived PSP Go.


That may not be the way I want to remember the PSP, but it's still better than confusing consumers into thinking the PS Vita has met the same fate as a typical Game of Thrones character. This is not the way you send off a console that lasted ten years.