Sony’s handheld, the PlayStation Portable, was always in the shadow of the Nintendo DS, but this year Sony’s PSP marked its comeback and, if game developers will eventually decide to create games for it, too, things could go from good to better. At least that’s what the latest Media Crate latest charts suggest.

With games like God of War or Final Fantasy VII doing well in the software charts, the PSP recorded better sales this year, managing to grab a market share of 31% in Japan. Even though it seems hard to consider this a success, having in mind that the Nintendo DS has 69% of the market, things looked much worse in the past when the big N enjoyed nearly total world domination.

Although it’s probably too late for Sony to turn the tide of the battle, since the Nintendo DS sold 24 million copies since it was launched, compared with 11 million PSPs sold, it’s worth noting that the release of the PSP 3000 helped Sony quite a lot. Of course, the DSi pushed Nintendo’s sales as well but, overall, the PSP did great this year. And this means that 2008 is the year of the PSP. A bit late, though.