(Column) - In the portable player market, there are two products that are breaking all sales records ever imagined by analysts. While Apple’s iPod is leading the portable audio player segment, Sony’s PSP is also doing amazingly well in the portable gaming market. The interesting thing to point out is that both of these devices are targeted at different audiences, and yet they are shown to be competing against each other.

Up until now, it was Sony’s PSP that was trying to encroach onto iPod’s territory, as it not only played music, but it was a portable multimedia device with an impressive incentive – gaming on the go. However, with video iPod, Apple has countered at least part of the charge, and users not too keen on gaming now have other reliable options. Of course, Apple being Apple, it has seamlessly integrated content with hardware and is fairly smug in the knowledge that the video iPod is reasonably unbeatable.

Yes, well, it would’ve been if other manufacturers hadn’t pledged to dethrone the world’s most popular MP3 player with numerous look-alikes and a select number of exclusive units. It’s also obvious that there is no way any plain Jane MP3 player has the audacity to dethrone the iPod by itself. So we have Sony updating the PSP’s firmware (again…) to enable video streaming via an optional attachment. Streaming is something the video Pod is not particularly equipped to handle (maybe Apple will announce that at the launch event on the 19th), therefore, Sony has a golden opportunity to win over additional customers.

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