Welp, It was bound to happen sooner or later. It’s been around for 10 years and sold 76 million units, but Sony is saying goodbye to the PSP.

Sony announced today that they were stopping shipments of the PSP by the end of 2014. The last shipment was sent out to North America at the end of January, so once they are gone….they are gone. Japan’s last shipment will be sent at the end of this month and Europe’s will end in the next few months.

The PSP was released back in …

Sony will be offering some special PSP bundles in Japan this summer. I guess it’s their way of giving it a proper sendoff. The PSP-3000 “value pack” includes a PSP bundled with some color-matched accessories, like a 2GB Memory Stick Pro Duo, an AC adapter, a 1,200mAh battery, a pouch, and a wiping cloth.

The bundle comes in three colors: Piano Black, Vibrant Blue, and Pink Blossom. The price is 17,800 yen (or about $220). It will be available in Japan on July 28. No word on whether we will get it or not.

We are all waiting to buy Sony’s Playstation Vita, but let’s not forget about the PSP, which has been a flagship device for Sony since December 12, 2004. It has accumulated a total of 70 million sales globally. That’s the number being bandied about at E3.

That sounds amazing doesn’t it? Well, sadly it is nowhere near the 100 million DS units that Nintendo had shipped back in 2009. That total includes the original PSP-1000, the PSP-2000, the PSP-3000 and the PSP go. But perhaps the Vita will add some impressive numbers to hit Mario in his plumber pants.

As cool as the PSP is, it is starting to look a bit dated. So Sony is introducing the PSP Remaster series for PlayStation 3, where Sony will port select portable game titles to the PS3 in high-def Blu-ray. Some of those titles may even have new add-on content and stereoscopic 3D support.

Another new bonus is that gamers will be able to share game save data between the two platforms. The key to the success of this will be what price they charge for these games that you have already played. The first PSP Remaster title announced is Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, which is Japan only and arriving at an unknown date.

PSN may be suffering an outage, but Sony still needs to keep the empire rolling along as best they can. So Sony has just introduced a new line of PlayStation Portable branded earphones. They come in six different colors (black, white, silver, red, blue and pink) and will deliver high resolution sound. They claim that it has powerful bass and clear treble output.

These are perfect for the PlayStation Portable and should work fine with your other devices that have a 3.5mm audio jack. These Sony PSP earphones arrive this summer in Japan for $27 (2,200 Yen). Hopefully we get them soon after. By then PSN should be back up. We hope.

Apparently rumors of the PSP Go’s death may have been exaggerated. It looks like Japan and Europe are giving up on the device, but it won’t be dead everywhere. At least not yet.

Sony of America told Joystiq that production of the PSP Go will continue in North America. We assume that when the NGP arrives this holiday season, it will finally go to that great console stand in the sky, where it will sit collecting dust, just like it did here on Earth, because God doesn’t want to play with it either. Sad.

We told you yesterday that Sony had stopped making the PSP Go. Well, now it is official. They have pulled the plug. Sony Japan has confirmed that it has ceased production of the PSP Go and that all future sales will be limited to current stock.

We can’t say we are heartbroken. It was a bad idea from the word Go. This move will allow Sony to shift its focus to the NGP, which is expected to ship in at least one country by the end of this year. Focus is good. It leads to good consoles. It is the right move.

Looks as if the PSP Go has just… stopped. According to a Japanese blogger working for an official Sony retail partner, production of the PSP Go handheld has come to a full stop. Adding some weight to this rumor, the Sony Style Japan online store no longer lists the portable and it doesn’t come up in searches.

The product page only comes up via a direct link, but shows it as out of stock. Sony says that demand for “current generation PSPs” will continue to be met, so we are left with what we already knew, that there is no demand for the PSP Go.

Nintendo’s 3DS was released in Japan on February 26th and it has been selling great hitting the top of the sales charts. How could it’s sales possibly be surpassed? By the PSP, that’s how. According to Media Create the PSP sold 58,075 units in the week of March 28th to April 3rd, while the 3DS sold 42,979.

So what’s going on? It’s due in large part to the PSP dating sim Amagami, which is an old PS2 game that’s just been re-released for the handheld. Turns out they really love that old game more than 3D.

The PSP Go came and went. It wasn’t what you would call a smashing success. And now Sony has officially knocked another $50 off the handheld’s list price. That follows a similar $50 price drop back in October, making the handheld $150.

So what do you think? Will this new low price make you buy one? Probably not, but you can let us know in the comments below. That money may be better spent on a 3DS.

Sony’s Next Generation Portable (PSP2) has been called a PS3 for your pocket. It is codenamed the NGP. So how much does it cost? Sony has no answer to that yet, but GameStop has the device up for pre-order and they have a price in mind. The Sony NGP page on their website has an estimated price of $999.99.

They probably just want to make it look like it had a price cut the day it comes out. Sneaky. Sony hasn’t mentioned when they will be announcing the actual price, but with the device is scheduled for an end of year release.

Sony’s next PlayStation Portable is codenamed NGP and will be based on five key concepts: Revolutionary User Interface, Social Connectivity, Location-based Entertainment, Converging Real and Virtual (augmented) Reality. It will be compatible with the PlayStation Suite and is backwards-compatible with downloadable PSP games and content.

It has a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, 5-inch touchscreen OLED display with 960 x 544 resolution, dual analog sticks, 3G, WiFi, GPS, a rear-mounted touchpad, accelerometer / gyroscope motion sensing, an electronic compass, and cameras on the front and back. Expect it to be available this holiday season.

We have some more PSP2 rumors today. Nikkei believes that Sony’s new handheld will have a data-only 3G connection allowing an always-on way to play multiplayer games or access the PlayStation Store. The connection would come from NTT DoCoMo in Japan and maybe other carriers.

We don’t have any info on how pricing would work. Discounted 3G rates could be the ticket here. Users might get a free but small amount of data every month and pay extra only when they need to expand the amount of data they use. In other news, the handheld’s touchscreen is now AMOLED rather than the expected LCD. Is that realistic though? Maybe not. AMOLED’s chief supplier Samsung is still facing production shortages that would keep it from large-scale AMOLED production until later in 2011.

Despite it’s name, the PSP-3DBar from Princeton is not a 3D soundbar for your Sony PlayStaion Portable. It’s just a plain old 3D soundbar, which uses Trident melody audio technology to produce a virtual Surround system, whether you have a PSP or not.

The Princeton PSP-3DBar is great for a small home theater setup and a multimedia computer. You can also connect it to a DAP or an MP3 player with the usual 3.5mm audio cable.

We’ve been waiting for a long time and Sony may finally make the PSP2 public on January 27. A rumor from “trade sources” suggests that it will be shown at a special event in Tokyo. Publishers were reported by MCV as having known since late last year and would have had development kits for some time.

The company’s PlayStation head Kaz Hirai has already hinted that the system was in development and that it would combine touch and buttons. A full touchscreen along with a possible back touchpad and dual analog sticks might show up in the initial model. Sony is also planning a major jump in performance that might give performance closer to that of the PS3. The photo above is from an earlier leak and has changed since then to be a non-slider.