Sony announced on Friday that global sales of the PSP have broken the 50 million mark. The PSP was first released in Japan in December of 2004 and came to the U.S., Europe, and the rest of Asia in 2005.

The current market leader of handheld gaming systems is Nintendo, whose DS portable console has sold 96.2 million units since December 2004. However, the PSP outpaced the DS for several months last year, according to the Tokyo-based publication, Enterbrain.

We’ll have to strap ourselves to our chairs and watch this year’s numbers unfold, but chances are the PSP will stay neck-and-neck with the DS as we plummet head-first into 2009.