Although PSP sales have tapered off a bit over the past year, both on the hardware and software front, Sony is still embodying much faith in the platform. Which is extremely evident by the number of key franchises slated for a UMD (and possibly digital) release later this year: including LittleBigPlanet and Assassin’s Creed.

It’s a lineup like this that is leading SCEA marketing head John Koller to label 2009 as the PSP’s best year for software yet. What’s more, is that Sony has the intention of propelling this momentum even further. Yes, there are more announcements on the way, according to Koller:

There’s a lot of software coming. We’re really focused on software, and I don’t think that’s a big surprise given that it’s going to be the best software year the PSP has ever had, there’s no doubt. You can think of some of the major franchises on console that would come over to PSP and people are going to be very excited. In much the same way they have been when they saw the Rock Band and LittleBigPlanet announcements.

On the subject of hardware, Koller mentioned that are currently no plans for a PSP-4000, but did not rule such a revision out either. He further noted that Sony’s key focus is towards expanding the handheld’s feature-set through firmware updates. Despite the fact that we haven’t seen a major PSP update in awhile, at least not one worth clamoring for, it looks like there still are significant functionality enhancements on the horizon taking Koller’s statement into account. We’ll be waiting.

Sony’s John Koller [GI.biz]

Follow this author on Twitter.