The Story of Every PSP Ever Made

Sony dominated the generation with the PS2, so when they set their sight on the portable market, the expectations were enormous. This, my friends, is the story of every PSP ever made.

Sony first ventured into the handheld gaming market long ago, even before the PS2. This foray was more than a little obscure compared to the big ticket handhelds like the PSP and the Vita, partially because it was a device that was only released in Japan.

In 1999, Sony sold the Pocket Station. It was just a little guy that looked like a Tamagotchi. It was about the size of a pair of AirPods. It was a combination PlayStation 1 memory card and handheld gaming device. That sounds familiar, because it is very, very similar to Sega's VMU for the Dreamcast, which also combined memory and minigames.

The Pocket Station had an LCD screen, flash memory, and even had sound, a true technological marvel. Some PlayStation games such as

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- Sony dominated the generation with the PS2,so when they set their sightson the portable market,the expectations were enormous.This, my friends, is thestory of every PSP ever made.Sony first ventured intothe handheld gaming marketlong ago, even before the PS2.This foray was more than a little obscurecompared to the big ticket handheldslike the PSP and the Vita,partially because it was a devicethat was only released in Japan.In 1999, Sony sold the Pocket Station.It was just a little guy thatlooked like a Tamagotchi.It was about the sizeof a pair of AirPods.It was a combinationPlayStation 1 memory cardand handheld gaming device.That sounds familiar,because it is very, verysimilar to Sega's VMUfor the Dreamcast,which also combined memory and minigames.The Pocket Station had anLCD screen, flash memory,and even had sound, atrue technological marvel.Some PlayStation gamessuch as "Final Fantasy VII"offered mini games oradditional content designedfor use with the Pocket Station.Now while the device was popular in Japan,it never was officiallyreleased worldwide,likely due to a strategic decision by Sonyto focus on the upcoming PS2,which was of course right on the horizon.That relative success fueledSony's true portable ambitions.You might see why theythought they could take onthe reigning champ, Nintendo,whose Game Boy had becomesynonymous with handheld gaming.But by the 2000s,Nintendo had been makinghandheld gaming devicesfor over 20 yearsand dominated the market formore than half that time.The Game Boyin every iteration was the gold standardfor portable gaming.The Game Boy did face some competitionfrom more powerful rivals,such as Sega's Game Gearand Atari's Lynx,boasting backlit displaysand superior graphics.Although, let's be honest,viewed by today's standards,these all sucked.The Lynx and Game Gear werejust a little less terrible.Gaming magazines at thetime gave glowing reviewsand said that the Lynxthrows the Game Boy backinto the prehistoric age.So why then did the primitive Game Boythat was left totallypowerless without the lightfrom a passing street lampthrough the window in thebackseat of your dad's Accordor I mean, you know, the Game Boythat didn't, you know,have a backlit display,like how could this becomethe king of the hill?Well, really, the GameBoy's dominance came downto two main factors, batteries and games.Handhelds like the Game Gearand Lynx were more advanced, sure.The Game Gear could display 32 colorsat once out of a max pallet of 4,096compared to the Game Boy'smeasly four shades of green.But as we know from modern handhelds,more power takes more battery.In the olden days, thatmeant more AA batteries.I don't know about you, butmy parents weren't happywith needing two or four AAs a weekfor my Game Boy Color,let alone, I don't know,12 AAs a week for your Game Gear.And while the games for the Game Gearand the Lynx were more sophisticatedfrom a graphic standpoint,the Game Boy with itsiconic titles like "Pokemon,""Kirby," and "Mario" offered a more accessibleand family friendly experience.Plenty of other handhelds did comeand go throughout the '90sfrom the Neo Geo to the Wonderswan,all with their own uniquetake on the gaming handheld.But Nintendo continued tosteamroll the competition,and with each generation,they dominated the market.So Sony knew they had tobring something specialto the table to dethrone the Game Boy.What about, and I know thisis a revolutionary concept,a portable PlayStation?That naming conversationmust have been so easy.Sony's strategy was simple,outgun Nintendo on the hardware front.The Game Boy Advance thatwas on sale at the timewas a terrific consolefor 2D-based Super Nintendostyle sprite graphics,but ultimately it wasjust a better versionof the 1989 Game Boy.There was plenty of hypefor what would eventuallybe the PlayStation Portableeven before its 2004 release.Then-CEO of PlayStation,shout out Ken Kutaragi,he teased the device as"The Walkman of the 21st century."Now while the comparison was vague,the technical specs theyannounced generated a lotof excitement about the potentialof a portable PlayStation handheld.It used a cutting edge 32 bit MIPS R32 CPUoriginally clocked at 222 megahertz,but later pushed to 333 megahertzwith the 3.50 firmware update.Also, just side note, imaginetoday you get like an updatefor your Switch and suddenlyit's like overclocked by 50%.Like, man, these were the days.Actually, Nintendo should do that actuallybecause they could technicallyjust set the Switch clocksto like where they're supposed to be,but they just didn't, Sony did, though.They didn't just settle formaking something equivalentto a portable PS1.Sony aimed higher to create a handheldthat could rival the PS2'smighty Emotion engineand Graphics Synthesizer.This is unlike what Nintendoended up doing with the DSthat was also in developmentat the same time,which had much lessambitious performance targetscloser to something likethe last generation N64.Let's just pause for a secondto truly grasp thesignificance of this ambition.Nowadays, almost two decades later,we're used to devices like the Steam Deck,which are able to run modern AAA games,but at significantly lower settings.The PSP was aiming to come closeto the cutting edge ofconsoles at the time.Sony's ambition didn'tjust stop at raw power.They also took anotherlesson from a big featureof the PS2, multimedia.While the DVD drive was off the table,probably moreso because itwasn't proprietary enoughfor Sony, they instead outfitted the PSPwith a tiny optical drive dubbed the UMD.Now these are little discsto play not only games,but also movies and music videos.With each weighing inat either 900 megabytesor 1.8 gigabytes,they were impressively densefor something so small,comfortably more so than a CDand enough space to holda full-length movie.Now if you didn't want to carrydozens of UMD discs around,users could also load it upwith their own video files and MP3s.It also supported downloading gameswith a proprietary Memory Stick Duo,which was a feature that camea couple years after launch,and that certainly improvedthings even further.With four to five hours of video playbackand eight to 11 hours of audio playback,the PSP was a true multimedia powerhouse.Keep in mind that thiswas three whole yearsbefore the first iPhone was even a thing.All those features meantthat it was not goingto be a cheap handheld.In the US, the PSP cost $250 at launch,which was quite expensive for the time.For context, Nintendo rolled out the DSwith a $150 price tag, amuch more reasonable amount,especially considering thatthe Game Boy had been aroundthat $100 mark for years at that point.Despite the high price,the launch of the PSP was a success.In Japan, Sony sold more than200,000 units on launch day.When it was eventually releasedin the US in early 2005,they sold about 500,000units for the launch weekend.In fact, they sold so well thatit was difficult to keep up with demand,and it pushed the entireglobal launch backjust because they couldn'tmake enough of the damn things.Now the UK launch at the end of 2005 soldthrough their entire stock of185,000 units in three hours.Almost 1 million unitswere sold across Europein the first week of sale.But Nintendo's DS waslooming in the background,and it was clear thatNintendo weren't goingto give up the goldengoose without a fight.In November of 2004,a few months before the PSPwent on sale in North America,the DS sold about 500,000units in the US alone.Sales quickly ramped up to a million unitsby the end of 2004,largely thanks to peopletrampling each otherduring Black Friday.At this point, the stagewas set for a fierce battle.The PSP's launch was a resounding success.Sony wasn't just goingto sit back and chill.Over the years,Sony iterated and madesome really iconic PSPs.The original PSP-1000,known as the fat PSP,was the heaviest PSP,but for good reason.It had the biggest battery at1800mAh, comparedto a much smaller 1200mAhcell on later models.The LCD panels were consideredsome of the worst in the PSP lineup,although it wasn't toobad compared to the DS,it was prone to ghostingand high response times.Now I'm certainly biasedhere since I did have a 1000,but it still feels themost solid in my opinion,and it was one of many Sony consoleswhere the first versionwas best in a lot of waysbefore later models cut coststo bring the price tag down.Learning from theoriginal PSP shortcomings,Sony released the PSP-2000,also known as the Slim.The 2000 addressed some ofthe screen quality issuesof its predecessor as wellas the general bulkiness.Although this slimmerdesign did come at a costof that smaller 1200mAh battery,although users did find workaroundsas you could technically fit the older,bigger batteries fromthe 1000 into the 2000,just as long as you don't mindnot being able to put a back cover on.Now importantly, they also doubled the RAMfrom 32 to 64 megabytes,which was a legitimate upgradeand led to noticeably faster load times.Significantly,this model also markedthe first major price dropin the PSP lifecycle,going from $250 to $169for the core pack system.Basically the PSP withoutall the extra accessories.Building on the Slim's success,the PSP-3000 further refinedthe handheld's design,and is generally knownas the best PSP froman overall perspective.It kept all the upgrades from the 2000and also featured an upgraded screen,which was brighter andoffered better contrast,pixel response, and less glare.It was unofficially knownas the "Brite" model,especially in marketing,and it did make for a noticeablybetter gaming experienceunless you're really sensitive to scan linesor slightly inaccurate colors.Now the software was a lotmore locked down at this point,a response to something we'lltalk about a little bit later.But here's the thing,Sony wasn't satisfied withjust improving the PSP.They clearly wanted to push the boundariesof handheld design.Remember, this is the old Sonywho made the bizarre VAIO systemsall through the 2000s.It's almost like theylooked at one of those old,remember the LG sliding phones?They're like, "Hey, let'sdo that except for the PSP."Well, they did, and it was the PSP Go.It was a bold experimentthat perhaps pushed the tech of the dayjust a little too far.Despite the PSP's already compact size,Sony aimed to make iteven smaller with the Go.They started by eliminating the UMD drivein favor of digital downloads.They added 16 gigabytes ofexpandable flash storage,and they got rid of abouta quarter of the weight.That means that they went all digital,which I probably don't need to tell youwas controversial to say the leastall the way back in 2009.15 years later, we're only just startingto properly phase out physical media.So I'm sure that that didn'thurt sales at all for the Go.Oh, wait, no, actually it did,it hurt like significantly,like a lot.There aren't any official numbers,but the PSP Go most likely soldless than a million units total,a drop in the bucket comparedto the 80+ million PSPs sold overall.The quirky sliding form factorwith the tiny button layout,the lack of a physical drive,and the more expensive retail priceof $250 was just a recipe for disaster.Even though I've alwaysirrationally loved it.Recognizing the need fora more affordable option,Sony introduced the PSP Street in 2011.Even at $170 for the regular 3000 model,it was still consistentlya bit more expensivethan the Nintendo DS line,specifically the massive selling DS Lite.As the last PSP to be released,the 2011 Street was abudget focused versionsimilar to the 3000,except it got rid of somevery important featureslike Wifi and stereo speakers.Not to mention it cheapenedthe build quality quite a bit.For all the cost cutting,you could at least get it fora very affordable 99 Euro.I say Euro because they mostlysold it in Europe as wellas in some parts of Asiaas well as Australia.Now, despite its budget-oriented design,the PSP Street actually wasn'tas bad as it might've seemed.The screen was improved,and performance wise,it was actually a littlebetter than the standard 3000with loading times that were either on paror improved from every other PSP edition.So surely all those improvements coupledwith a strong launch meant the PSP wonthe handheld console war, right?Right?Oh.Now on our quest to getour hands on every bitof PSP paraphernaliathat has ever existed,I have this, a PSP dev kit.Now, we actually did a video on thiswhen we did a MysteryTech a little while ago.In fact, probably a coupleyears ago at this point.And what's cool about thisis that this has a lotof special features,including the ability to playnot only UMDs, but also DVDs,and it has a bunch of debug stuff.It's a neat, neat littleEaster egg into the past.Also, I'm not giving it back, Sony.You're not supposed tohave to have dev kits.They get kind of grumpy about it.Probably the biggest issuewith the PSP was the factthat it only had a single analog stick.Now it was fine, it was doable,but this actually really heldyou back for certain typesof games because without the abilityto use dual analog sticks,your control method wasoftentimes going backand forth on the same handbetween the analog stickand the D pad back and forth.And that was not great,especially for some gameswhere you wanted to, oh, I don't know,look and aim at the same time.Even though this technicallywas really quite powerful,it always felt like itnever fully lived upto its potential in a waythat today you don't really seea mobile version of like a Switch game.Like you just get the game,maybe it doesn't look as good,but you get that full experience.But with the PSP, thisis still back in an erawhere a mobile versionof a game was almost always amore watered down experience.So it just kind of goes to showthat if a developer had the timeand money to fully commit to the PSP,you could get great results.But so many titles feltlike they were like 80%the sort of full potential that they had.While the PSP racked up arespectable 81 million unitssold worldwide,the Nintendo DS sold astaggering 154 million units.That's almost twice as manysales. So what went wrong?Well, let's cut to the chase.The PSP was not a failure.I asked what went wrong,but honestly, nothing reallydid go horribly wrong.On the contrary, the PSPis still the best sellingnon-Nintendo gaming handheld of all time.For some context, the PSPsold almost four timesas many consoles as the Gamecube,about as many units asthe Game Boy Advance,and almost as many sales asthe original PlayStation,all of which are viewed as successfuland beloved game consoles.Well, maybe the Gamecube was a little bitmore beloved than successful, but look,this handheld generationwas just a unique one.The Nintendo DS was dominant,but Sony did sell a lot ofPSPs, just not quite as many.There are a few key reasons for this.Partially the smartphone revolution beganduring this generation,but a big one was that theDS was just simply cheaper.The DS also had a much biggergame library that appealedto a broader audience.The DS's most populargames included titlessuch as "Nintendogs," which, fun fact,is actually the second bestselling DS gameas long as you bundle allof the individual versions together,and it had an overwhelminglyfemale player base.Compare that to the PSP,which had a decidedly more"grown up, cool demo" with someof the most popular gamesbeing "Grand Theft Auto"and "Monster Hunter" and "God of War."You can kind of guess what kindof demo those games were targeted toward.There's no "Nintendogs" on PSP,they had "Invizimals,"which was far inferior.The PSP's unintentionally open platformfor customization and homebrewwas thanks to the easy hacksthat were absolutely everywhere,but it was a double edged sword.While it fostered a passionate communityof modders and tinkerers,it also made the PSP a haven for piracyand Sony were not happy.I remember you couldload up movies, games,and some other more adult things.Believe me when I say the PSPwas a real eye-opener for me.- PlayStation Pornable.- That opens up Pandora's box.- As the first device I owned with Wifiand a portable browser,it was a very seminal momentin Young Austin's life.I mean, some real great features.The PSP was just a special device.Now some parents maybe expressed concernsabout the PSP's very open nature,and this paired with piracydid almost certainly dentsome of the PSP's momentum.Sony also played Whack-a-Mole with updatesmeant to shut down custom firmwares,which are mildly successful for a bit,but largely just served toannoy the modding community.Sony's marketing effortsfor the PSP were also often,shall we say, misguided,failing to highlight its cool featuresand generating plenty of controversy.Just like with the PS2,I don't know what Sony were thinkingwith the marketing on the PSP.I mean from an ad that quote,"Take a running jumphere" on a train platformto a racially charged warningthat PlayStation Portable white is coming.Holy (quack)I know that was a longtime ago, but no, no.Now I'm not gonna say thatNintendo's "Touching is good"marketing campaign wasmuch better, good lord.But at least that onewas a little more cringeand not controversial,just sort of stupid.The PSP though really did push the limitson how powerful a gaming handheld can be.It aimed to replicate the fullconsole experience on the go,and it came really close.Meanwhile, the DS just tooka different approach, in that regard,Sony was ahead of its time.I mean, it's only recentlywith the Steam Deckand ROG Allys of the worldthat we've had consolelevel handhelds again.I think it's safe to saythat people are reallyappreciating the PSP-nessof handhelds these days.- Ugh.- You wrote the line.You can't laugh at me, you wrote the line.There's no way around it though.The DS with its innovative dual screenand touchscreen interface,it really revolutionized handheld gaming.And a lot of games like "Warioware"or "Zelda: Phantom Hourglass"were much more creativeand took advantage of thedual screens, the touch input,and even the microphone,like giving your Nintendogs commands.Sit, go to the hotel foreverbecause Joanna doesn't want you anymore.- No, not the hotel.- I really want to be clear here.The PSP was not a bad handheld,and it certainly was not a failure.There's still a thrivingcommunity of peoplewho use their PSPs even to this day.In fact, Ken just made acustom PSP a little while agothat looks dope.It just so happened to beagainst the absolute juggernautthat was the Nintendo DS.But trust me when I say thatthe PSP put up a valiant effort,and for that, I salute the PSP.You know what?I think this is what it feels likefor everyone who's tryingto compete with the PS2.You ever like seen like thevideo where like, you know,the guy who's a lottaller has longer reach,puts his hand on the guy'sface, you're like this.You're like, "I'm trying, I'm trying."And the DS was like, "Stop."Except it probably didn't sound that coolbecause the DS was not as cool as the PSP.Well, if it's any consolation,I'm sure that Sony will definitelytake the handheld gamingcrown next time around, right?Right?I hear the Vita is gonna be great.Hey, they stopped makingPlayStation Portables, didn't they?I wonder how thathappened, huh? Oh, right.I forgot, the PlayStation Portal.No no no no no, that's a different video.Thank you very much for watching.Subscribe to the channeland ringaling the dingalingif you enjoyed this because stay tuned.Next time around, we're takinga trip all the way to 2006to take a look at the mostambitious game consoleof all time, the PlayStation 3.