December 12 is a big day in the history of handheld gaming. It’s the day that, 20 years ago, Sony launched the PSP – or PlayStation Portable, if we’re being fancy. Now, after all this time, we’re looking back at what made us love the console, what made us occasionally hate it, and most importantly, its lasting legacy.
At the time of its release, the PSP was the most powerful handheld on the market. Sure, the Nintendo DS had its dual-screen gimmick and touch controls, but let’s be real, games on the PSP just looked and felt better. Sony was well aware of this itself, marketing the PSP as a console for capital-G gamers while Nintendo went for much more of a fun-for-all-the-family approach.
The DS wasn’t the PSP’s only competition, though. The gadget space was just as congested in 2004 as it is now, and as the PSP was also a music and media player, it found itself fighting with everything from Apple’s iPod to the Nokia N-Gage. Admittedly, the N-Gage didn’t put up much of a fight, and the iPod was hardly god’s gift to gamers with the paltry offering of Music Quiz and Solitaire. It’s little surprise then that the PSP shone through and was an immediate success for Sony, with the brand shifting around ten million units in its first year on the market and cementing its place as one of the best portable gaming consoles money could buy.
Having grown up playing the PSP, I can attest to its brilliance. UI designers of today could learn a thing or two from how easy it was to go from gaming to browsing the web, to using it as a souped-up MP3 player. Looking back now, the original form factor seems almost too small and is dwarfed by the likes of the Nintendo Switch and the Steam Deck, but compact was king in those days, and if it didn’t fit in your pocket, the general public didn’t want to know. At least, I didn’t anyway.
In terms of games, the PSP had no shortage across its lifespan. Countless developers released over 1,300 games in total, including personal favorites such as Daxter, Pro Evolution Soccer 5, and LocoRoco. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, a console exclusive from Rockstar, would go on to be the best-selling, shipping over eight million units. In general, the best PSP games were more mature than the DS equivalent, as evidenced by the success of Rockstar’s return to Liberty City, but there was still space for some freaky business, including the appropriately named WTF: Work Time Fun – think WarioWare, but without Wario.
Not only did Sony provide us with plenty of PSP games, but between 2004 and the end of 2011, the brand also introduced us to five different models. There was, of course, the original PSP-1000, the black brick that most of us think of when we picture the PSP, but also the PSP-2000, PSP-3000, PSP Go, and finally, the PSP Street. Of these iterations, the PSP Go was the most adventurous, adopting a sliding form factor that might have seemed like a good idea at the time but ultimately led to countless users owning two halves of a console that didn’t work anymore. At least that was something for PSP and Nintendo DS owners to bond over.
However, the issues with the PSP weren’t just for those who picked up the funky Go model. I’m going to say it plainly; UMDs were horrible. While the Nintendo DS had its smart little cartridges, the Universe Media Disc was an ugly, plasticky abomination, and worse still, they were often incredibly slow to load, leading to minute-long wait times for often pointless cutscenes. Sony also had limited control over what third parties put on UMDs outside of games, culminating in a not-so-polite request from the brand in 2008 that people stop using the disc technology to sell adult content.
Some issues only became apparent years later, as evidenced by countless Reddit posts with pictures of exploded PSPs. As it turns out, the lithium batteries that Sony used to power the PSP can swell as they age, and if they swell to a certain extent, they can burst through the back of the console itself. If it wasn’t already hard enough, and expensive enough, to collect retro handhelds, there’s now the added risk of buying something that could explode if you don’t pay attention to it for a few months.
In terms of the PSP’s legacy, things get a bit complicated. The console’s successor, the PS Vita, was nowhere near as successful, and Sony hasn’t wholeheartedly returned to the handheld market since – no, we’re not counting the PS Portal. The Vita wasn’t particularly awful, but it arrived just as the smartphone era of mobile gaming began, with many potential users opting to play Angry Birds for free rather than spend on a new game or console. This was also a problem for the Nintendo 3DS, but thanks to IP like Mario, Zelda, and Pokémon, it didn’t suffer quite as much as the poor old Vita.
However, if you look at the handheld market today, you can see the inspiration of the PSP. Not only did Nintendo eventually opt for the brick form factor with the Switch, but the emergence of handheld PCs such as the Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally X all have something of the PSP about them in terms of their design and emphasis on performance. There’s also an active community of PSP modders, who have turned the now retro console into a different beast altogether through years of independent software and hardware development.
Still, I think the PSP’s legacy is most evident in the runaway success of the Nintendo Switch. Stick with me for this one. Throughout the mid-2000s, the handheld battle between Nintendo and Sony forced each other to innovate and experiment to become the top dog. I’m not saying that Nintendo has rested on its laurels for the last seven years, the Switch is almost objectively a great console, but I wonder how much more innovation might have occurred, and how much sooner a true successor to the Switch might have arrived, had the Japanese gaming giant had something to contend with from its old foe Sony.
There’s a lot of past tense going on there, but interestingly, the two adversaries may well be preparing for battle once again. While it’s no secret that we’re expecting the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2, or whatever the Japanese gaming giant names the successor, in the coming months, this time, it appears there’s competition in the works. We recently learned that not only is Sony developing a proper handheld – again, we’re not counting the PS Portal – but Microsoft also has plans for an Xbox equivalent. We’re not expecting either the Sony or Microsoft handheld for a while yet, but when they arrive, it’ll see the three biggest names in gaming fight for the top spot once more.
Ultimately, nothing proves the success of the PSP quite like the fact that it sold over 80 million units before Sony put the handheld out to pasture in 2014. While that number falls short of the Nintendo Switch or PS2, it’s still more than the population of the U.K., and the countless retrospective reviews, video essays, and even this piece of writing prove how despite disappearing over ten years ago, the PSP still holds a special place in the heart of gamers across the world.
There you have it, our celebration of the PSP on its 20th anniversary. If you’re looking for more tech while you’re here, be sure to check out our picks for the best Steam Deck alternatives and the best gaming phones, including options to suit all budgets. Or, for more retro titles, we’ve got guides to the best Nintendo DS games and the best GBA games.