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PlayStation Portable
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PlayStation Portable
The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PAL regions on September 1, 2005, and is the first handheld installment in the PlayStation line of consoles. As a seventh generation console, the PSP competed with the Nintendo DS.
Development of the PSP was announced during E3 2003, and the console was unveiled at a Sony press conference on May 11, 2004. The system was the most powerful portable console at the time of its introduction, and was the first viable competitor to Nintendo's handheld consoles after many challengers such as Nokia's N-Gage had failed. The PSP's advanced graphics capabilities made it a popular mobile entertainment device, which could connect to the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3, any computer with a USB interface, other PSP systems, and the Internet. The PSP also had a vast array of multimedia features such as video playback, audio playback, and has been considered a portable media player as well. The PSP is the only handheld console to use an optical disc format—in this case, Universal Media Disc (UMD)—as its primary storage medium; both games and movies have been released on the format.
The PSP was received positively by critics, and sold over 80 million units during its ten-year lifetime. Several models of the console were released, before the PSP line was succeeded by the PlayStation Vita, released in Japan first in 2011 and worldwide a year later. The Vita has backward compatibility with PSP games that were released on the PlayStation Network through the PlayStation Store, which became the main method of purchasing PSP games after Sony shut down access to the store from the PSP on March 31, 2016. Hardware shipments of the PSP ended worldwide in 2014; production of UMDs ended when the last Japanese factory producing them closed in late 2016.
The PSP had multiple versions over its initial release, including the PSP Street and the PSP Go.
Sony Computer Entertainment first announced development of the PlayStation Portable at a press conference preceding E3 2003. Although samples were not presented, Sony released extensive technical details. CEO Ken Kutaragi called the device the "Walkman of the 21st century", a reference to the console's multimedia capabilities. Several gaming websites were impressed with the handheld's computing capabilities, and looked forward to its potential as a gaming platform.
In the 1990s, Nintendo had dominated the handheld market since launching its Game Boy in 1989, experiencing close competition only from Sega's Game Gear (1990–1997) and Bandai's WonderSwan (1999-2001) and WonderSwan Color (2000–2004) in Japan. In January 1999, Sony had released the briefly successful PocketStation in Japan as its first foray into the handheld gaming market. The SNK Neo Geo Pocket and Nokia's N-Gage also failed to cut into Nintendo's share. According to an IDC analyst in 2004, the PSP was the "first legitimate competitor to Nintendo's dominance in the handheld market".
The first concept images of the PSP appeared at a Sony corporate strategy meeting in November 2003, and featured a model with flat buttons and no analog joystick. Although some reviewers expressed concern about the lack of an analog stick, these fears were allayed when the PSP was officially unveiled at the Sony press conference during E3 2004. Sony released a list of 99 developer companies that pledged support for the new handheld. Several game demos such as Konami's Metal Gear Acid and Studio Liverpool's Wipeout Pure were also shown at the conference.
The PSP's development posed several challenges for Sony and third-party developers, with battery life being a primary concern. To address this, Sony implemented power management strategies, including restricting the CPU to two-thirds of its full speed for the first few years. The Universal Media Disc (UMD) drive was another significant hurdle, as it drained the battery and had slow read speeds. Developers had to optimize their game data layout to minimize disc access and reduce power consumption. These limitations sometimes led to performance constraints and long loading times, with some titles like WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw 2006 experiencing load times of up to two minutes for certain scenes.
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PlayStation Portable AI simulator
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PlayStation Portable
The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PAL regions on September 1, 2005, and is the first handheld installment in the PlayStation line of consoles. As a seventh generation console, the PSP competed with the Nintendo DS.
Development of the PSP was announced during E3 2003, and the console was unveiled at a Sony press conference on May 11, 2004. The system was the most powerful portable console at the time of its introduction, and was the first viable competitor to Nintendo's handheld consoles after many challengers such as Nokia's N-Gage had failed. The PSP's advanced graphics capabilities made it a popular mobile entertainment device, which could connect to the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3, any computer with a USB interface, other PSP systems, and the Internet. The PSP also had a vast array of multimedia features such as video playback, audio playback, and has been considered a portable media player as well. The PSP is the only handheld console to use an optical disc format—in this case, Universal Media Disc (UMD)—as its primary storage medium; both games and movies have been released on the format.
The PSP was received positively by critics, and sold over 80 million units during its ten-year lifetime. Several models of the console were released, before the PSP line was succeeded by the PlayStation Vita, released in Japan first in 2011 and worldwide a year later. The Vita has backward compatibility with PSP games that were released on the PlayStation Network through the PlayStation Store, which became the main method of purchasing PSP games after Sony shut down access to the store from the PSP on March 31, 2016. Hardware shipments of the PSP ended worldwide in 2014; production of UMDs ended when the last Japanese factory producing them closed in late 2016.
The PSP had multiple versions over its initial release, including the PSP Street and the PSP Go.
Sony Computer Entertainment first announced development of the PlayStation Portable at a press conference preceding E3 2003. Although samples were not presented, Sony released extensive technical details. CEO Ken Kutaragi called the device the "Walkman of the 21st century", a reference to the console's multimedia capabilities. Several gaming websites were impressed with the handheld's computing capabilities, and looked forward to its potential as a gaming platform.
In the 1990s, Nintendo had dominated the handheld market since launching its Game Boy in 1989, experiencing close competition only from Sega's Game Gear (1990–1997) and Bandai's WonderSwan (1999-2001) and WonderSwan Color (2000–2004) in Japan. In January 1999, Sony had released the briefly successful PocketStation in Japan as its first foray into the handheld gaming market. The SNK Neo Geo Pocket and Nokia's N-Gage also failed to cut into Nintendo's share. According to an IDC analyst in 2004, the PSP was the "first legitimate competitor to Nintendo's dominance in the handheld market".
The first concept images of the PSP appeared at a Sony corporate strategy meeting in November 2003, and featured a model with flat buttons and no analog joystick. Although some reviewers expressed concern about the lack of an analog stick, these fears were allayed when the PSP was officially unveiled at the Sony press conference during E3 2004. Sony released a list of 99 developer companies that pledged support for the new handheld. Several game demos such as Konami's Metal Gear Acid and Studio Liverpool's Wipeout Pure were also shown at the conference.
The PSP's development posed several challenges for Sony and third-party developers, with battery life being a primary concern. To address this, Sony implemented power management strategies, including restricting the CPU to two-thirds of its full speed for the first few years. The Universal Media Disc (UMD) drive was another significant hurdle, as it drained the battery and had slow read speeds. Developers had to optimize their game data layout to minimize disc access and reduce power consumption. These limitations sometimes led to performance constraints and long loading times, with some titles like WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw 2006 experiencing load times of up to two minutes for certain scenes.