Sony PSP Go White

Sony PSP Go White

The PlayStation Portable^[a] (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 primarily competed with the Nintendo DS.

PlayStation Portable

Logo and original model of the PSP
Developer	Sony Computer Entertainment
Manufacturer	Sony
Product family	PlayStation
Type	Handheld game console
Generation	Seventh generation
Release date	JP: December 12, 2004 NA: March 24, 2005 BR: March 24, 2005 INA: March 24, 2005 EU: September 1, 2005 AS: September 1, 2005 AF: September 1, 2005 AU: September 1, 2005
Lifespan	2004–2014
Discontinued	NA: January 2014 JP: June 2014 PAL: December 2014
Units sold	Worldwide: 80–82 million[1][2][3]
Media	UMD, digital distribution
Operating system	PlayStation Portable system software
CPU	20-333 MHz MIPSR4000
Memory	32 MB (PSP-1000); 64 MB (2000, 3000, Go, E1000)
Storage	Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick PRO Duo PSP Go: Memory Stick Micro (M2) and 16 GB flash memory
Display	480 × 272 pixels with 24-bit color, 30:17 widescreen TFT LCD PSP Go: 3.8 in (97 mm) other models: 4.3 in (110 mm)
Sound	Stereo speakers, mono speaker (PSP-E1000), microphone (PSP-3000, PSP Go), 3.5 mm headphone jack
Connectivity	Wi-Fi (802.11b) (except PSP-E1000), IrDA (PSP-1000), USB, Bluetooth (PSP Go)
Online services	PlayStation Network
Dimensions	PSP-1000: 2.9 in (74 mm) (h) 6.7 in (170 mm) (w) 0.91 in (23 mm) (d) PSP2000/3000: 2.8 in (71 mm) (h) 6.7 in (169 mm) (w) 0.75 in (19 mm) (d) PSP Go: 2.7 in (69 mm) (h) 5.0 in (128 mm) (w) 0.65 in (16.5 mm) (d) PSP E1000: 2.9 in (73 mm) (h) 6.8 in (172 mm) (w) 0.85 in (21.5 mm) (d)
Mass	PSP1000: 9.9 ounces (280 g) PSP2000/3000: 6.7 ounces (189 g) PSP Go: 5.6 ounces (158 g) PSP E1000: 7.9 ounces (223 g)
Best-selling game	Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories(7.6 million) (as of October 2015)[citation needed]
Backward compatibility	PS one (download only)
Successor	PlayStation Vita

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 when it was introduced, and was the first real competitor of Nintendo's handheld consoles after many challengers, such as SNK's Neo Geo Pocket and 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 consoles, computers running Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh software, other PSP systems, and the Internet. The PSP is the only handheld console to use an optical disc format – Universal Media Disc (UMD) – as its primary storage medium.

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 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.