PlayStation Portable

The PlayStation Portable, showing its "Cross Media Bar" screen.

The PlayStation Portable (officially abbreviated as PSP) is a handheld game console released and manufactured by Sony Computer Entertainment. Its development was first announced during E³ 2003, and it was officially unveiled on May 11, 2004 at a Sony press conference before E³ 2004. The system was released in Japan on December 12, 2004, the United States and Canada on March 24, 2005 and in Europe and Australia on September 1, 2005. The PlayStation Portable offers the ability to play video games, watch videos, listen to music, view images, as well as Internet browsing functionality.

Variations and accessories

The PlayStation Portable is available as part of the Value Pack or Core Pack, and in most territories it is also available as part of a Giga Pack and an Entertainment Pack. In Japan a base unit package or Core Pack was available at launch and was later released in North America and Europe. The Core Pack contains the console, a battery, and an AC adapter. The Core Pack retails for USD $199, HKD $1360, CDN $229.99, EUR €199, AUD $299.99 and GBP £149.99.

The Value Pack contains everything the core does, as well as a 32 MB Memory Stick Pro Duo, earphones with remote control, a slip-case, a wrist strap, and a Sampler Disc (in some territories). The Value Pack retails for USD $249.99, CDN $279.99, GBP £179.99, JPY ¥26,040, HKD $1660, SGD $455.00, EUR €209, AUD $399.00 and NZD $429.00. In some areas, the Value Pack has been superseded by the Entertainment Pack, containing the items of the Core Pack plus a copy of ATV Offroad Fury: Blazin' Trails, the UMD movie Lords of Dogtown, and a 1 GB Memory Stick Pro Duo. The Giga Pack is similar to the value pack, except the Memory Stick Pro Duo is upped to 1 GB, and includes a USB Cable and stand. It retails for JPY ¥29,800, USD $299, CDN $349, and GBP £214. The Giga Pack is still available in all territories except North America, as the deal was based on a special offer that ended after the 2005 holiday season. Various other packages also exist.

Optional accessories offered by Sony include the PlayStation Portable headset, carrying case, extended-life 2200 mAh battery, headphones with remote control, battery charger, car adapter, accessories pouch and cleaning cloth, AC adapter, and system pouch and wrist strap.

Colours

PlayStation Portable is currently available in five colors: black, white, pink, blue, and silver. The white variation is available in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, and Europe, while the pink variation is available only in Europe, Hong Kong and Japan. The silver and metallic blue variations were released on December 14, 2006 and December 21, 2006 respectively in Japan and Hong Kong exclusively.

Design and specifications

Technical specifications

The PlayStation Portable was designed by Shin'ichi Ogasawara [小笠原伸一] for the Sony Computer Entertainment subsidiary of Sony Corporation. Early models were made in Japan but in order to cut costs, Sony has farmed out PlayStation Portable production to non Japanese manufacturers, mainly in China.

The unit measures 170 mm (6.7 inches) in length, 74 mm (2.9 inches) in width, and 23 mm (0.9 inches) in depth, and has a mass of 280 grams (a weight of 0.62 lbs) including the battery. The TFT LCD screen measures 110 mm (4.3 in) diagonal with a 16:9 ratio and a 480×272 pixel resolution capable of 16.77 million colours.

The PlayStation Portable's main microprocessor is a multifunction device that includes a MIPS R4000-based CPU, hardware for multimedia decoding (such as H.264), as well as a vector unit dubbed "Virtual Mobile Engine". The MIPS CPU core is globally clocked between 1 and 333 MHz. During the 2005 Game Developers Conference, Sony revealed that it had capped the PlayStation Portable's CPU clock speed at 222 MHz for licensed software. Its reasons for doing so are unknown, but are the subject of some speculation. Various homebrew tools enable users to operate at 333 MHz, generally leading to a higher framerate at the expense of battery life.

The system has 32 MiB main RAM and 4 MiB embedded DRAM. There is no memory management unit for the CPU. No evidence of a translation lookaside buffer has been found. The coprocessor that normally manages the TLB-based MMU seems to be a custom effort by Sony and has no integrated memory.

The 166 MHz graphics chip has 2 MiB embedded memory and through its 512 bit interface provides hardware polygon and NURBS rendering, hardware directional lighting, clipping, environment projection and texture mapping, texture compression and tessellation, fogging, alpha blending, depth and stencil tests, vertex blending for morphing effects, and dithering, all in 16 or 24 bit colour. The graphics chip also handles image output. Specifications state that the PlayStation Portable is capable of rendering 33 million flat-shaded polygons per second, with a 664 million pixel per second fill rate.

Battery Life

PlayStation Portable's battery life varies widely depending on application from less than 3 hours while accessing a wireless network and having screen brightness on its highest setting to more than 10 hours during MP3 playback with the screen turned off. A sleep mode is also available that uses minimal battery power to keep the system's RAM active, allowing for "instant on" functionality.

Interface

The PlayStation Portable's main menu interface is the "Cross Media Bar" (XMB) used by recent Sony TVs, the PSX (DVR) hardware, and the PS3. It consists of a horizontal sequence of icons, in this case Settings, Photo, Music, Video, Games, and Network, which show a vertical sequence of sub-icons when highlighted.

The main menu system allows the user to, amongst other things, adjust settings such as date, time, and the PlayStation Portable's nickname for wireless networking, play video or audio files from the memory stick, load games or movie UMDs, check on estimated battery life, and set the PlayStation Portable into a "link mode" which makes the inserted memory stick available to a PC via USB. The XMB may be accessed at any time in a game by pressing the "Home" button on the console.

The PlayStation Portable's default background colour changes depending on the current month of the year, as follows:

• January – Light gray
• February – Yellow
• March – Green
• April – Pink
• May – Dark green
• June – Purple
• July – Aqua
• August – Blue
• September – Violet
• October – Gold
• November – Light brown
• December – Red

The user may also manually pick a specific colour theme or specify a background from any stored image on the PlayStation Portable memory stick.

Firmware

Each PlayStation Portable runs a particular version of the PSP firmware, which comprises the device's operating system and additional core functionality. Firmware updates can be obtained in three ways:

• Direct download to the PSP over Wi-Fi. This can be performed by choosing "Settings", "Network Update" from the XMB.
• Download to a PC, then transfer to the PSP via a USB cable or Memory Stick.
• Included on the UMD of some games. These games may not run with earlier firmware than the version on their UMD.

While firmware updates can be used with consoles from any region, Sony recommends only downloading firmware updates released for the region corresponding to the system's place of purchase. Firmware updates have added various features including a web browser, Adobe flash support, additional codecs for images, audio, and video, PlayStation 3 connectivity, as well as security against several security exploits and vulnerabilities. The current firmware version is 3.95

Homebrew development

In May 2005, it was found that PlayStation Portables using the 1.00 version of the firmware (meaning original, first launch Japanese-only PlayStation Portables) could execute unsigned code. What this meant in practice was that these PlayStation Portables could run homebrew software, as the mechanism for checking to make sure that software has been approved by Sony had not yet been activated. Later exploits have allowed for PlayStation Portables using later versions of the firmware to run homebrew applications, and development of both new exploits to bypass restrictions and new restrictions to limit unauthorized programs is ongoing.

Controversial advertising campaigns

• Sony admitted in late 2005 to hiring graffiti artists to spray paint advertisements for the PSP in seven major U.S. cities including New York City, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. The mayor of Philadelphia has filed a cease and desist order and may file a criminal complaint. According to Sony, they are paying businesses and building owners for the right to graffiti their walls.

• News spread on in July 2006 of a billboard advertisement released in the Netherlands which depicted a white woman holding a black woman by the jaw, saying "PlayStation Portable White is coming." Some found this to be racially charged due to the portrayal of a white woman subjugating a black woman. Two other similar advertisements also existed, one had the two women facing each other on equal footing in fighting stances, while the other had the black woman in a dominant position on top of the white woman. Sony claimed that the purpose of the advertisements were to contrast the white and black versions of its game console available for sale. These ads were never released in the rest of the world, and were pulled from the Netherlands after the controversy was raised.

• Sony has recently come under scrutiny online for a viral marketing campaign for the console, with advertisers masquerading as young bloggers who desperately want a PSP. The site was registered to and created by youth marketing company Zipatoni on behalf on Sony before it was taken down.

External links

Official sites

• Official PlayStation Portable website (Europe)
• Official PlayStation Portable website (US)
• SCEA PSP Specifications press release

Unofficial sites

• PSP on 1up.com
• PSP on GameSpot
• PSP on IGN