Biography
by T.J. Deci
After leading the market through two console generations with its
PlayStation
and
PlayStation 2
machines,
Sony Computer Entertainment
moves to the realm of handheld gaming systems with the
PlayStation Portable
, or "
PSP
." The
PSP
was first announced in May 2003, at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), and its specifications were unveiled a year later at E3 2004. The portable player launched in Japan during the holiday season of 2004, followed by a March 24, 2005 release in North America.
The
PSP
handheld is sleek; black, rectangular, and relatively thin. It has a 480 x 272 resolution (16:9 widescreen) thin film transistor (TFT) liquid crystal display (LCD) capable of outputting 16.77 million colors. Controls include directional buttons, a small analog pad, and "Circle," "Square," "Cross," and "Triangle" action buttons, all laid out in familiar
PlayStation
fashion. The device is designed to communicate readily with networks and other computers, and can use the 802.11b wireless format. The overall performance power of the portable device has been compared to that of the
PlayStation 2
; the
PSP
is designed to produce audio, video, and 3D graphics rendering of equivalent quality.
Among the most notable features of the
PSP
is the type of media it uses. The device is among the first designed to use the Universal Media Disc ("UMD"), an optical format unveiled by
Sony
along with the announcement of the handheld's technical specifications. In addition to video games, UMDs can hold other types of data, including music and movies. Discs containing such non-interactive content can be played in the
PSP
, or in other devices compatible with the UMD format. The single-sided, dual layered, red laser-based UMDs have a diameter of about 60mm and can hold up to 1.8GB of data.