Sony has a long history in the gaming industry. It is strange to think there was a time in the 90s when they were known for making Walkman music players, and it was Nintendo and Sega battling at the very top of the console market. But, beginning in the early 2000s, Sony has attempted at various times to break into the handheld market as well.
Related:Every Game Release Coming For PlayStation 4 & 5With varying degrees of success, Sony has released a number of versions of their two main attempts to enter the handheld gaming console market. While they have seemingly backed away from this side of things and are currently focusing on the PlayStation 5, there have beenrumors of late that another handheldcould be in development currently.
8PocketStation
It might be something of a stretch to call the PocketStation a handheld gaming console. After all, players weren’t really able to play games on it. However, it was released as a sort of digital assistant, but also sort of as a memory card. It would store data for players while plugged into their console, but they could also download content from the PlayStation for it.
The minigame content pieces weren’t enough to make the PocketStation a big success. But for a while, many PlayStation games being released would include extra content on the discs that could be downloaded for the PocketStation. It was the first foray of Sony into the idea of a handheld, as they continued totry and make sharing between playerseasier.
7PSP E-1000/PSP Street
In a strange attempt to make the PSP more affordable, Sony released a version later that stripped back much of the capabilities in order to make it more freely available. This meant that features that were included in every other model, such as Wi-Fi connectivity and two speakers, were gone.
Known as the PSP Street, players would have to download games from the PlayStation Store onto a PC and then get them onto their device through a USB cable. This alone, combined with the general system running at a lesser level, easily made this the worst version of the PSP, and moremodern gamers would not envymany of these features.
6PSP-1000/PSP
The original version of the PSP has been retroactively referred to as the PSP-1000, due to the 2000 and 3000 models which followed. There were several complaints from fans that needed to be rectified including the heaviness and bulkiness of this original model, and the darker screen which became a problem for many.
The original PSP definitely ran slower than some of the later models which were introduced, and there was no internal memory for storage. All of these points meant that the PSP couldn’t generate the same initial hype as the Nintendo DS, and required later versions for many of these fixes, though thelist of exclusives was an immediate positive.
5PCH-2000/PS Vita Slim
The PS Vita Slim should have been an upgrade to the original. While it did have a better charge rate and memory when compared to the Vita, there was a major problem with the new screen which irritated many players.
Related:PSP Games With Best-Aged GraphicsThe IPS LCD used for this version of the handheld console should have been an improvement from Sony over the original Vita’s OLED panel. Instead, players were quickly reporting problems with colors not being as vivid and the backlight ruining much of the look. These problems plagued the release of the Vita Slim and stopped it from becoming the success that Sony envisioned the original Vita becoming.
4PSP Go
The PSP Go was a later version that aimed to make the console as light and easily carried as possible. While it did manage to retain some of the better points about the earlier versions of the console, it made some mistakes that fans were not on-board with as well.
For instance, the UMD drive which most other versions of the PSP included was gone, and the battery was much more difficult to change when compared to previous versions of the console. This meant the PSP Go wasn’t as much of a success as the slimmest version could have been, still failing tocapture the magic of the Nintendo DS.
3PlayStation Vita
The PlayStation Vita was Sony’s second, and so far their most recent attempt to enter the handheld console market. While it still didn’t take like the latest in Nintendo technology, this time being the Nintendo Switch, this console did manage to make some impact on the market.
Being compatible with PlayStation 4 games made a huge difference, as fans could continue playing their games there when the TV wasn’t available. There were problems with the original Vita console, including a low number of hours of play between charges and low internal storage. Despite having access to a huge game librarythrough the PlayStation store, the expense of the Vita compared to a Nintendo 3DS let it down in the end.
2PSP-2000/PSP Slim
The second version of the PSP, which slimmed down the initial design without making it quite as small as fans may have wished, was celebrated. Featuring a better screen and a memory that was double the size of the original, or the PSP-1000, was ahuge help in selling the PSP Slim.
Most of the features that fans liked, such as the UMD drive, easily replaceable battery, and great ability to run homebrews, were all still there. Added was the ability to run Skype, and a video out option, which lifted the capabilities strongly from the original version.
1PSP-3000/PSP Brite
Referred to as the PSP Brite because of the greatly improved screen on this model compared to previous ones, the PSP-3000 was improved in a number of ways and is generally considered to be the best of the lot when it came to PSP models.
With all the advantages of the PSP-2000 in addition to the better screen, there wasn’t much left to do for Sony in terms of improving the PSP. This edition came out soon after 2000 and only improved in minor ways on that one, but that was all it needed to do for it to be declared the best.
