PlayStation Portable - SONY’s handheld game console
PlayStation Portable, PSP, also known as PSP FAT; PSP Slim and Lite; PSP Bright; PSP Street is a handheld video game console manufactured by Sony Computer Entertainment. The PlayStation Portable is Sony's third product in the PlayStation line. The PSP was announced at E3 2003, and the first console was shown to the public on May 11, 2004 at a press conference held by Sony during E3 2004. The console first went on sale in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005 and in PAL regions September 1, 2005
The PlayStation Portable was the first handheld game console to use the Universal Media Disc (UMD) optical drive as its primary storage medium.
On January 27, 2011, Sony announced the next handheld console, the PlayStation Vita, formerly known as the Next Generation Portable (NGP).
Sony's ideas for creating a portable console appeared back in 1997, when the PocketStation portable console entered the Japanese market. But sales did not work out, and already in 1998 the company curtailed the production of this portable game console.
Sony first announced the development of the PlayStation Portable at a press conference prior to E3 2003. Although a prototype of the console was not shown at the press conference itself or at E3, Sony released a large number of technical details about the new system. At the time, Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Ken Kutaragi called the device the "Walkman of the 21st Century" in confirmation of the console's multimedia capabilities. Several gaming websites were impressed with the console's computing capabilities and foresaw the system's potential as a gaming platform.
The first concept images of the PSP appeared in November 2002 at Sony's corporate strategy meeting, showing a PSP with flat buttons and no analog tablet. While some expressed concerns about the lack of an analog joystick, those concerns were dispelled when the PSP was officially unveiled at Sony's press conference during E3 2004. In addition to announcing more information about the system and its accessories, Sony also released a list of 99 companies -developers who have declared support for the new console. The conference also featured several demos of PSP games such as Metal Gear Acid and Wipeout Pure SCE Studio Liverpool.