Sony Releases the PlayStation Portable in North America

The PlayStation Portable (officially abbreviated PSP, and sometimes referred to as PSP-1000) is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment.

Development of the console was first announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on May 11, 2004 at a Sony press conference before E3 2004. The system was released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in the PAL region on September 1, 2005.

The PlayStation Portable is the first handheld video game console to use an optical disc format, Universal Media Disc (UMD), as its primary storage medium. Other distinguishing features of the console include its large viewing screen, robust multi-media capabilities, and connectivity with the PlayStation 3, other PSPs, and the Internet.

Despite the console's superior computing power and multimedia capabilities, sales have (with cyclical exceptions) lagged behind its main competitor, the Nintendo DS. Nevertheless, the console is "the most successful non-Nintendo handheld game system ever sold". After the release of a remodeled, slimmer, and lighter version of the PlayStation Portable, appropriately titled Slim and Lite, in early September 2007, sales quadrupled in the United Kingdom the following week and increased by nearly 200% in North America for the month of October.

Finally the charging was done and I tossed in the memory stick pro duo and fired up TWISTED METAL: HEAD-ON. The first thing I noticed though was that the handheld had some stuck pixels, five to be exact, across the screen. As Sony specifically warns of this in their manual, I'm imagining they aren't going to do much about this for the typical gamer. Fortunately, they aren't too noticeable, the worst part is I have three in about the area of a quarter, and that is the most noticeable of the stuck parts.

Besides that, the screen is absolutely gorgeous, as is the handheld. You might expect though that the glossy finish is a magnet for finger prints, and you'll find yourself wiping off the handheld frequently. Outside of that though, the unit is sleak and clean.