The Evolution Of The PSP
Game bounds chronicles the handheld's hardware history.
August 29, 2008 - In the past three years since the PlayStation Portable first hit North American markets, Sony has revised, tweaked, and built upon the system. With the first iteration of the system, the PSP-1000, Sony's primary focus was to establish the format as a successful portable platform, and drop retail costs as much as possible; to that end, Sony certainly succeeded. In the first two days following the PSP's debut, Sony reported that they had sold over 500,000 systems worldwide. In the years to follow, Sony would boost sales by introducing limited edition models, revisions to hardware and retail configurations, which have lead the total worldwide sales of the system to exceed 41 million worldwide.
Now, with the release of the latest major revision to the system, the PSP-3000 right around the corner, takes a look at the evolution of the PSP.
The Sony PlayStation Portable began with the PSP-1000. Bulky, but bustling with features, the PSP brought unparalleled power to the mobile gaming format. Boasting a 4.3" TFT LCD screen with the capacity to display video images at 480 x 272 resolution with over 16 million different colors, the PSP-1000 featured incredibly detailed and vibrant displays. The PSP's primary media processing block comes from a dedicated 32-bit MIPS32 R4k-based CPU, similar to that which powers the primary operating system.
In terms of raw processing power, the PSP's CPU had a maximum clocking speed of 333 MHz. For unknown reasons, however, the PSP-1000's CPU was originally capped at 222 MHz. Fortunately, in the months to follow the platform's launch, enthusiastic hackers managed to uncork the code of the PSP firmware and were then able to run the system at maximum capacity. The PSP-1000 packed 32MB of ram, 8 times that of the Nintendo DS. One of the most compelling features of the PSP, however, is the Wi-Fi connectivity of the PSP. With it's built-in web browser and other web-enabled programs like remote play.
However, the PSP-1000 wasn't without its flaws. Shortly after launch, the volumes of readers reported issues like dead pixels in their LCD displays, unfavorably short battery life, and extended load times. But within the next year, Sony sought to remedy many of these issues with the introduction
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