PSP
From Gamedatawiki
The PlayStation Portable (officially abbreviated as PSP) is a handheld game console released and manufactured by Sony Computer Entertainment. Its development was first announced during E3 2003, and it was officially unveiled on May 11, 2004 at a Sony press conference before E3 2004. The system was released in Japan on December 12, 2004, the United States and Canada on March 24, 2005 and in Europe and Australia on September 1, 2005. The PlayStation Portable offers the ability to play video games, watch videos, listen to music, view photos, as well as Internet browsing functionality.
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Variations and accessories
The PlayStation Portable is available as part of the Value Pack or Core Pack, and in most territories it is also available as part of a Giga Pack and an Entertainment Pack. In Japan a base unit package or Core Pack was available at launch and was later released in North America and Europe. The Core Pack contains the console, a battery, and an AC adapter. The Core Pack retails for £149.99. The Value Pack contains everything the core does, as well as a 32 Megabyte Memory Stick Pro Duo, earphones with remote control, a slip-case, a wrist strap, and a Sampler Disc (in some territories). The Value Pack retails for £179.99. In some areas, the Value Pack has been superseded by the Entertainment Pack, which also contains a copy of ATV Offroad Fury: Blazin' Trails, the UMD movie Lords of Dogtown, and a 1 GB Memory Stick Pro Duo in place of the 32 MB one offered in the Value Pack. The Giga Pack is similar to the value pack, except the Memory Stick Pro Duo is upped to 1 GB, and includes a USB Cable and stand. The Giga Pack retails for £214. The Giga Pack is still available in all territories except North America, as the deal was based on a special offer that ended after the 2005 holiday season. Various other packages also exist.
Playstation Portable is currently available in three colors: black, white, and pink. The white variation is available in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, and Europe, while the pink variation is exclusively available in Europe. Silver and metallic blue variations are set to release on 14 December and 21 December respectively in Japan exclusively.
Optional accessories offered by Sony include the PlayStation Portable headset, carrying case, extended-life 2200 battery, headphones with remote control, battery charger, car adapter, accessories pouch and cleaning cloth, AC adapter, and system pouch and wrist strap.
Features
Controls
Despite its movie and music playback capabilities, the PlayStation Portable has primarily gaming-oriented controls (as opposed to the controls typical to television remotes or MP3 players: two shoulder buttons, the PlayStation face buttons (triangle, circle, cross, square), start and select buttons, a digital 4-directional pad, and an analog stick. There is also a row of secondary controls along the underside of the screen, for controlling volume, music settings (either switching the audio off and on in games or selecting different equalizer presets), screen brightness, and accessing the system's main menu.
The PlayStation Portable's analog stick, often referred to as the analog "nub", is a circular disc which slides rather than tilts. The PlayStation Portable's analog stick can also be easily removed and replaced with a third party stick.
Gamesharing
Some titles for the PlayStation Portable support a feature dubbed "gamesharing", which facilitates a limited set of multiplayer features between two PlayStation Portables with only one copy of the game UMD. A reduced version of the game being shared is transferred to the PlayStation Portable without a UMD via the PlayStation Portable's Wi-Fi connection, whereupon it is loaded into RAM (Random Access Memory) and runs.
Such "gameshare versions" of titles usually have their feature set reduced because of technical limitations. This is mainly due to transfer times since data for the game must be transferred to the second PlayStation Portable wirelessly, at a rate of 11 megabits per second. Also, since the game data is stored in the PlayStation Portable's RAM, there is a storage limit of 32 MB.
