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PlayStation PortableFrom Sega Retro
Variations and accessoriesThe 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 USD $199, HKD $1360, CDN $229.99, EUR €199, AUD $299.99 and GBP £149.99. The Value Pack contains everything the core does, as well as a 32 MB 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 USD $249.99, CDN $279.99, GBP £179.99, JPY ¥26,040, HKD $1660, SGD $455.00, EUR €209, AUD $399.00 and NZD $429.00. In some areas, the Value Pack has been superseded by the Entertainment Pack, containing the items of the Core Pack plus a copy of ATV Offroad Fury: Blazin' Trails, the UMD movie Lords of Dogtown, and a 1 GB Memory Stick Pro Duo. 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. It retails for JPY ¥29,800, USD $299, CDN $349, and GBP £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. Optional accessories offered by Sony include the PlayStation Portable headset, carrying case, extended-life 2200 mAh battery, headphones with remote control, battery charger, car adapter, accessories pouch and cleaning cloth, AC adapter, and system pouch and wrist strap. ColorsPlayStation Portable is currently available in five colors: black, white, pink, blue, and silver. The white variation is available in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, and Europe, while the pink variation is available only in Europe, Hong Kong and Japan. The silver and metallic blue variations were released on December 14, 2006 and December 21, 2006 respectively in Japan and Hong Kong exclusively. Design and specificationsTechnical specificationsThe PlayStation Portable was designed by Shin'ichi Ogasawara [小笠原伸一] for the Sony Computer Entertainment subsidiary of Sony Corporation. Early models were made in Japan but in order to cut costs, Sony has farmed out PlayStation Portable production to non Japanese manufacturers, mainly in China. The unit measures 170 mm (6.7 inches) in length, 74 mm (2.9 inches) in width, and 23 mm (0.9 inches) in depth, and has a mass of 280 grams (a weight of 0.62 lbs) including the battery. The TFT LCD screen measures 110 mm (4.3 in) diagonal with a 16:9 ratio and a 480×272 pixel resolution capable of 16.77 million colors. The PlayStation Portable's main microprocessor is a multifunction device that includes a MIPS R4000-based CPU, hardware for multimedia decoding (such as H.264), as well as a vector unit dubbed "Virtual Mobile Engine". The MIPS CPU core is globally clocked between 1 and 333 MHz. During the 2005 Game Developers Conference, Sony revealed that it had capped the PlayStation Portable's CPU clock speed at 222 MHz for licensed software. Its reasons for doing so are unknown, but are the subject of some speculation. Various homebrew tools enable users to operate at 333 MHz, generally leading to a higher framerate at the expense of battery life. The system has 32 MiB main RAM and 4 MiB embedded DRAM. There is no memory management unit for the CPU. No evidence of a translation lookaside buffer has been found. The coprocessor that normally manages the TLB-based MMU seems to be a custom effort by Sony and has no integrated memory. The 166 MHz graphics chip has 2 MiB embedded memory and through its 512 bit interface provides hardware polygon and NURBS rendering, hardware directional lighting, clipping, environment projection and texture mapping, texture compression and tessellation, fogging, alpha blending, depth and stencil tests, vertex blending for morphing effects, and dithering, all in 16 or 24 bit color. The graphics chip also handles image output. Specifications state that the PlayStation Portable is capable of rendering 33 million flat-shaded polygons per second, with a 664 million pixel per second fill rate. Battery LifePlayStation Portable's battery life varies widely depending on application from less than 3 hours while accessing a wireless network and having screen brightness on its highest setting to more than 10 hours during MP3 playback with the screen turned off. A sleep mode is also available that uses minimal battery power to keep the system's RAM active, allowing for "instant on" functionality. InterfaceThe PlayStation Portable's main menu interface is the "Cross Media Bar" (XMB) used by recent Sony TVs, the PSX (DVR) hardware, and the PS3. It consists of a horizontal sequence of icons, in this case Settings, Photo, Music, Video, Games, and Network, which show a vertical sequence of sub-icons when highlighted. The main menu system allows the user to, amongst other things, adjust settings such as date, time, and the PlayStation Portable's nickname for wireless networking, play video or audio files from the memory stick, load games or movie UMDs, check on estimated battery life, and set the PlayStation Portable into a "link mode" which makes the inserted memory stick available to a PC via USB. The XMB may be accessed at any time in a game by pressing the "Home" button on the console. The PlayStation Portable's default background color changes depending on the current month of the year, as follows:
The user may also manually pick a specific color theme or specify a background from any stored image on the PlayStation Portable memory stick. FirmwareEach PlayStation Portable runs a particular version of the PSP firmware, which comprises the device's operating system and additional core functionality. Firmware updates can be obtained in three ways:
While firmware updates can be used with consoles from any region, Sony recommends only downloading firmware updates released for the region corresponding to the system's place of purchase. Firmware updates have added various features including a web browser, PlayStation Network support, Adobe flash support, additional codecs for images, audio, and video, PlayStation 3 connectivity, as well as security against several security exploits and vulnerabilities. The current firmware version is 5.50 Homebrew developmentIn May 2005, it was found that PlayStation Portables using the 1.00 version of the firmware (meaning original, first launch Japanese-only PlayStation Portables) could execute unsigned code. What this meant in practice was that these PlayStation Portables could run homebrew software, as the mechanism for checking to make sure that software has been approved by Sony had not yet been activated. Later exploits have allowed for PlayStation Portables using later versions of the firmware to run homebrew applications, and development of both new exploits to bypass restrictions and new restrictions to limit unauthorized programs is ongoing.
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