So today’s article I wrote is just me plodding along wondering out loud why the Sony PSP has become so popular again all of a sudden.
I mean, clearly “so popular” is an exaggeration in the grand scheme of things, these are no-doubt extremely small numbers compared to other handhelds available. Scrolling social media really has shown a lot of them on feeds for me in 2026.
If you’re interested in why I think they’re showing up more lately, then read on with my article. I go through a reason in each ‘section’, but If you’ve got your own ideas, I’d love to hear them below here. Oh and if you’re thinking:
“hey there’s no in-depth investigative journalism here, it just looks like they wanted an excuse to write about the PSP!!!”
…you’d be right. I’ve been obsessed with them lately. This is my 4th PSP article in a very short time. I do so love them!
Anyway, if you want to see some old PSP TV ads, some nostalgia, and want to chat about PSPs (plz do), then here’s the link:
Not true! OSTENT have wonderful batteries and have long-since become the default recommendation. I have a 1400 mAh one in mine (slight bump up on the regular capacity)
Nice. I already got one that deteriorated shockingly quickly then decided a retro handheld was the way to go. As a bonus the emulator fast forward helped me finally make it through persona 1 lol
They 100% are, and they’re so amazing these days! I have the Anbernic RG Vita Pro, the Retroid Pocket 6 and the TRIMUI Brick Pro sent to me to review next up! But there really is some satisfaction on playing games on their native hardware, even if all of these three can upscale those PSP games a trillion percent to look perfect
Man, I gotta check how the battery for my PSP3000 is, and the microSD card on it. The internals work perfectly, those two things are the only ones that seem likely to give out anytime soon. My little buddy is 14yo now. I don’t think I ever played any of the 3 UMD games that came with it, I immediately jailbroke it after purchase
It’s not “retro” in the same way a much older console is. It’s closer, more relatable, and maybe more importantly, more usable. It still fits into modern life without needing to be explained.
I think this is something extremely important. Looking at stuff from 20 years ago was much different when the current year was 2006 - we’d be looking at the mid 80s. Computers of the 80s and even the early 90s became obsolete fast, whatever you had in 2006, even if it was 4 years old at the time, felt light years ahead of anything from 1986 and would be internet capable.
Games from the 80s were also comparably “archaic”, as the hardware limitations were much more significant and several then current games could never happen in that old hardware (NES, C64, ZX Spectrum, Amiga 500), and that’s ignoring graphical complexity. Meanwhile, a number of current day games could exist in 2006, so long as the graphics were appropriately scaled down (Total War games being a perfect example).
Some people would talk shit, but no one ever blinked an eye at reading a book. Now everyone is on their phones if they have to wait in a line for 30 seconds lol
They™ were right, we need to connect with each other not isolate in media. Doesn’t matter if it’s cheap newsprint or an oled, problem is all staring up at what’s presented vs over at each other
I started taking my 1st gen switch on my bus commute & honestly it rules, especially compared to the doomscreen of sadness. Hope you find your old portable buddy!
I’m someone who played on Nintendo handhelds growing up, but I always admired the design of the PSP. It felt so much sleeker than the DS at the time, and it’s remarkable how impressive it looks even today.
What are the most interesting hacks and tinkering projects that you can get up to with a PSP or Vita today? I’m considering getting one now.
Yeah, I’m confused most nostalgia veers towards the PSP, when the follow-on was fully backwards compatible. Weirdly enough, some of the best AAA blockbusters I played on the Vita were first written for the PSP.
I’m an oddity in that I never jailbroke mine. I just really enjoyed playing indie PSN games on it, since most teams releasing on PS3 and not driving a graphical powerhouse could just do a side release there.
Tbh, like the 3DS, will definitely get more expensive as well.
I’m hoping there will be a renaissance of smaller, low-stakes, offline capable dedicated handheld gaming/media on the go by the big boys but it’s wishful thinking at this point. I was speaking to a younger colleague the other day and one of my favourite things about the PSP/DS era of gaming was Game sharing where some games enabled you to send over a limited version of a game to a second device to play ad-hoc local wrireless multiplayer even if only one of you had the game.
This is a missing recipe in today’s gaming landscape IMO.
PSP was great, some stand out games were crush (2/3d puzzle), jrpgs like the final fantasy tactics remake and Joan of arc, rhythm games like loco roco and patapon, and easy to install custom firmware to play emulated games PSP or some others like Gameboy or snes.
Oh man I loved my PSP back in the day, I played a ton in it. I had a modded one and I also installed PSX and GBA emulators.
I remember that when I bought it, it came already modded but it wasn’t a permanent mod. To activate the mod after rebooting I had to navigate to the images folder and load up a PNG (I think?) image that was called Chicken or something like that. The most annoying part was that it didn’t work consistently, so often times it would cause the console to hang and I had to try again. It always blew my mind how an image could trigger the hack like that, looking back I guess it was a malicious payload or something and some race condition somewhere idk.
If I remember correctly, after a couple years I was able to change the mod to a permanent one. I sold it like 10 years ago
I keep my PSP in the drawer under my cash register in my shop, and play it from time to time when I have people who are looking with no intent to buy anything, but the screen is too small, and too low resolution for my old eyes to use for anything serious.
I have never owned a vita. Can they play PSP games?
They can indeed! Well, a modded one can. From my last rabbit hole dive I can tell ya that the Vita has the PSP hardware built in so it while I think it’s technically “emulating” the PSP it runs it like native cuz…well it is.
So yeah, from the Vita you can launch the PSP emulator and it will run and function just like the PSP. Legit just running its own software so you’d almost never know you were on a Vita!
I’m just a written content gaming journalist, so I’m far removed from what is typical in the retro handheld scene! There’s few of us now, and I’m proud that we don’t have ads or click-bait nonsense compared to 99% of other sites.
You can check it out in a few days’ time (Anbernic has sent me another unit because mine had a unique malfunction occur):
And…thanks for wanting to! That’s made me super happy!
As far as a comparison to Sony’s PS Vita, it won’t ever be able to play that full library. No handheld (or even the most powerful PC on the planet) is able to do that as far as the emulator goes right now. The emulator itself is far too immature, but things do improve over time! I’ve tried a bunch of games, but they vary with how well they run. MGS: Collection for example - MGS2 played perfectly and looked great, but then MGS3 aside from loading until I landed from the parachute sequence, refused to ever even boot to the menu after that! Again, its the emulator, not the hardware.
PSP on this is fantastic though. I’ve played SO many games upscaled nicely. It can even manage some light Switch games (very light), so it is a great all-rounder.
So many comments hate on it for the name without being able to play all of the Vita games. Conveniently forgetting none can. So many are hating on the price for the specs (I think they’re forgetting the RAM crisis!).
You, good sir, are what I love to see in a space like this. I’ve got your site now and will be keeping an eye out for that review for sure 😄.
About the comparison, very good to know! I always figured when companies put out products like this they have the OG hardware that doesn’t just emulate the old console like I’ve seen done with…I think it was a SNES or something?..either way, didn’t realize it’s still just running emulation software to get those results, makes sense though!
Cuz heck, even it can only really run PSP games (which is how they prolly should have marketed it) it looks to be a great piece of hardware for playing those on. Especially for those people who can’t get their hands on an old PS Vita that hopefully works.
Side note too, I see your a gamer after my own heart with MGS being in your top suite of games to test. Love me some Hideo Kojima.
This inspired me to go dig out my old PSP only to discover that I have no battery… I threw it out when it pillowed years ago and forgot about it. I’ll have to play on Retrodeck for now!
Same thing just happened to me. I dug up my old psp from my childhood and the battery was crazy thick. I’m glad I caight it before it committed a Note 7.
I picked up a 2 pack with a USB charger from amazon for like 10 bucks last year, then when I dug out my old PSP the battery was fine. I love my old PSP.
Out of curiosity, how does it compare to EmuDeck? I haven’t personally used RetroDeck, so I was wondering if it had anything that would make me switch from EmuDeck.
I think it is the better of the two. I dislike how EmuDeck organizes itself (it doesn’t). Last time I had it installed, it had 32GB in so many different incomprehensible folders in my Steam Deck. I had three emulators running, with a handful of games. It was also a complete nightmare to uninstall when the time came. But in the end, it just comes down to preference.
RetroDECK can all run from a SD card. ROMs, BIOS, HD texture packs, mods, everything runs perfectly and in a nice little self-contained space. I love it!
You can always test it out, if you have a spare SD card they’ll run side-by-side. And you can read my interviews, chats and articles with the RetroDECK team too, if you’d like to see what they’re all about :)
EVERYONE is getting one? Bruh, that is simply not the case, don’t make stuff up just to sensationalize for clicks and engagement just because your TikTok algorithm started showing you more PSP stuff. You’re literally just spreading your TikTok garbage over to here now trying to “make fetch happen.” Be better man, you’re doing their work for nothing. For real.
I don’t think people who say “everyone” ever literally means “everyone”. It’s a niche and the hype around old devices is real so the author is just commenting on it. I get hating sensationalized titles but this really isn’t as terrible as you are making it out to be.
If Dash says “everyone’s getting one,” who are you to determine who belongs in that set or if Dash’s lived experience and perceived uptick in PSP purchases is invalid? It’s Dash’s observation that many people are suddenly picking up used PSPs. Chill the heck out, my dawg. Comments like this make the world a genuinely worse place to be.
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PPSSPP because I can’t trust second hand dealers anymore.
Why not? Are they selling broken stuff now or something?
Or something.
???
I mean, probably cheaper than a modern pi for a server…
https://www.techradar.com/how-to/portable-devices/gaming/handhelds/how-to-install-linux-on-your-psp-409951
As far as I’m aware it’s impossible to get a decent quality battery replacement for PSP these days
Not true! OSTENT have wonderful batteries and have long-since become the default recommendation. I have a 1400 mAh one in mine (slight bump up on the regular capacity)
Nice. I already got one that deteriorated shockingly quickly then decided a retro handheld was the way to go. As a bonus the emulator fast forward helped me finally make it through persona 1 lol
They 100% are, and they’re so amazing these days! I have the Anbernic RG Vita Pro, the Retroid Pocket 6 and the TRIMUI Brick Pro sent to me to review next up! But there really is some satisfaction on playing games on their native hardware, even if all of these three can upscale those PSP games a trillion percent to look perfect
This is making me want to go dig out my PSP.
No better time than now!
Man, I gotta check how the battery for my PSP3000 is, and the microSD card on it. The internals work perfectly, those two things are the only ones that seem likely to give out anytime soon. My little buddy is 14yo now. I don’t think I ever played any of the 3 UMD games that came with it, I immediately jailbroke it after purchase
I think this is something extremely important. Looking at stuff from 20 years ago was much different when the current year was 2006 - we’d be looking at the mid 80s. Computers of the 80s and even the early 90s became obsolete fast, whatever you had in 2006, even if it was 4 years old at the time, felt light years ahead of anything from 1986 and would be internet capable.
Games from the 80s were also comparably “archaic”, as the hardware limitations were much more significant and several then current games could never happen in that old hardware (NES, C64, ZX Spectrum, Amiga 500), and that’s ignoring graphical complexity. Meanwhile, a number of current day games could exist in 2006, so long as the graphics were appropriately scaled down (Total War games being a perfect example).
I felt weird/guilty using mine in public, like staring down at a little rectangle was unsocial or bad for you or something…
Turns out, it’s more like digital detox! It would be cool these days.
Ugh, where is it!? I know I still have mine.
Some people would talk shit, but no one ever blinked an eye at reading a book. Now everyone is on their phones if they have to wait in a line for 30 seconds lol
Theytm had the same attitudes against newspapers and books at first. It takes a bit to normalise things(and for the old guard to die off)
They™ were right, we need to connect with each other not isolate in media. Doesn’t matter if it’s cheap newsprint or an oled, problem is all staring up at what’s presented vs over at each other
Do you think people should have to stay in their houses if they want to read/game?
No, just wish they’d go out (or stay in!) and talk to each other more :(
I started taking my 1st gen switch on my bus commute & honestly it rules, especially compared to the doomscreen of sadness. Hope you find your old portable buddy!
Staring at a little screen that brings you entertainment & joy: 😡
Staring at a little screen that fills you with anger, dread, and despair: 🤩
One is shoving ads in your face and the other isn’t.
I’m someone who played on Nintendo handhelds growing up, but I always admired the design of the PSP. It felt so much sleeker than the DS at the time, and it’s remarkable how impressive it looks even today.
What are the most interesting hacks and tinkering projects that you can get up to with a PSP or Vita today? I’m considering getting one now.
Phats had IR ports so anything with IR can be played with.
It can emulate a lot of old systems including the n64 to some degree. PS1 too.
The web browser became useless for the modern web a long time ago, but it can still be used for very small/simple sites.
Lots of homebrew games out there.
Great platform to learn Lua on
It’s basically cracked open entirely… So good learning platform for that too.
This but PS Vita*
Yeah, I’m confused most nostalgia veers towards the PSP, when the follow-on was fully backwards compatible. Weirdly enough, some of the best AAA blockbusters I played on the Vita were first written for the PSP.
I’m an oddity in that I never jailbroke mine. I just really enjoyed playing indie PSN games on it, since most teams releasing on PS3 and not driving a graphical powerhouse could just do a side release there.
Yes Vita with custom Rom is a beast.
Whoa whoa whoa, there’s custom ROMs for Vita???
And it’s super easy to exploit, barely an inconvenience
Even the “back ups” can be downloaded from the official servers
You can play most of the old consoles on it.
Vita is nice, but expensive as well
Tbh, like the 3DS, will definitely get more expensive as well.
I’m hoping there will be a renaissance of smaller, low-stakes, offline capable dedicated handheld gaming/media on the go by the big boys but it’s wishful thinking at this point. I was speaking to a younger colleague the other day and one of my favourite things about the PSP/DS era of gaming was Game sharing where some games enabled you to send over a limited version of a game to a second device to play ad-hoc local wrireless multiplayer even if only one of you had the game.
This is a missing recipe in today’s gaming landscape IMO.
Vita means life
PSP was great, some stand out games were crush (2/3d puzzle), jrpgs like the final fantasy tactics remake and Joan of arc, rhythm games like loco roco and patapon, and easy to install custom firmware to play emulated games PSP or some others like Gameboy or snes.
Oh man I loved my PSP back in the day, I played a ton in it. I had a modded one and I also installed PSX and GBA emulators.
I remember that when I bought it, it came already modded but it wasn’t a permanent mod. To activate the mod after rebooting I had to navigate to the images folder and load up a PNG (I think?) image that was called Chicken or something like that. The most annoying part was that it didn’t work consistently, so often times it would cause the console to hang and I had to try again. It always blew my mind how an image could trigger the hack like that, looking back I guess it was a malicious payload or something and some race condition somewhere idk.
If I remember correctly, after a couple years I was able to change the mod to a permanent one. I sold it like 10 years ago
I went down this rabbit hole last year. Modded PSP is/was great, but modded PS Vita is SO much better…and easier.
I keep my PSP in the drawer under my cash register in my shop, and play it from time to time when I have people who are looking with no intent to buy anything, but the screen is too small, and too low resolution for my old eyes to use for anything serious.
I have never owned a vita. Can they play PSP games?
They can indeed! Well, a modded one can. From my last rabbit hole dive I can tell ya that the Vita has the PSP hardware built in so it while I think it’s technically “emulating” the PSP it runs it like native cuz…well it is.
So yeah, from the Vita you can launch the PSP emulator and it will run and function just like the PSP. Legit just running its own software so you’d almost never know you were on a Vita!
That is just… gorgeous 😍
So beautiful!
The new Anbernic RG Vita Pro! They sent me one to review, and I’ve been having such a wonderful time with it :)
Well first off, nice!! Secondly, what platform you on? I’ll have to give your review a watch/read. How’s it stack up against the OG Vita?
Thank you!!!
I’m just a written content gaming journalist, so I’m far removed from what is typical in the retro handheld scene! There’s few of us now, and I’m proud that we don’t have ads or click-bait nonsense compared to 99% of other sites.
You can check it out in a few days’ time (Anbernic has sent me another unit because mine had a unique malfunction occur):
https://gardinerbryant.com/author/dash/
But I’ll also share the link/some thoughts and a post here in this community on Lemmy!
If you’re on Mastodon though, you can follow along with me there:
https://mastodon.social/@flwwhtrbt
And…thanks for wanting to! That’s made me super happy!
As far as a comparison to Sony’s PS Vita, it won’t ever be able to play that full library. No handheld (or even the most powerful PC on the planet) is able to do that as far as the emulator goes right now. The emulator itself is far too immature, but things do improve over time! I’ve tried a bunch of games, but they vary with how well they run. MGS: Collection for example - MGS2 played perfectly and looked great, but then MGS3 aside from loading until I landed from the parachute sequence, refused to ever even boot to the menu after that! Again, its the emulator, not the hardware.
PSP on this is fantastic though. I’ve played SO many games upscaled nicely. It can even manage some light Switch games (very light), so it is a great all-rounder.
So many comments hate on it for the name without being able to play all of the Vita games. Conveniently forgetting none can. So many are hating on the price for the specs (I think they’re forgetting the RAM crisis!).
You, good sir, are what I love to see in a space like this. I’ve got your site now and will be keeping an eye out for that review for sure 😄.
About the comparison, very good to know! I always figured when companies put out products like this they have the OG hardware that doesn’t just emulate the old console like I’ve seen done with…I think it was a SNES or something?..either way, didn’t realize it’s still just running emulation software to get those results, makes sense though!
Cuz heck, even it can only really run PSP games (which is how they prolly should have marketed it) it looks to be a great piece of hardware for playing those on. Especially for those people who can’t get their hands on an old PS Vita that hopefully works.
Side note too, I see your a gamer after my own heart with MGS being in your top suite of games to test. Love me some Hideo Kojima.
Designers Republic art detected.
Neat. Took me a while to make out the title, though.
This inspired me to go dig out my old PSP only to discover that I have no battery… I threw it out when it pillowed years ago and forgot about it. I’ll have to play on Retrodeck for now!
Same thing just happened to me. I dug up my old psp from my childhood and the battery was crazy thick. I’m glad I caight it before it committed a Note 7.
I picked up a 2 pack with a USB charger from amazon for like 10 bucks last year, then when I dug out my old PSP the battery was fine. I love my old PSP.
Have an uovote for mentioning my fav Steam Deck software! I love RetroDECK and can’t stop recommending it!
Out of curiosity, how does it compare to EmuDeck? I haven’t personally used RetroDeck, so I was wondering if it had anything that would make me switch from EmuDeck.
I think it is the better of the two. I dislike how EmuDeck organizes itself (it doesn’t). Last time I had it installed, it had 32GB in so many different incomprehensible folders in my Steam Deck. I had three emulators running, with a handful of games. It was also a complete nightmare to uninstall when the time came. But in the end, it just comes down to preference.
RetroDECK can all run from a SD card. ROMs, BIOS, HD texture packs, mods, everything runs perfectly and in a nice little self-contained space. I love it!
You can always test it out, if you have a spare SD card they’ll run side-by-side. And you can read my interviews, chats and articles with the RetroDECK team too, if you’d like to see what they’re all about :)
https://gardinerbryant.com/tag/retrodeck/
Same, it’s brilliant, and the devs have created the nicest community around it too.
EVERYONE is getting one? Bruh, that is simply not the case, don’t make stuff up just to sensationalize for clicks and engagement just because your TikTok algorithm started showing you more PSP stuff. You’re literally just spreading your TikTok garbage over to here now trying to “make fetch happen.” Be better man, you’re doing their work for nothing. For real.
I don’t think people who say “everyone” ever literally means “everyone”. It’s a niche and the hype around old devices is real so the author is just commenting on it. I get hating sensationalized titles but this really isn’t as terrible as you are making it out to be.
I really didn’t think that:
a) my article was click-bait (we’re a reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally small site, there’s no need to even try click-bait!), and
b) I needed to explain that I didn’t mean ‘everyone’
Glad you can see that, this seems weirdly attack-y.
before making stupid comments like this, read my article “why everyone is stocking up on sand”: https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ
If Dash says “everyone’s getting one,” who are you to determine who belongs in that set or if Dash’s lived experience and perceived uptick in PSP purchases is invalid? It’s Dash’s observation that many people are suddenly picking up used PSPs. Chill the heck out, my dawg. Comments like this make the world a genuinely worse place to be.
Hyperbole is a rhetorical device
Everybody was not, in fact, kung-fu fighting.