aliens helped them

MIPS.

>>108700873
by selling it at a loss and charging you for the storage.

>>108700873
with soul

with blood, sweat and tears. instead of the half backed middle ground tosh we get right now, actual engineers worked on it and wanted a proper product well made.

>>108700873
yeah it truly felt like it was trying to bridge the gap between handhelds and consoles, for psp the stepdown for ports wasn't nearly as big as handhelds before it

wish i never sold mine when i needed cash back then
it was the most perfect handheld ever
golden era of life

>>108700873
>all other handhelds after this were not trying to push tech to a new level
idk man, the 3D on the 3DS is crazy

>>108701172
for the first iteration of it you had to hold it in an exact position and keep your head very still for it to work, and by the time they fixed it for the new version most developers had already dropped the 3d gimmick

>>108701172
The 3DS was criminally underpowered, though.
Even without the 3D you had games lagging on it. Not even late life games.

>>108700873
The display was kind of shit, but fine for the time. UMDs and their proprietary SD card alternatives were garbage. Instead of wasting time, money and handheld space on UMDs they could've had better internals, battery and/or screen, and just used their shitty "Memory Stick Pro Duo" as game cartridges. The ergonomics were also pretty bad.

>all other handhelds after this were not trying to push tech to a new level
The Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch definitely did.
Switch wasn't really good in terms of hardware, but the package was overall much better than the PSP. Especially considering it was as easy to jailbreak as the PSP was.
The Steam Deck is literally what people wanted back when the PSP was popular (a handheld for playing PC games and other various consoles the PSP couldn't emulate). The game library on the Steam Deck is absolutely massive. Ergonomics are also significantly better than PSP ergonomics, although the device is too large and heavy for some people. But in general it was a game-changer in many ways.
You don't really need massive innovation on handhelds, just the best price/performance in a given form factor backed with a good library and good I/O. Not to mention that the things PSP tried to "innovate" (UMD, Memory Stick Pro) were absolute ass.

When you compare the PSP to modern handhelds, it's actually really fucking bad. It is $400 after inflation. For $150-$200 you can get the Anbernic RG Vita Pro or Retroid Pocket 5 which are significantly more powerful and have much better screens and bigger game libraries. For $100 more you can get the Retroid Pocket 6 or AYN Thor, both of which are currently/historically the best value handhelds you can buy.

>>108701172
It was a shitty gimmick just like the PSVita rear touch panel.

>>108701172
>the 3D on the 3DS is crazy
That effect is only novel for all of five minutes and then you go:
>Why am I cutting my framerate in half (or more) for this shitty effect?
And turn it off (or get a 2DS, the superior form factor).

>>108700873
>DVD
UMD

>>108701172
Revelaitions looked amazing for a 3DS game and I believe also had the best 3D effect.
There aren't many games like it though. One of its biggest system seller, pokemon, didn't even have 3D.

>>108701185
It wasn't that bad, you kinda naturally, unconsciously adjust to it after a while.
t.own an o3ds

>>108701827
The UMD movies were DVD films just put on UMD and cutting "features" like commentary out due to UMD space.

He's not EXACTLY wrong...

>>108700873
It kinda was ahead of its time, Sony was still deep in the hardware game then. It had a processor comparable to the best PDAs at the time, with a 3D GPU and a (relatively) nice screen on top of that.

>>108701167
You can still buy them pretty cheap but the PSVita would obviously be better value.

>>108700873
i disagree, i like the vita a lot more
the psp cashed in on the multimedia craze of 5 years prior and that was the only thing it did well.

>>108700873
480x272 was a pretty light resolution even for 2004, so it wasn't as demanding as you might think though it was still impressive and definitely ahead of it's time as a concept

>>108701891
I still give the PSP creds for at least trying to be a market leader. It did everything those media players did AND it plays games too.
The Vita instead tried too hard to catch up to smartphones.

>>108700873
Personally, I always found the PSP unplayable because the screen was so terrible.

>>108702015
How do you mean? The Vita blew every single smartphone of the day out of the water as a way to play games. Not only because of the high quality built-in controls, but just by virtue of having a real game library and being much more powerful than even contemporary tablets. It didn't feel like it was even in the same market, in the same way the PSP didn't feel like it was in the same market as a PDA.

>>108702079
>The Vita blew every single smartphone of the day out of the water as a way to play games.
For all of... two years...

It's why that era (PSP2DS) fucking sucked: They were too late for a market that was dead by the end of the PSPDS era.

As soon as Jobs introduced the iPhone to normies (which was just simplifying the Blackberry and Danger Hiptop for mass consumers) it was over for dedicated handheld gaming systems.

>>108702079
The playing games part worked fine but they shoved in features that were clearly just trying to copy phones. It had barebones copies of social media apps, it had an absolutely pointless 3G model, pretty sure when it launched you couldn't even use buttons to navigate the menus you HAD to use the touchscreen.

>>108700873
>>Video games (good graphics)
kinda. also terrible performance, janky controls, sloooooooooooooow
>movies (DVD's)
kek. do I need to explain?
>internet (wifi)
personal porn machine was a decent use case, yes
>music
meh, I already had a decent mp3 player back then. but maybe. unnecessary battery drain, though

>>108700873
2004 wasn't as primitive as you apparently think it is.

>>108702094
imo it was more like 8. and with the caveat that getting any kind of a decent gaming experience on a phone even at that point required you to buy a $1000 flagship android phone and fiddle with an external controller. the vita was imo killed by its lackluster library, not by smartphones. sony just didn't attract enough dev talent to the thing to give it any kind of lasting power.

if there was any lesson to be learned, it's that they should have made it more of an open platform. it leaves them open to piracy, sure, but if we had things like xash3d, it would have had way more appeal as a handheld, only really superceded by the steam deck.

t. got one in 2012 and used it semi-regularly until 2016 when i ran out of games that weren't just psp or ps1 titles or ports of indies, then picked it up again when homebrew started going places

>>108700873
It's not just PSP, just compare Windows XP to Windows 11.

Peak UI.

>>108700873
The PSP launch was the last time I've ever been impressed by technology.

>>108701891
The Vita is better, but the PSP was quite literally what made the handheld boom in the 21st century. There's some places in the world where "PSP" is used an acronym for "gaming handheld". Meanwhile most people never even heard of the PS Vita, it was a flop outside of Japan.

>>108702293
Vita was only better in hardware. In fact Vita's main UI is so bad it's worse than W8 Metro

>>108701677
>$400 after inflation
So what? It was $250 at release. We count price at release, not the inflated price, since it was available in the past before inflation happened.

You're correct that there are better handhelds available at a lower price, such as Retroid Pocket for around $150-200. But, if PSP released today at the same specs, it'd likely be $100. So in actuality, the inflation was deflation, which is why when speaking of prices in the past, you should not adjust for inflation. That's commie bullshit trying to separate you from capitalism's many joys.

>>108702293
>There's some places in the world where "PSP" is used an acronym for "gaming handheld"
No.

>>108701677
>Ergonomics are also significantly better than PSP
my hands go dead after holding the deck for an hour or so

The PSP was a superb handheld, as was and still is the Vita which I still own.

>>108701677
>Especially considering it was as easy to jailbreak as the PSP was
Nah man, all you had to do on the PSP was launch a file or open a photo you'd put on the memory stick. You need to physically interfere in the Switch's operations to hack it. It's not that big of a deal, but still

>>108702580
>We count price at release
"We" don't, only retards do.
>it was available in the past before inflation happened.
And this is why you're retarded. In the past salaries were much smaller than today. Your annual salary (in US, for example) in 2004 would be 40k while it's 80k in 2025.
If you want to think of it as a $250 device, then you have to mentally shift into your salary and disposable income being half of what they currently are. Which is a retarded way of thinking about things and exactly why "we" always talk in prices accounting for inflation.
>if PSP released today at the same specs, it'd likely be $100
It would be less considering Anbernic RG40XXH and similar handhelds exist in the $50-$70 price range. The hardware in the PSP is significantly worse than those devices, at least the display, controls, connectivity, etc. Sure, those can't play almost any PSP game at full speed, but they have access to some consoles the PSP can't emulate (and they're much more open).
The $100 price range already goes into the "I can play PSP at 2x-4x resolution at full speed" territory and the "unlike the PSP, I can play Nintendo 64, DS, Dreamcast and some Saturn/GC/Wii/3DS" territory. And it's dangerously close to the $140-$180 range which gets you PS2 emulation in a handheld.
So a 1:1 copy of a PSP released today would be instantly obsolete at $100 even ignoring the proprietary UMD and Memory Stick Pro Duo gimmicks.

>>108702582
Yes. Some non-gamers in some countries still call gaming handhelds a PSP even to this date. I was literally still hearing it when I bought the Steam Deck. You need to understand that most of the world is technologically illiterate and not into video games.

>>108702827
I mean, I wouldn't count connecting 2 pins as something that's difficult. Especially since many places sold small gadgets which accurately do this for you in case you're clumsy or paranoid. So it's physically similar to the memory card exploits on PSP.

>>108701677
>Switch wasn't really good in terms of hardware, but the package was overall much better than the PSP. Especially considering it was as easy to jailbreak as the PSP was.
>When you compare the PSP to modern handhelds, it's actually really fucking bad.
give me a single device from 2004 that had/could:
>play mp4 and mp3 natively
>wifi
>web browser (no flash sadly)
>local lan with near 0 latency
>could be used as an ir remote
>psn and online gaming
>watch tv (accessory)
>gps (accessory)
>remote play from your ps3
>lots of storage for the time (you could use a microsd with an adapter btw
>swappable battery
>easy to repair
>can be used without a battery
when cracked
>ripping games
>sending files between psp
>play without umd
>youtube/dailymotion/youporn/redtube/etc and you could download the videos, yes, I know youtube is from 2005 but even when psptube and gotube were out there were still no smartphone
>reading ebooks
>play certain avi and mkv videos
>nes emulators
>could convert ps1 games into eboot files so you could play them
>overclock
>customize the ui
>hide files (many of my gen first watched porn on the the psp and could store it safely with this feature)

and that's from the top of my head, I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff, I was the psp hacking guy at school, some days I came home with 5 psp in my bags to crack and tinker with them...
no really, the psp was INSANE value for 249€ (don't know prices in other regions) and way ahead of its time, the switch was already deprecated at launch and had no particular feature taht smartphones of the time (2017) did not have so...
I still have mine, it has over 3000 hours of screen time and is working just fine.
i'm not saying that switch 1/2 are bad but it's just a lie to say that they're better value than what the psp was in its time
I don't trust nu-sony (ie owned by amerimutts) to release something of this caliber, the traitors who decided to give leadership of the brand to mutts should be prosecuted

>>108701677
>>108703110
the reason to account for inflation is to give a better idea of how much something was worth AT THE TIME compared to today. what you're doing is essentially saying "you can buy better tech TODAY than 20 years ago for less". like, NO FUCKING WAI. kys, autismo.

>>108702138
the days before smartphones were absolutely prehistoric, in 2004, dual core CPUs were only available at the high end, most people were still on dial-up, you could actually bait people to come hang out at your businesses by offering free wifi

>>108703388
oh and people actually left their homes to go to cum soaked places called "internet cafes" lmao

>>108703314
>switch was already deprecated at launch
>2017 smartphones
No, anon, you're just saying this because the PSP was the first highly capable handheld. PSP was also "deprecated at launch" by your logic. First of all it had no bluetooth and was released just 1 year before microSD cards were made so it's stuck with UMD/ProDuo dogshit. Also, the following features existed in many budget (70€-100€) feature phones in 2004-2005:
>IR remote
>GPS
>web browsers
>mp3, mp4, 3gp, wav, amr, aac, m4a playback
>memory card storage
>easy to repair
>removable battery
>NES, GB, GBC emulation
>Bluetooth and IR file sharing
>bluetooth headphones
>radio
>video and audio recording

>i'm not saying that switch 1/2 are bad but it's just a lie to say that they're better value than what the psp was in its time
I agree that the PSP was fucking amazing at the time, but so are modern handhelds today. And as I've shown above, many of the things you claim the PSP was good for are there on 2004 phones just like many Switch features were on 2017 phones.
To be fair, the Switch is less capable than Steam Deck (420€) and modern 250€ handhelds, which are more revolutionary. The PSP was locked to the PS1, PSP, NES and GB/GBC. Meanwhile these modern handhelds can run PS2, DS/3DS, Wii, Dreamcast, GC, Saturn, some Switch emulation, and even PC games (you're undervaluing PC games being playable on $50-$250 handhelds). Modern handhelds are also not using shitty proprietary standards. The software is infinitely better. They can do literally everything the PSP can and more.

Honestly to me the first GPD Win was revolutionary because we finally got a somewhat decent PC-capable handheld. And while not really revolutionary as the rest of these, the Switch doubled as a home console and some 2-player games were even playable with only 1 pair of joycons while the PSP required 2 PSP devices for multiplayer.

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>>108701677
>UMDs and their proprietary SD card alternatives were garbage
I liked the umd's, i think theyre nifty.
But yeah the memory sticks were ass, overpriced and liked to shit the bed.
>ergonomics were also pretty bad
They were fine, except for the thumbstick, which was fucking awful, because of the way it made you hold the system, guaranteed hand cramps.

Still blows any new portable out of the water that doesnt have swappable batteries though.
Traded my switch in 3 times just because i wanted a new battery, lost all my saves each time because i didnt want to pay for online.
>>108702127
>personal porn machine was a decent use case, yes
First and only time i tried to dowload some porn on my psp, i got a virus.
However, interestingly, the virus did not seem to effect the psp itself, it just delivered its payload into the first computer i plugged it in to.

>>108700873
I don't know why but I was really impressed with how fast the menu was on psp. It felt really snappy.

>>108704177
>They were fine, except for the thumbstick
Yeah that's basically what I meant. Most games I played I played using the thumb stick. So it was generally a really shit experience compared to even some of the cheapest current handhelds ($60) and controllers ($15-$25).

>>108700873
pros:
>graphics were mindblowing, completely outclassed the DS
>analog stick
>multimedia features
>native internet browser (ds had none of this)
>screen was much higher resolution and much bigger than DS
>looked very cool especially in the MH version (i have one)
cons:
>screen was extremely low quality (unavoidable for the time + size/resolution combo)
>expensive
>retarded media format (UMDs/memsticks)
>just as uncomfortable as DS
>game library was relatively worse than DS
>yeah it had an analog stick but the analog stick was complete shit

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psp accessories were also leagues ahead of ds

>>108703388
>the days before smartphones were absolutely prehistoric
That's not true.

>in 2004, dual core CPUs were only available at the high end
And it cost me like £40.

If you actually wanted these things, and had a part time job, you could afford them pretty easily. Now it costs 10x as much money, so you might be priced out.

>>108701677
All of these criticisms are wrong. The screen was great for the time, UMDs were cheap unlike memory cards, and the ergonomics were great. Like the other guy I replied to, you are a fucking zoomer on this board looking for things that aren't yours to be "nostalgic" about to your friends.

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They were there and willing when it became just about feasible and designed it specifically for gaming/media.
In terms of specs the PSP is nothing special. PDAs launched that year already had faster CPUs, more RAM, etc.

>>108700873
Sony just did things that were possible to do on a handheld device. It only seemed so futuristic because the GBA was a fucking living fossil hardware-wise because of how complacent Nintendo got without real competition, and the DS really wasn't much better.

>>108704614
>you are a fucking zoomer on this board looking for things that aren't yours to be "nostalgic" about to your friends
You're projecting. The PSP is my most used handheld, retard. That's how I know exactly how shit it is. Yes, it was "good enough" for the time but it was still really fucking shit even at the time.
Gaming handhelds only got good in the past 4 years and it took the Switch for companies to start experimenting with handhelds again. So yes, the Switch is definitely a more impactful handheld.
>All of these criticisms are wrong
>All
I'm sorry but if you really think the ergonomics of the PSP are not bad, then you've never even held it in your life and you're just a dumbfuck Sony fanboy. Same with UMD and their shitty SD card alternative, they're ass. UMDs are so inconvenient that most people I know just used their SD cards for launching games and explicitly jailbroke their PSPs not to pirate but to dump iso/cso files to the SD card. UMDs literally made the PSP a non-portable device unless you're only satisfied with carrying 1 game with you.

>>108704725
nta, but
>Gaming handhelds only got good in the past 4 years
zoomie
>and it took the Switch for companies to start experimenting with handhelds again
I wont deny the switch has had impact, but gawd damn i fucking hated that thing, one of the worst handhelds ever imh.o
>Controllers become wobbly as fuck if you even apply even the slightest amount of torque to them, once.
>Controller batteries can randomly die on their own in just a few weeks of sitting on the shelf doing nothing
>No way to transfer save files from one device to another, without paying for online service
>Mediocre battery life becomes absolute shit after just a couple years of use, and theyre a pain to replace
>Requires a bulky case for transport

>UMDs literally made the PSP a non-portable device unless you're only satisfied with carrying 1 game with you.
My psp in a case that also holds 6 umd's, is only half the size of a switch in a case.

PSP is significantly more portable than most of these tablet slab gaming handhelds being released now, for the reason that it was actually an option to transport it without a case.
Any handheld with protruding rubber analog-sticks is a non-portable device im.o. because it requires a case, and typicaly a case so large that you need a backpack to transport it.

PSP actually fits in a pocket, and without snagging its stick.
Clamshell design is obviously peak portable handheld tho. I hate all these new gigantic slabhelds so fuckingmuch.

>>108704857
>PSP is significantly more portable
No it isn't. Your 6 UMDs in a case is nothing compared to a 128GB-512GB SD card or internal storage of modern handhelds carrying hundreds of games inside.
>PSP is significantly more portable than most of these tablet slab gaming handhelds
It's more portable than some of them, but not all of them.
>it was actually an option to transport it without a case.
Unless you want to bring your games with you, of course. In which case even the Steam Deck beats it as massive as it is.
>Any handheld with protruding rubber analog-sticks is a non-portable device im.o. because it requires a case
Just because the PSP has a slightly less protruding analog stick doesn't mean it doesn't have one. I rarely pocketed my PSP but whenever I did it without a case there was a chance the analog stick would get stuck somewhere in my pocket. It required a case for pocketability, so by your definition it's "not portable" I guess?
>zoomie
You're only mad because I'm 100% right.

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>>108704971
>words words words
Yes, a umd is bigger than an sd card.
But a psp in a case with games is half the size of a switch in a case and even moreso compared to the steamdick, and with the psp, the case is actually optional.
Im not a tiktok zoomie so i dont need 100 different games to keep me entertained during a weekend out.
>Just because the PSP has a slightly less protruding analog stick doesn't mean it doesn't have one.
True, but its nothing compared to the fullsize rubber sticks on the switch or steamdeck, theyre like trying to stick an oversized ps5 controller into your pocket.

Also i usually kept my psp in picrel, which essentially recesses the stick, no snagging issue.

>>108704177
>But yeah the memory sticks were ass, overpriced and liked to shit the bed.
The UMD drives in PSPs seemed to shit themselves pretty regularly. I didn't even use the UMD in mine all that much and it still started making loud screeching noises when I did use it. Never had an issue with the memory sticks, though they were extremely overpriced at the time and looking at them on the same shelf as a regular SD card felt like an insult.

>>108705080
Eh, im a sample of one.
I never had any issue with the umd drive, but i killed 2 of the memory sticks.
It was the fault of the formatting, having no wear leveling, if you played a game that autosaved alot it would essentially burn a hole into the card, just saving in the same spot over and over.

>>108705101
Guess I never did that. I really only had 3 UMD games and the rest were PS1 classics. At least now you can use an SD to Memory Stick adapter cheap and large storage but it also exposed an issue where the PSP gets really slow when trying to load up the initial menu to select games, so 32GB is the upper limit of it still being bareable and 64GB is where it turns really shitty.

>>108705059
>But a psp in a case with games is half the size
Yes, but you have a limited number of games with you. As you've said, your case only holds 6 UMDs and the Sony Memory Cards at the time had very small capacity (0.5-2GB) and were very expensive. So at most you're carrying 8-9 games with you.
Compare this to the 250GB Steam Deck which can fit over 100-200 PSP games in internal storage. And for the price of a 2GB Sony Memory Card you can buy a 1TB micro SD card today and hold so many games you will never need to buy a game ever again.
>i dont need 100 different games
It's not about needing 100 different games at once. It's a matter of convenience. With the PSP you always had to micromanage what you carry and what you have on your SD card. With modern handhelds you never have to think about this unless you play large PC games or a lot of PS2/Switch games.
>its nothing compared to the fullsize rubber sticks on the switch or steamdeck, theyre like trying to stick an oversized ps5 controller into your pocket.
Nobody is pocketing a Steam Deck, but I get what you mean. Still, the full sized sticks are definitely ergonomically better overall. I'd rather have full sized sticks than the PSP style one, and this is coming from someone who probably has thousands of hours of PSP play time.
So even with actual pocketable handhelds I'd prefer the full sized sticks or the switch style ones. Something like RG-40XXh and the smaller Retroid models, for example.
>pic
I had some soft zipper case which fully covers it. It had space for SD cards inside which was convenient since I was mostly playing games through SD cards.

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>>108705214
>I'd rather have full sized sticks than the PSP style one
Recessed fullsize sticks in a clamshell, ie picrel, is best, for a portable.
I'd rather have no sticks at all than big silly sticks sticking half an inch off the face of my handheld. (unless ofc i never intended to take it anywhere, which it seems many people dont, they just wanna gayme in their bed)

>>108700873
Much less middleware.
Simpler OS.
Games were made by actual engineers, not Game Development grads working with Unity.
Same reasons you can emulate GameCube games on a toaster PC that can't run new low-spec indie games.

>>108705292
I'm still stunned at how they managed to fit Vice City Stories on a PSP, that game was absolutely massive with all the content and shit you could do in it. I actually felt disappointed by other PSP games after seeing that.

>retards seriously comparing a 22-year-old device with esoteric & C-suite mandated hardware decisions to modern offerings

You weren't even born when I flashed a CFW into mine with shaky hands.

>>108705315
>flashed a CFW into mine with shaky hands
The fear of CFW back then was unreal, there were constant discussions about devices being bricked. Same with the PS3.

>>108705319
Guess many teenagers didin't have spare cash to get a new one or talent/bravery do that battery mod if things went south.

the reason PSP had so many games is because when the ps3 came out studios dreaded making games for it so they just put all their effort into psp games. theres quite a few franchises that died on their leap to ps3 but survived on psp


>>108705319
i fucked up so many wireless routers back in the day trying to put new firmware on them

>>108705347
Pretty much. Everyone that got a PSP was about 12-15 and it was a birthday or Christmas present, so if you fucked it up, you wouldn't get a new one until another special occasion (or possibly not at all). I didn't touch CFW for years until it was basically idiot proof, which came when some code or something was leaked which allowed every PSP to run CFW with no effort.

>>108705319
>>108705347
I had an original model and wanted to do this. But I had updated it before realizing that was an option. I'm sure many other people were in the same boat.

I never appreciated how great the PSP was because Playstation was gay and Nintendo rocked, but it was really good hardware. I remember watching Resident Evil the movie on one and being amazed for some reason.

>>108705374
>Playstation was gay and Nintendo rocked
I don't remember this ever being true, not since the launch of the PS1
You got a gameboy because you wanted to play pokemon, not for any other reason.
Sony filled the rad hole that was left by sega

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>>108705373
There was also the model issues too, where certain model numbers couldn't run CFW at all and only first gens could. You can run it on any model now but for a long time you needed to have the first gen to have CFW.

One of the first exploits I remember for the later models was the Patapon demo exploit, people were hyped when that happened.

>>108705362
>>108705373
I should have added my hands were definitely shaky and when the red screen came up relief was almost instant.

IIRC you could check from package codes wheter or not yours was still CFW-capable.

>>108705374
PlayStation was still absolute peak and beloved back then, people didn't sour until the PS4. Anyone that had anything Nintendo moved to a PS2 as soon as they came out, I only knew one kid that got the Gamecube instead and he was a super autistic Pokemon kid.

Xbox One and PS4 is also when console wars ended. Couldn't honestly say who won but that retarded idea of having the Xbox always online and being marketed as a media player instead of a game console was retarded.

>>108705292
>Games were made by actual engineers, not Game Development grads working with Unity.
Oh man, you're either a zoomer or you didn't play many games back then.

Games started getting good in the PS1/N64/GBA era. The (S)NES and GB(C) games were mostly shit that wouldn't qualify as a high school project. Games on pre-NES shitbox platforms were 99% crap. A good chunk, probably 10%-15%, of PC/DOS and Arcade machine games were clones of each other and they often re-used the same engine over and over again just like you would re-use Unity. The only difference is that engines were generally specialized back then. You had a separate engine for each separate type of a racing game, fighting game, platformer, etc.

While it is true that back then a lot of game developers were actually engine developers so they had deeper knowledge and skills, that didn't change the fact that the majority of games still fucking sucked.
The thing that's probably giving you the illusion of quality back then is the fact that you've limited yourself to the best 10% of games and the fact that we didn't have a Steam store equivalent back then which would show you the 10k-15k games released at the time and the fact that only 30% are playable and only 5% are good. A "game dev grad" will probably be able to make a game better than most games released before the PSP.

As for the performance difference, that's literally irrelevant. At the time the GameCube was considered a very powerful device. There's no reason to optimize games for GameCube performance nowadays when people have PCs and consoles that are 100x-1000x more powerful. Also, nothing stops you from limiting yourself to simpler modern games, they're still being made.

>>108705497
NTA but I'm still stunned to this day just how badly Rockstar Games handled the PC release of GTA IV.

>>108705386
>>108705428
Nope, gaystation was casual junk for the uneducated masses with poor taste and no self awareness.

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>>108705511
Lmao

I never owned a PSP. Is there anything cool you can do with them nowadays? I assume they have custom firmware and you can pirate games.

>>108700873
i remember this rich kid in summer camp had a psp and he showed us some wrestling game on it
it actually blew my mind seeing graphics like that on a handheld
i eventually got one and i had downloaded youtube videos, mp3s, and a few lego games which were 1:1 ports of the console versions which was super cool
nowadays its not as novel but back then it was amazing

>>108705607
i ended up getting a really good deal on a psp 1000 recently. besides pirating psp games no not really. the vita is ok for emulation but the psp is god awful at running anything other than psp games and i think ps1 games.

>>108704009
>The PSP was locked to the PS1, PSP, NES and GB/GBC.
I finished Super Mario 64 on my PSP. Most N64 games were too slow, but come on it was over 20 years ago, it was pure magic that Super Mario played basically perfectly.

PSP + hacking battery from china (which doubled as a spare battery) + cheap memory cards from china was absolutely peak.

>>108700883
this. Aliens.

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>>108705511
FAG!

>>108701172
bro that shit was in like the 2010s

Completely different world from the world the PSP was released in.

I believe the lack of a PSP release probably would have prevented Nintendo from being forced to innovate though

>>108704009
>The PSP was locked to the PS1, PSP, NES and GB/GBC
That simply isn't true. Mega Drive/Mega CD/32X emulation on PSP was always full speed via PicoDrive and most lighter SNES games can get there with SNES9x TYL Mod. Arcade emulation of systems like the CPS-1/2 and MVS was also no problem. GBA emulation was also pretty decent via gpSP kai. Not perfect, but you could play most of the library at full speed. There's still an active fork of gpSP making improvements called FrogGBA. Needless to say other 80s hardware was covered along with other 90s handhelds like the Neo Geo Pocket.

>>108705607
You can easily softmod any PSP these days and storage isn't a problem thanks to SD card adapters. The best thing to do on a PSP is enjoy its native game library, which is huge and features a ton of great titles. A $30 chinkheld will do a better job of emulation than a PSP these days, but it won't play PSP games very well (if at all). You'd have to spend closer to $100 for one that'll do that decently. There aren't really any major reasons to buy original PSP hardware in 2026 if you don't have the nostalgia for it, but it's still a cool device.

Up to this day, the only way to play certain VN tities is by either owning a PSP or the Vita. You can't say the same of any other console regarding cult vidya.

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>>108705511

>>108705607
CFW allows some cool shit and you can softmod it so that full shutting down will remove the CFW. It's completely safe to use that soft version.
Some things that msot people do
>NES, SNES and GBA emulator
>Sega Genesis emulator
>play ISOs of any PSP game (region lock doesn't apply either so you can play Jap and Euro exclusives)
>built-in PS1 emulator (you need to have them in EBOOT form though, there's conversion tools around)
>various homebrew (everything from fan ported games to media players)

>>108700873
PSP is the Rollercoaster tycoon of hardware

>>108704630
Did they have a 3D GPU though? AVC decoder?

>>108700873
Sure, it had 3D graphics and such, but the games on it were worse than mobile games from the 2010s. Every PSP version of a PC/PS3 game was butchered and reduced to the status of mobileshit shovelware.

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>>108706880
Vice City Stories mogs the original Vice City.

>>108700873
asian/white males with talent making things, no incentive for companies to do DEI hiring/wokeslop
Little bit less "line must go up at any cost", more passion for their work

>>108706914
I'm still amazed at how games on the N64 could be so long, have full voice acting and large soundtracks but be crammed into 32MB cartridges.

>>108701172
the DS line was complete garbage

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>>108706914
>Little bit less "line must go up at any cost", more passion for their work
Understatement of the year award. Look at these games. Devs used to actually make games all the time, before they realized they could milk retards for over a decade with live service slop without applying any effort or investing huge sums of money.

>>108706931
The talented people that did this sort of magic were replaced by suits, browns, women and "women".
Imagine not having Satoru Iwata to perform actual sorcery and cram Kanto into Pokemon Gold/Silver. Or John Carmack not be allowed to build the Doom engine, changing PC games forever.

>>108702076
only the 1000 series has a really terrible screen, the 2000 is little better, and the 3000 and newer model screen is actually pretty good,

>>108706941
Makes me wonder how many opportunities like that were missed during the 2010s and 2020s. We are living in a literal idiocracy devoid of smart and talented people. Mediocrity/"barely acceptable enough" is the best you can hope for these days in most cases.

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>>108706952
The amount is honestly immeasurable. There are a lot of games around where you have a really good idea of what could've been compared to what the final game ended up being.

I still feel pissed about the GTA Definitive Edition bullshit too. They hired a tiny team of people that had only ever made shitty mobile games and ended up outsourcing a lot of it to India and then the Indians just used AI because they didn't want to do any work.

>>108706972
Were they actively trying to make it crappy? Holy shit.

>>108706984
They just threw it into a shitty upscaler and sent it as is.

>>108700873
i loved mine when i bought it brand new at walmart in 2004 to play during class in highschool
but its time has passed anon
its time to let it go. there are better options available now.

>>108701834
>One of its biggest system seller, pokemon, didn't even have 3D
My dad was disappointed in me for choosing Pokemon Red as the first game to go with my new Gameboy Color

>>108706729
Yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_2700G

>>108706914
>line must go up at any cost
jews did this, yes, but also white and asian men. americans and japanese salarymen are spiritual jews.

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This is 2004 hardware.

>>108700873
the crazy thing about the late 90s and early 2000s is also just the sheer number of different devices and stuff. they got really experimental with it and the engineers clearly had fun. nowadays it's all just soulless slop in every corner of human existence

>>108709150
>souless slop
>everyone had fun
for every success story, you had more people losing personal fortunes on flops, stop being short sighted, people wanted to make money then just as much as they want to make money now, you don't have to experiment and take risks when you know your audience wants a bezelless rectangle.

>>108700883
hey you’re not supposed to talk about that here…

>>108709971
thanks grok

>>108700902
this

>>108701255
Nintendo underpowers their handhelds to improve battery life.

>>108700873
>2004
The PSP is not that old... right...?

>>108709971
people like you are so incredibly annoying

>>108701677
although I think your criticism of the PSP is valid, I don't think you should be comparing it to handhelds that released 15+ years afterwards.

>>108705315
>>108705319
fuck now I remember not having a way to buy a pandora battery and creating my own by severing two connections on the battery circuit as a kid. better times man.

>>108703110
Communist idiot. None of you retards understand economics. Of course you're an expert on chinkshit handhelds, I bet you have one to go with each pear of programming socks you own.

Since I'm american, and there four a capitalist, yes, "WE" (as in, We the People. Freedom, ever heard about it?) we count price at release, which happened before the inflation was set into place.

>>108701904
>480x272 was a pretty light resolution even for 2004
Bullshit. Even most expensive PDAs were only 320x240 back then, and 640x480 was ultra premium.

>>108712023
yeah he's absolutely full of shit PS2 and especially DS had low resolutions as well
DS was almost NES tier IIRC

>>108709139
>640x480 display
>ATI 3D GPU
>Windows Mobile 2005 which lets you do literally anything unlike modern locked down OSes
>Transflexive LCD which is usable in daylight unlike modern phones
actually not bad

>>108712092
As far as I understand it uses an Intel GPU based on PowerVR, so it's basically like a portable Dreamcast. It even has 16MB of VRAM.

>>108712113
True, I confused it with the later Qualcomm Adreno devices.

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They clearly reverse engineered alien technology.

>>108712142
First time i'm noticing that analog button. Was the left side supposed to be like a touchpad?

>>108712162
yes like xperia play touchpad

>>108711941
>not having a way to buy a pandora battery and creating my own by severing two connections on the battery circuit as a kid. better times man.
Scary times kek, fucking around with batteries could go real bad if you don't now what you're doing.

>>108709139
How many fps though?

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>>108706938
Here's what Rockstars release history looks like with re-releases not included.

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>>108714180
Sure feels like a lot of bad shit can be traced to a very specific year (2014). It's like society collectively decided to be dogshit from that year onward. Why is that?

>>108714245
Potentially the disappointment of GTA V. It was a pretty shit game and it disappointed a lot of people, especially with the plot and the lifeless main characters. Franklin was the most bland and uninteresting main character in the series history.

>>108700873
No pajeets involved

I was jealous of my classmates that had one, and I desperately wanted to play Locoroco (or something like that). But it was way to expensive and my parents had no money. I had saved up enough for a gamecube though.

>>108714151
we don't talk about that

>>108711999
>American thinking he's smart
Typical.

>>108712023
>>108712049
He's probably thinking of TV and display resolutions, which were commonly 800x600 - 1280x1024. But home consoles were outputting 240p, 480i, or 720x576 max. Having 480x272 on a handheld was fine.

Back then there wasn't the same expectation that your game needs to run at the native resolution of your screen or at anything above 30fps. Playing a 480p game on a 720p-1080p display with integer upscale was considered normal. Today people lose their fucking minds if they have to use FSR or DLSS. Which is fair if the game assets are awfully optimized and even the mid-range or high end hardware is struggling, but it's not that big of a deal if you're playing games on a sub-$1000 device and want anything above 1080p@60.

>>108711941
>I don't think you should be comparing it to handhelds that released 15+ years afterwards.
The main point is that OP is wrong in saying "handheld innovation indefinitely stopped and the PSP was the last great/revolutionary handheld". That's just objectively not true. Sure, maybe handheld innovation paused for a whole decade, but the Switch was so impactful that handhelds started being popular again and plenty of modern handhelds are great/revolutionary in their own way just like the PSP was a good package back then.

The main points of it being "ahead of it's time" were that modern handhelds are doing things that "smartphones are doing anyway", but the same can be said about the PSP back in the day >>108704009, so it wasn't doing anything new and wasn't "ahead of it's time" in that regard.
OP obviously didn't own a fucking phone back then and thought the PSP was doing things that an $80 phone couldn't, aside from post GBC-gaming.

Also, my side-point was that it aged pretty badly only a couple of years into the console. Had they waited just 2 more years they could have used microSD instead of UMD/MSPD.

>>108712113
>>108714151
Looked it up and it doesn't even do 1M polys/sec.
The 16MB of local memory is slower than the PSP GPU main bus.
How the hell is this comparable to the PSP?

>>108700873
yeah it was cool af, shame they couldn't give it a second stick, and better sticks in general.

>>108700873
I think psp was very fucking great console, but for me it felt like it came right on time. PS Vita on the other hand, felt so unreal with its features back then
>Touch screen and a touchpad on the back
>2 fucking cameras
>Oled screen
>Could run actual ps2 stuff
Its a shame how Sony mismanaged it and let it die. It doesnt matter though in 2026 because it has found new life in the hands of modders. Motherfuckers managed to port the two N64 Zelda games and morrowind to vita. Thats fucking impressive

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>>108714704
It could do straight up PS3 visuals

>>108701172
3DS pushed visuals that were not that much better than the PSP, and the per-eye resolution was lower, which considering some 2D-only games is pretty pathetic.

>>108714704
>cameras on a gaming device
>back touchpad
Absolutely useless. Vita was just throwing shit at the wall hoping it would stick.

>>108714750
And then still using a proprietary storage.

>>108714731
True. Uncharted and killzone are totally ps3 looking games. They are mid tho, but I remember Uncharted having a riddle where they ask you to flash a light onto the back camera, so that drake can use it to see some hidden things on a parchment paper
>>108714750
Touchpad ended up being usable, because you can bind R2/L2 buttons to it.
Cameras on the other hand, were overkill with not many usecases. I only used them for that uncharted puzzle, and for adding swastikas in jet set radio, but thats about it

>>108714457
>Back then there wasn't the same expectation that your game needs to run at the native resolution of your screen or at anything above 30fps
What the fuck are you talking about, retard? Almost every NES and SNES game runs at 60fps.
>inb4 b-b-but i meant...
Shut the fuck up.

>>108715137
>Almost every NES and SNES game runs at 60fps.
There is a difference between the logical frequency of an engine/console and the actual drawn frames you fucking retard. Pretty much all animations are done in 4-15fps. The effective "framerate" of NES/SNES is 10-30fps in most games.

>>108715279
20 to 30 more like.
But a lot are 60fps. Many games don't have so much going on that they can't complete their tasks within a frame.

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>>108715431
Just because a game can complete all the internal logic in 1/60th of a second doesn't mean it will result in the next frame being unique. Sure, in most cases it is (just barely), but because of how limited the NES was you couldn't really animate or display all objects on the screen at all times. Most of the screen was a static image, a lot of times game objects would be frozen for a frame and intermittently update their positions, most sprites only had 1-8 frames of animation and were effectively updating at 4-15 "sprite updates per second", a lot of times sprites would disappear for a frame and re-appear or only be partially rendered, etc. Just look at this video as an example (I'm not even cherry-picking, it's just the first game in my collection)

It's not comparable to the modern (21st century) idea of what 60fps should look and feel like.

>>108714151
Screenshot says 51 fps. Not sure about the resolution, though.
>>108714586
Compared to a contemporary PDA the PSP trades overall system performance (CPU/RAM) for better graphics. That's to be expected since it's built for gaming, unlike a PDA which is more like a proto-smartphone. Strictly for games PSP is obviously better.

>>108715909
>Strictly for games PSP is obviously better.
but OP says PSP was a smart phone!

>>108715922
No, OP asked how they did this in 2004: games, movies, Internet, music
>>108715750
Every frame in your webm is unique.
>sprites only had 1-8 frames of animation
has nothing to do with it.

>>108700873
Because the only alternative was playing FIFA at an awful framerate on a nokia n-gage

>>108701717
No, the 3DS renders the same amount with or without 3D, with 3D off you just get super-sampling. It makes no performance difference

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It's incredible what they could do with less than a gigahertz on MIPS.
There's no complaint of the PSP that even comes to mind. The XMB is excellent, the platform is easy to develop for, deploy, test, the library is good, the homebrew is great, the ergonomics of the device feel good, and so on and so on.
Credit to the Vita for being a PSP with a right analog stick. But the PSP itself is something that never fails to amaze me.