15 PSP Facts You Probably Didn’t Know

Did you know that the PSP sold 80 million units roughly, or that you could buy The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy on UMD so you could watch peak fiction on the go? Yeah, you probably did, but there’s still a relative treasure trove of lesser known PSP facts that deserve to be shared with the world. Are you going to know some of the facts mentioned on this list? Maybe, but we’re willing to bet there’s at least one or two PSP facts on here that have escaped your attention.

 

1. It Had Motion Controls (Kind Of)

The mid-2000s and beyond have seen video game companies and manufacturers in particular really trying to embrace motion controls as a way of enhancing the gaming experience. As standard, the PSP didn’t have motion controls, but that didn’t stop third party accessory creators from trying to enhance the capabilities of the PSP with their own peripherals. The TiltFX Motion Controller, created by Datel, plugged into the PSP’s headphone jack and basically allowed you to tilt the PSP to influence the game, often replacing the normal D-pad inputs. The TiltFX also came loaded with cheats for some supported games, adding features like low gravity, making it a pretty cool accessory for your PSP, and the device even supported multiple profiles for different games, allowing you to customize your experience on a per game basis.

It all sounds great in theory, but the reality of the TiltFX peripheral is that it has a bunch of problems. For starters, the accessory launched in 2010 but was incompatible with the PSP Go model, which launched in 2009. Also, some users reported that the TiltFX was incompatible with certain PSP firmware beyond 6.20, while those who added their own custom firmware to their PSP for emulation purposes would find the accessory to be useless. Under the right circumstances, the TiltFX would be a fun addition to the PSP’s repertoire, allowing players to enjoy LocoRoco with tilt controls just like God intended, but it was hardly as good compared to the PS3’s SixAxis capabilities.

 

2. The PSP Did 3D Before The 3DS

Around the end of the 2000s going into the 2010s, it felt like every single tech or entertainment company had a huge obsession with implementing 3D into their products. Nintendo is probably the most notable example when it comes to gaming, releasing the Nintendo 3DS in 2011 to pretty widespread success. However, Sony’s little console of wonders managed to do 3D on a handheld over five years before Nintendo came out with the 3DS. Was the PSP’s version of 3D wildly specific, tied to only one game and would make you look like a bit of a psycho (Mantis) if you pulled it out on the train or some other form of public transport? Absolutely, but being the first still counts for something as far as we’re concerned.

Released alongside Metal Gear Acid 2, because of course Hideo Kojima had his hand in some weird PlayStation stuff, the game came with the Solid Eye Tobidacid. This rather catchily titled bit of kit was a cardboard attachment that clipped onto the PSP itself, allowing you to view some of Acid’s cutscenes and single-player gameplay in 3D. Unlike more traditional 3D glasses, which utilized the red and blue lenses, the Solid Eye Tobidacid showed a split-screen of two nearly identical images merged into a single 3D feed. The feature was so obscure that even Kojima joked about it a few years later in MGS 4: Guns Of The Patriots, in a Codec call between Snake and Otacon. 

If that’s not enough “cor, 3D is cool, huh?” for you, the Metal Gear Acid 2 also boasted connectivity with Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, allowing players to look at pictures they’ve taken in MGS 3 on their PSP using the Solid Eye device. Is it silly? Absolutely, but we wish some games leaned into this kind of weird connectivity these days. It’s whimsical, and we could all do with a bit more whimsy these days.

 

3. It Had Remote Play

Remote Play has become one of the biggest tools in PlayStation’s arsenal, but many PlayStation fans would likely think that Remote Play only really became a feature when Sony allowed players to stream their PS4 and PS5 games to devices other than those made by Sony. Being able to stream your owned games to your PC or mobile device is great and all, but the point of this fact is that Sony’s remote play ambitions began way before even the PS4 had launched, or was even a twinkle in the engineer’s eye. Remote Play has actually been around since 2006, meaning that devices like the PlayStation Portal share a lot more DNA with the PlayStation Portable than you’d think.

The first hints of Remote Play on the PSP emerged via pre-release models of the PS3, with Sony showing off images of the PS3’s home UI with the Remote Play button in full view. Sony were prepared to adopt Remote Play on a large scale, with games like Gran Turismo HD and Formula One Championship Edition slated to adopt the feature, but Remote Play would be abandoned by both late in development. Still, Sony did make it so that all original PlayStation 1 games that could be played on the PS3 could also be played on the PSP via Remote Play, though originally that feature only included digital PS1 games.

A patch later updated that to include physically-owned PS1 games too, which is nice if you wanted to play Incredible Crisis while traveling to your own grandmother’s birthday party.

 

4. The Final Physical Releases? More Recent Than You Think

You’d be surprised how many people forget that the PSP supported movies via UMD, which was the optimal way to experience The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy as far as we’re concerned. While the PSP could also play media via memory cards, the physical movie market for the PSP was pretty decent, with plenty of big hitters supporting the platforms. If you’re wondering what the last proper UMD movie released on the PSP was, it’s The Hangover Part 2 which dropped at the end of 2011 in the US and EU, though Asia supported UMD releases up until 2016 with movies that tend to come wrapped in brown paper bags, if you catch our meaning. However, the story of the last physical PSP game is a lot stranger.

While the PS Vita would launch in 2011, and the PS4 in 2013, it was actually 2016 that saw the release of the final physical PSP game, Summon Night 5. Part of a long running tactical RPG series, with a spin-off game you can catch in our GBA Hidden Gems video, Summon Night 5 had actually launched in 2013 in Japan, but would receive a Western release digitally in December 2015. Western publishers Gaijinworks then decided to try their luck on a limited run physical release for Summon Night 5, and the success of both releases led to Summon Night 6 being ported to the West in 2017 for the PS Vita, just one year after its Japanese release.

As a bonus fact, the actual last game to receive an official release on the PSP was Retro City Rampage DX in July 2016, and they tried to do a physical print run but UMD production ceased during development of the PSP port, with the print run instead containing a download code for the game.

 

5. Had Remappable Controls Before The Steam Deck

Accessibility is an important part of gaming these days, and it’s certainly come a long way from where it was back in the 2000s. Something that helps make gaming more accessible for gamers is the ability to remap your bindings to a layout that suits you, something that’s available on Xbox Series X & S, PS5, Nintendo Switch, PC and even handhelds like the Steam Deck, among others. However, Sony managed to have them all beat quite handily with the PSP.

The remappable controls feature was admittedly a workaround regarding Remote Play PS1 games on the PSP, as the PSP didn’t support the same amount of buttons that the PS1 did. With no L2, R2, L3 and R3, Sony had to get creative in order to allow the vast majority of PS1 games to be properly playable on the PSP, and so the ability to remap controls was born. Essentially, as the vast majority of PS1 games didn’t require two analog sticks, players could use the little analog nub thing on the PSP as an extra couple of buttons as needed.

It’s not a perfect system by any means, but it’s definitely a glimpse into the future of gaming, where everyone can and should be able to customize their experience to their liking.

 

6. It Can Be Used As An External HDD

Something that’s always been the enemy of gamers is storage, as it feels like there’s just never enough of it when you need it. Back when the PS3 first launched, having 20 or even 60GB available on the hard drive felt like the shackles had been taken off, but now it seems paltry by comparison. Sound off in the comments if you’re also struggling to find room for all your games on the terabytes of storage that PCs and consoles offer these days. Anyway, for those who filled up on PS3 games before dinner but had a PSP in their back pocket, the option was available to them to turn the PSP into an external HDD.

Basically, you can connect your PSP via USB to your PS3, PS4, PS5, Xbox whatever and more and use the PSP like a USB storage device. You can’t play games through it, obviously, but as a break glass in case of an emergency solution to a dire lack of storage, it’s pretty cool that the PSP is capable of this. Of course, you’d probably have to buy one of those proprietary Memory Cards too in order to really get the most out of the PSP’s storage. At a certain point, you’d just be better off getting a regular HDD, but it’s definitely a cool party trick if nothing else.

We don’t have the liveliest of parties.

 

7. Those Yikes Ads

We’d be remiss when talking about the PSP to not mention some of the advertising that the console was cursed with during its run. Sony advertising during the early days of the PlayStation, especially in the UK, was often the most risque, near-the-knuckle stuff you could think of. Mental Wealth springs to mind, with that girl who looks like the sister of the kid in the Aerials music video by System of a Down. The print ads for PlayStation 2 were equally bizarre, with whoever decided to come up with this advert deserving of being tried in the Hague. Still, these are the adverts that actually succeeded, while one of the PSP’s adverts has left an almost indelible mark on PlayStation’s legacy.

In celebration of the new line of PSP models, which would be available in a shiny white color instead of the usual PlayStation black, TBWA, a “disruptive” marketing agency working for Sony created a series of adverts that depicted a black woman being held by the throat by a white woman. The adverts were briefly up in the Netherlands, and naturally, it drew controversy like Bob Ross draws happy little trees, with many pointing out the obvious racial connotations at play. Sony and TBWA did try to argue that the image in question was one of several designed to showcase the contrast in colors, and that there was no message lying underneath, but again, TBWA’s specialty was “disruption”. They knew the undertones of that advert would spark conversation at the very least, and look at us still discussing it nearly 20 years later.

However, the PSP nearly sparking a race war was far from the only advertising controversy the console faced, as Sony caught a huge amount of flak in the UK for PSP posters that appeared on train and tram stations that encouraged the reader to “take a running jump”. The implications of Sony encouraging people to dive headfirst in front of trains weren’t lost on Network Rail, who took action to remove the posters immediately, and Sony were forced to admit that “one particular advert [had] been placed inappropriately in a couple of locations”. We think “inappropriately” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.

 

8. The Resident Evil and DMC Games That Never Were

The PSP, for many, is one of the real highlights of the PlayStation library, proving that Sony could stand up against Nintendo on both the home console and handheld console markets. Of course, Sony would then biff it catastrophically with the follow-up, the PS Vita, but for a few years there, the PSP was a genuine contender, even against the might of the DS. Despite all the success and plenty of first and third party support in terms of games on the platform, the PSP somehow never received a Resident Evil or Devil May Cry game, though it isn’t without a lack of trying.

A PSP Resident Evil game was in development, and was even announced during 2009’s E3 as Resident Evil portable, but no information beyond that has ever been shared since. Resident Evil Revelations was then announced during the next year’s E3, which would ultimately be released on the Nintendo 3DS, so the running but unconfirmed theory is that Revelations started out life as Resident Evil Portable. As for a PSP Devil May Cry game, it seems to have suffered a similar fate, though DMC for the PSP never got a proper announcement like RE did. Vague, tentative plans were shared during the mid to late 2000s, but these have been shelved entirely. The lack of these Capcom tentpole franchises makes this next fact even more baffling.

 

9. The Hilton Hotel Chain Got Its Own Game

Yeah, take a minute to sit with this one, because we were just as flummoxed when we found out.

In what was probably pitched to investors and the Hilton Hotels board of directors as “way better than a training video, dude” in between massive lines of cocaine, Hilton Garden Inn employees in 2009 were given a PSP, a Memory Stick Duo and a copy of Hilton Garden Inn: Ultimate Team Play. Ahead of the curve on the wave of simulator games that were on their way to flood the Steam Marketplace in a few years time, Ultimate Team Play was essentially a training tool designed to get employees at Hilton up to speed on what their responsibilities were.

As financial choices after a massive recession go, commissioning a developer to create a large scale simulation game, then bulk buying a bunch of PSPs and flying them out to the different Hilton Garden Inn locations across the US probably wasn’t the smartest decision. Despite our derisive jabs though, clearly Hilton and developers Virtual Heroes were on to something, as we’re now at a point where IKEA are hiring staff to man their virtual store in Roblox. Fingers crossed that this is the last time we’ll have to mention Roblox.

If you never worked at the Hilton and you want to experience life as an employee while on the commute to your real job, copies of Hilton Garden Inn: Ultimate Team Play have gone on sale in the past, selling for about $1000. It’s one of the rarest PSP games you can buy, though you probably shouldn’t. Just download the ROM that somebody dumped online and emulate it if you’re that curious.

 

10. It’s Still Getting New Games (+ Homebrewing Is Wild)

Remember earlier, when we said that Retro City Rampage DX was the last official PSP release ever made? Well, of course fans and indie game developers haven’t been dissuaded from the lack of official support when it comes to making games for the PSP. While we admit that retro developers and aficionados developing games that are love letters to the older generation of consoles isn’t a new thing, it is surprising to see it being done for the PSP, especially as the developers need to put in a bit of extra legwork to make the port possible.

One prominent example is Cyborg Force, a run and gun style shooter in the same vein as Contra and Metal Slug. Cyborg Force was developed with the Neo Geo consoles in mind, but developers Neo Byte Force also made the game available to play on the Dreamcast and, crucially, the PSP. Because UMD manufacturing has been discontinued, the PSP version of Cyborg Force was available on a ROM Stick, meaning players would need to have a modified version of the PSP in order to run the game.

Games like Cyborg Force are referred to as homebrew games, as they’re capable of working on a specific platform but haven’t gone through the regular channels in order to do so. Typically, homebrew games are released online for free for fans to enjoy, but Cyborg Force is far from the only example of a paid homebrew game on PSP. Reportedly, a game called Tsukihi Minty was distributed via floppy discs at the Japanese convention Comiket 68, with the game’s data able to be transferred through USB to homebrew enabled PSPs, though the developer would then go to sell the game online digitally.

 

11. One Of Its Best Games Got A Fan Follow-Up

We can all agree that the PSP GTA games were unsung highlights of the entire GTA series, right? The success of Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories was so vast that many were expecting Rockstar to release a San Andreas Stories just to complete the trilogy. That never happened, and now we’re forced to live in this stupid, cursed timeline wondering about what could have been. Anyway, while LCS and VCS don’t get the recognition they deserve these days, it appears that some enthusiastic developers have taken it upon themselves to extend the legacy of these classic games.

Developed by Barcode Studia, Grand Theft Auto: The Sindacco Chronicles tells an accompanying story to the events of Liberty City Stories, with multiplayer playable characters, tons of new missions and even features from other GTA games, like the empire management from VCS and even San Andreas. The Sindacco Chronicles is a pretty exhaustive mod, but the passion and creativity on display at Barcode Studia is proof that there’s still a desire for old school GTA action done right. We’re looking at you, Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – Definitive Edition, because you were definitively shit.

 

12. Sony Abandoned A PSP Revision In PAL Regions

It’s pretty well trodden ground at this point that the PSP went through multiple iterations through its seven plus year lifespan, with the PSP-1000, 2000 and 3000 all being improved iterations on the same iconic PSP design. In 2009 though, Sony decided to release the PSP-N1000, referred to as the PSP Go, which offered a flip-screen with hidden controls, which of course was the style at the time, while the button, d-pad and weird little analog stick nub were relocated. Genuinely, we don’t know what Sony was thinking with the location of these buttons. Oof.

The PSP Go sounded like a decent improvement on paper, but for some reason, Sony decided that the PSP Go didn’t need a UMD drive, instead relying on downloads for all its games. For anyone who owned a base PSP looking for an upgrade, your game collection was kind of useless. This iteration of the PSP was so unsuccessful that not only did Sony start having to bundle the PSP Go with 10 free games, Sony would then abandon the entire design and concept of the Go for the PSP Street (E1000), a PAL region exclusive with design more like the original PSP. It also reinstated the UMD drive, making it the far superior product.

How else are we supposed to watch Agent Cody Banks?

 

13. You Could Watch The Footy (But Only In The UK)

We’ve already mentioned how the PSP was essentially a portable media center for owners, but the PSP was also on the cutting edge of video on demand, along with sports broadcasting as a whole. At least, it was in the UK anyway. Other regions had to miss out on what Go!View had to offer, while us in the UK got to watch episodes of Scrubs that we’d downloaded onto our PSPs while we were on the go. Look, it’s not often that the UK gets some kind of service that other regions or nations aren’t privy to, so let us just celebrate the two years that we did have something like Go!View.

Built out of a partnership between Sony and Sky TV in the UK, PSP Go!View was a service for the PSP Go version of the handheld console that essentially allowed users to download different programmes across the Sky package. Whether that was re-runs of old sitcoms, films or even sports, as highlights from the Premier League football were eventually included in the service, all could be downloaded and viewed on the PSP. It was a pretty ballsy move from both Sony and Sky to take on a venture like this, especially when video on demand and streaming hadn’t quite found their feet, so it’s no real surprise that the service shut down within two years.

 

14. Sony Bought Illegal PSPs

This story is a bit of a weird one, but one that managed to make it onto the BBC website back in 2006, so you know it’s at least a little bit juicy. Back during the 2000s, it was incredibly common for games consoles and the games themselves to launch in Japan months or even years before they were available in the West. Because of the wait, many in the west took to importing games and consoles from Asia ahead of their release over here, usually at exorbitant prices. Naturally, a pocket industry sprouted of companies exporting Asian games and consoles to the West, something that Sony were keen to stomp into the ground.

In 2006, Sony became embroiled in a legal battle with a Hong Kong-based company, Lik-Sang, who had essentially created their own “gray market” selling Asian PlayStation goods to the Western market. After multiple court cases, Sony would force Lik-Sang to cease operations entirely, but not before Lik-Sang tried to fire off a quick hail mary parting blow by stating that various Sony executives had purchased illegal PSPs. The notice on Lik-Sang’s website read: “Sony Europe’s very own top directors repeatedly got their Sony PSP hard or software imports in nicely packed Lik-Sang parcels with free Lik-Sang mugs or Lik-Sang badge holders, starting just two days after Japan’s official release, as early as 14 December 2004.”

Sony would basically admit that they had bought these gray goods PSPs, but the purposes were “investigatory” in nature.

 

15. Hackers Used PSP Games To Exploit The PS Vita

We could probably sit here for hours talking about some of the reasons why the PS Vita failed, but something you probably didn’t know, or forgot, is that the PSP was actually the cause behind one of the Vita’s woes, albeit temporarily. This fact specifically concerns the PSP version of Everybody’s Tennis, which is a real whipper by the way, and MotorStorm Arctic Edge; two games that you’d think are completely unrelated, but both shared a really unfortunate quality when played on the PS Vita. Essentially, both games opened up a backdoor to the limited PSP mode of the Vita, allowing hackers and other “ne’er-do-wells” to run homebrew emulation programs and other apps.

While this exploit only affected the PSP mode of the PS Vita, it was a security breach that Sony figured they could do without, so both Everybody’s Tennis and MotorStorm: Arctic Edge were ”suspended” from the Vita marketplace while Sony could address the issue. The games were reinstated later in the year, free from the corruption of accidentally allowing homebrews on the Vita, but it’s still an interesting fact nonetheless.

Maybe if Sony were a bit more chill about this PSP mode and allowed the homebrew community to thrive, the PS Vita could have been a bit more successful.

The lies we tell ourselves, eh?