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:

https://gardinerbryant.com/psp-in-2026/

  • PerfectDark@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
    1·
    17 hours ago

    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!).