PSA for anyone that might have a PSP sitting in a box somewhere:
Go and check on the battery and make sure it hasn’t turned into a spicy pillow. Out of a sample size of 3 between mine and a couple friends, 2 of 3 were bursting out of the shell and required disposal.
If your PSP battery is still good, look into charging it and playing some PS1 games on the go. It was the best feature of the console.
And a PSA for anyone who has a terribly dead or spicy pillow battery, OSTENT make great batteries which do an even better job than the originals. I opt for the 1,400 mAh ones, which give you more capacity with the same size!
Yup, I’ve had all 3 batteries get thiccc on me in the drawer. Funny enough, my old phones that were stored in the most horid conditions were fine.
Me in 2004: “The PSP 3000 can connect to the tv using HDMI. But who actually has an HDTV??? I have no use for this…”
Me today: “Huh…I actually DO have an HDTV now. I just don’t have a PSP”.
Funny how life works…
No better time than now to pick one up!
I went from being amazed that anyone would opt for native hardware for older gaming (I am a huge fan of retro handhelds!) to being amazed anyone would not want one. There’s something to be said about the original games on the PSP, it just feels ‘right’.
And they’re relatively inexpensive (if you buy from Japan) to get one in nice shape these days. I’ve got another on the way from Tokyo right now:
What site/service are you buying from?
From Buyee!
I actually wrote an article about that process and what you can expect (and do to get the best deal, in my eyes) on Buyee
You can read it here if you’re curious:
https://gardinerbryant.com/i-bought-a-junk-psp-from-japan-heres-how-it-went/
Nice article, thanks. I’ve never really been into handheld gaming, but reading that made me want to try it out. Buyee also sounds like a very handy service!
Wow, that’s an amazing compliment, glad you liked the article and that it began to sway you to the (older) handheld scene :)
Thank you!!!
I read that! I couldn’t find it again, didn’t realise it was you :)
Thanks!
Oh that’s excellent! I’m glad I could help!
That’s junk. It doesn’t work.
Edit: wait, you seem like you know what you’re doing. $30, if you can get it to work, would be a great buy.
The word ‘junk’ on Buyee/Japan’s online marketplaces doesn’t mean what it does elsewhere. It can mean anything:
- Not having a charger on hand, so it can’t be tested
- Literally just dusty
- They don’t know how it works
- …all the way to actual issues (which typically I’ve found are things like muck in the power switches which isopropyl alcohol fixes right up!)
Junk absolutely doesn’t mean they’re broken! Listings tend to go into a little detail on what is wrong with the consoles :)
I’ve bought a TON of handheld consoles through Buyee. DSi’s (I got a great DSi LL in box with all the bits, barely used for $52 AUD), GBA SPs, I even got a launch Switch to jailbreak from Japan!
I actually wrote a article on a ‘junk’ PSP from Japan, you can read more on it here:
https://gardinerbryant.com/i-bought-a-junk-psp-from-japan-heres-how-it-went/
I live in Japan and when I go to a Hard Off or whatever, “junk” is usually just for parts so it’s good to know it means different things on buyee. Thanks!
I jailbroke mine back in the day and used an rca cable to watch pirated shows on an SD card through it.
Ah, the PSP… First personal device I owned that had a web browser.
So much porn, lol.
It was made for gaming, btw
😂 Yeah, it was pretty good for that too. I always thought it was really cool being able to play multiplayer games like SOCOM via AD-HOC networking. No server, no internet/wifi, not even a link cable you had to remember to bring; just two devices talking to eachother and creating great memories.
Sony knew the secret for success. If it can show porn it will be successful.
I don’t know anyone picking up a PSP again in 2026. I also don’t know anyone.
Rose tinted glasses. Psp was cool but flawed and completely irrelevant today outside from nostalgia farming.
I just love the PSP. I have a 2000, but I rarely use it. But I use my 1000 quite a bit. Other than being re-shelled, it has a glass lens and an IPS screen. I think I might remove the UMD drive to do a big battery mod. Don’t think I’ve used the UMD drive once since modding it.
Ys Seven and Midnight Club are my faves on the console. But Ace Combat X and Me & My Katamari are also way up there.
I love the shell!
Thank you! I totally stole the color scheme from a YouTube video, I can’t remember the creator. I really need a good white wrist strap for it, I have a gray Wii one on there at the moment.
I’m not picking up a psp.
I’m just emulating it on my steam deck.
I recently (a year ago) bought my first portable PS system, a Vita. Fantastic console, thriving ‘underground’ community. Just caught the tail end of all its online services working
before they’ll be shut down this year.I’m not everyone, it seems.
Now, if I weren’t a big retro fan… but I am. I am also aware that all the Sony batteries turn into spicy pillows, that’s why I got rid of them and was happy stuff was re-released on the switch.
Right. I still kept a psp go. And I liked Sonys portables.
