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/

    • Katana314English
      4·
      3 hours ago

      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.

    • los0220English
      2·
      6 hours ago

      Vita is nice, but expensive as well

      • tobz619English
        2·
        4 hours ago

        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.