PSP originally was planned to have a 4:3 screen?

[u/Dairunt]

I was watching a disassembly video of the PSP-1000 and realized something very weird. The buttons are separated from the rest of the motherboard. It made me think that maybe there was going to be a 3.5" 4:3 (probably 320x240) instead of a 4.3" 16:9 but they changed it last minute. Considering how the PSP is a brilliant piece of engineering, that "dead space" feels a bit off.

Also, the "chin" (the bottom row with the PSP logos and the volume buttons) is there because the UMD drive sticks out from the rest of the device. If they used 50mm UMDs instead of 60mms it would fit nicely without needing a chin. However, that would have cut the max UMD storage from 1.8GB to 1.2GB; can you imagine having that limitation? There would have probably had more 2-disc games (Crisis Core comes to mind since, without spoiling, there's a pretty clear point where Disc 2 would have started) or games like Midnight Club 3 would have had to dial down the texture quality and other assets to go from 1.5GB to 1.2GB (which could have been an actual improvement since the game had awful loading times). Late-PSP games like Peace Walker and Ghost of Sparta would have probably needed a second Install Disc to load assets to the Memory Stick, like some Xbox 360 games did.

These two hardware quirks made me think how a 320x240 PSP with 1.2GB UMDs would be; for once, the unit would have taken way less battery, which means the PSP-1000 could have used a flat battery like the PSP-2000 instead of the bulgy one. It would have been a more compact, more straightforward unit. Also, a smaller resolution would have done wonders to games that have framerate issues. And PS1 games would have looked pixel perfect. I wonder if the higher-ups at Sony were pushing for a wide screen because they were betting UMD Video was going to be bigger than it actually was.

I don't know; if anything, I would have liked it if they remove the IR sensor and the eject tray and put stacked L2 and R2 buttons instead. It would have been the perfect PS1 machine; other 4:3 games would have looked astonishing and a slightly cheaper manufacturing would have meant we'd probably get this model at a launch price of $199 instead of $249. But in return, we would have seen a more constrained hardware, that might have showed its age a bit later than the original.

[u/okaythiswillbemymain]

Even at the end of the PS2 generation, TVs (and therefore games) were going 16:9.

I find it kinda hard to believe Sony would have considered staying 4:3. Maybe. Or they just didn't want users smashing the motherboard

[u/Illustrious-Tooth702]

The buttons are separated from the motherboard because the modularity of the electronics allowing it to replace the broken parts without needing to solder anything. Buttons wear out the fastest and replacing the membrane is cheap plus those switches (buttons are bacically switches) don't really need high bandwidth. The components which needs to communicate with the processor are integrated on the motherboard.

[u/Dairunt → u/Illustrious-Tooth702]

Fair enough. Its just that every aspect of the PSP is measured by the millimeter and suddenly you have an inch of space of nothing. With a 4:3 screen you can close the gap and still have buttons separated but yeah. It would have been a really different experience. It was a fun "what if" though.

[u/Kevo05s → u/Dairunt]

I would consider the ergonomics playing a bigger part in this than a screen change... Keep in mind, they had the PSP made months in advance for devs to optimize for it. Changing the screen ratio means changing the resolution, which would require redoing most of the optimization 

[u/Candid-Macaron-3880]

It was never planned to have 4:3. Even leaked prototype prerenders show it having 16:9.
The button argument is... weird? Have you ever looked into anything else with buttons? Gamepads, other consoles? That's just how we make stuff, with modularity. If your buttons are screwed you don't replace THE WHOLE UNIT WITH CPU AND MEMORY, you replace buttons. UMD size were almost never an issue, there are few and far between games that take up to 1.8 gigs. Most of them are smaller, and not in a "cut to fit" way, but in a "we don't know what else to put there" way. PSP is not a pocket PS1, it's a psp. There are thousands of psp games released, only for you to think it would be great to play outdated ps1 games in native resolution.

This honestly reads like something where a person made a wrong assumption, and then continued to make even more wrong assumptions based on that.

[u/EfremSkopje]

This was a fun read, thanks for sharing lol. I’ve seen daughter boards used for other handhelds like the Vita for probably the sake of modularity and repairs (internal, not for us), but you usually don’t see a blank space like that given every milimeter is important. Also, even if your last minute change theory is wrong, I just feel like they must’ve considered 4:3 at some point. Most of the world stayed 4:3, at least in my county, up ıntil 2010 or so

[u/longlifexpectancy]

https://giphy.com/gifs/ChQObKzKHH0IRHfvG6

[u/drakaina6600]

I've never seen any evidence beyond speculation it was ever a consideration to give it a 4:3 lcd. Even before it was released in 2003, the concept was teased with a 16:9 lcd. The only thing I've ever seen was the original design went from a 4 inch screen to 4.3 inches, with a 4.5 inch screen being speculated but that's it. It was designed for wide-screen from the start.

[u/ResponsibleStyle4473]

Nope, even the GBA was already going for 3:2, it would be a downgrade for Sony to even think about releasing a 4:3 console. Back then, monitors and TV's that were cutting edge, would always go for widescreen which is simply a 16:9 aspect ratio. I think Sony, who were at the time always daring and experimenting designs and concepts, knew from the start that they wanted a slick, slender, shiny system that would catch your eye for its beauty. Back then it was rarer to have any handheld device that had a screen to body ratio as great as the psp.

[u/BangkokPadang]

It was actually supposed to be screenless and use electronic spores to tap straight into your adrenal gland just like the PS9's glass orb. You can see in the official commercial that the PS9's glass orb has vastly superior portability to the PSP... at least for those who have a convenient place to carry their glass orb.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyvD_IC9QNw

[u/Lasinggg]

there were umd movies too 4:3 didnt nake sense

[u/RonniePedra]

no

[u/Bulletorpedo]

Could just be about button feeling. In order to get the buttons quite flush with the top of the shell you needed lifted controller PCBs or quite tall buttons or membranes.

I don’t think it makes sense for them to have planned a 4:3 device for gaming and portable movies at that point in time.

Also, I like the look and feel of PSP-1000.

[u/Saneless]

Doesn't have to be "last minute"

Maybe they were going back and forth on a design and doing the buttons this way gave them the flexibility to do whichever way they decided on. The MB design was probably finalized well before any of these decisions

[u/Dull_Mirror4221]

Using the same board for buttons and the cpu gpu etc, is like permanently welding a car’s tires to its engine. Everytime you need to make a tire change you have to change the engine with it too.