March 31, 2025: Happy 20th Birthday, PlayStation Portable!

I'm something of a portable video-game geek. So I was pleased to remember – yet dismayed to be reminded of the passage of time – the recent 20th anniversary of the PlayStation Portable, released in North America on March 24, 2005.

When the PSP first came out, it seemed almost magical, and some of my favorite video-game experiences of all time have come about from the portable device. It still seems magical in some ways, although – with the advent of the Nintendo Switch seven years ago – it is perhaps less so. Nevertheless, I'll still remember carrying a whirring, disc-reading gizmo and feeling like I stepped out of a golden-age science-fiction story.

Oh, and as I was researching this, I wanted to get some context as to what was happening at the company 20 years ago, and discovered that the 20th anniversary of the release of GURPS Mysteries is also around that time (April 13, 2005, to be exact). Between GURPS Mysteries and the PSP, I'm not sure which one has given me more gaming goodness . . . but I do know which one makes the players nervous if I start flipping through a printed copy in a moment of downtime.

-- Steven Marsh