Every new generation of consoles and games brings more to the table, which leads players to upgrade to better hardware. However, the previous generation of consoles is still dearly missed, thanks to its nostalgic feel, the games and the overall experience. Since the days of the PlayStation 5, I have been enjoying next-gen console gaming, but have always though that a smaller and portable version of the previous gen consoles could be a good addition to my collection. Interestingly, one enthusiast has made a portable console out of the PlayStation 1, learn how they did it below.
Yveltal Griffin, engineer, modder, video game software and hardware enthusiast and portablizer has revealed PS Hanami on X (formerly Twitter). PS Hanami is their handmade portable variant of the PlayStation 1. They took one month to build and design and they had to uses a real PlayStation 1 motherboard, cut it in half, fold it like a book and rewire it to use it in this portable form. Griffin has also provided a derailed account of all the other features of PS Hanami such as the battery, memory card, dimensions and more.
This is the PS Hanami, my handmade Playstation 1 portable that I designed and built in one month! It uses a REAL PS1 motherboard that I cut in half, folded like a book, and rewired. NO emulation! Details in🧵https://t.co/WF8F8KgAiw pic.twitter.com/yajk4sB0o3
— YveltalGriffin (@YveltalGriffin) April 14, 2024
Griffin revealed that the PS Hanami measures 181 x 91.5 x 30.25 mm and can provide them with upto 2.5 hours of play time on a single charge. They do not use a disc drive to load games and instead use Station to load games from their SD Card to PS Hanami. They have also posted a boot up video, which provides a highly nostalgic feeling before loading into XStation and launching Final Fantasy VII, which works like it was made for this portable device. In terms of audio, the PS Hanami has “beefy stereo speakers” and for video they use an open source software called Shinobi Scaler, which provides “pixel-perfect 480p VGA”.
Here’s a video showing the unit booting, and the internal PicoMemcard+ working in Final Fantasy VII! pic.twitter.com/aumQHZEfVs
— YveltalGriffin (@YveltalGriffin) April 14, 2024
Also read: PlayStation Experience Truck From 2006 Being Sold Online for $70,000
In the same thread we also get to see the internals of the PS Hanami and you realise how stuffed the internals are with so many components. Griffin has also posted images of how the motherboard of the PS1 looks like when it is folded up. The PS Hanami looks like a very exciting product, and there are many players that will pay top dollar to have this gaming device in their collection. Hopefully, we see Griffin do the same with other consoles too.
After the fold, the board is less than half the size of the original mobo. Naturally, it’s also twice as thick. pic.twitter.com/eItTdP2qdM
— YveltalGriffin (@YveltalGriffin) April 14, 2024
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