The PlayStation Portable (officially abbreviated PSP) is a handheld game console released and manufactured by Sony Computer Entertainment. Its development was first announced during E3 2003, and it was officially unveiled on May 11, 2004 at a Sony press conference before E3 2004. The system was released in Japan on December 12, 2004, North America on March 24, 2005 and in the PAL region on September 1, 2005. It is the first handheld video game system to use an optical disc format (Universal Media Disc).
A new slimmer and lighter version of the PSP, appropriately titled Slim and Lite, was announced on July 11, 2007, during Sony's press conference at E3 2007. It was made available in the US, Europe and Japan in September 2007 with various colours and a very different box packaging to the original PSP. Among these versions, three were physically shown at E3 2007: a white version with a Star Wars imprint, a piano black version and an ice silver version.
The PSP's main menu allows the user to configure the system for use across the Internet or an intranet via a wireless connection, known as infrastructure mode. The PSP's menu can recognize protected and non-protected wireless networks within its range, and supports connecting to WEP and WPA encrypted networks.