Sony today unveiled the PlayStation Portable PSP system at E3. The handheld video game system will be available in Japan by the years end following North America by Spring 2005. The PSP has adopted the UMD (Universal Media Disc) format, mainly for it’s compact high capacity (1.8 GB) and durability. We may even see movies and music albums released on the UMD format, it won’t be far away when we start seeing the UMD format widely adopted.

The 9 ounce PSP features a high-resolution wide-screen 4.3-inch LCD and can sustain anywhere from 2 hours to 10 hours depending on usage, it does have an integrated Wi-Fi chip so this could also drain battery life.