PlayStation just released the new PlayStation Classic – a tiny little miniature PlayStation
that comes with 2 controllers and 20 games pre-installed onto the unit.
Not too shabby.
PlayStation is definitely copying Nintendo's miniature classic consoles of course, but
no complaints here.
It's a fun way to bring back the classic games people grew up playing.
It's time to take this tiny PlayStation apart and see what we're paying for.
Let's get started.
[Intro]
In the box we get these 2 controllers.
They're 1.5 meter cable length.
These are twice as long as the Nintendo Classic controller cables, which is nice.
The Nintendo Classic came with 30 games though, instead of 20 like this PlayStation does.
So you win some and you lose some.
One huge flaw is that even after paying $100 for this PlayStation Classic, it does not
come with a wall plug.
PlayStation just assumes you have enough cellphone USB wall plugs laying around and they don't
feel the need to include one in the box, but that's kind of messed up.
The top disk location does not open up, which is expected.
The PlayStation Classic only plays the 20 preloaded games.
Flipping it around we have the 2 USB ports for the PlayStation controllers, the power
and open buttons on the top.
The open button just allows you to switch between the theoretical discs for the games
that required more than one disc to play.
On the back of the console we have the HDMI output and the micro USB power port for that
wall adapter you have to supply yourself.
Getting inside the PlayStation Classic is pretty straightforward with the 5 black Phillips
head screws along the bottom.
I'll link the toolkit I'm using in the video description.
Once the bottom panel pops off, we get our first look at the circuit board and the funky
little sticker on the bottom of the plastic base.
This sticker is blocking the air vents with a silver color.
At first glance from the outside you might think there's metal inside the PlayStation
Classic...but nope, just a sticker.
With no airflow out the bottom vents either now that's it's blocked.
The circuit board has 4 additional screws holding it in place.
I'll remove those and pull the computer guts out of the plastic housing.
You can see the internal button structure here, just plastic contraptions that reach
down to the surface of the motherboard.
Kind of the same push style buttons we saw in the solar powered LED light I took apart
a few days ago.
The metal cover for the motherboard is just lightly stuck into place with some thermal
foam over the processor.
It's sticky on both sides.
And now we get our inside look at the 2 USB controller ports, the rear HDMI, and the micro
USB ports.
Pretty simple design.
PlayStation is definitely pulling some healthy profit margins off of this one.
I'll reassemble the console so we can get a closer look inside of the controller.
Everything on the console kind of clicks into place with little guiding plastic bits and
the remaining screws.
Pretty simple.
Now for the controller.
It feels and looks almost the same as the original controllers, but to be honest, I
never played around a whole lot with the PlayStation growing up.
My mom never let me buy one as a kid, and most of my friends had Nintendo's.
I have one now though...it's just much smaller than I anticipated.
The controller has 8 screws in the back holding the 2 halves together.
Once the back is removed, we see the same nifty cable routing that we saw inside the
Nintendo controllers.
These plastic pins allow the cable to be stressed and pulled but with no pressure on the fragile
motherboard connection itself.
And this is where things get interesting.
The plug inside the controller is just another micro USB cable.
So theoretically, you could just buy a longer micro USB cable from Amazon or something,
and install it inside your controller with this same normal micro USB plug and sit farther
away from your TV.
Pretty awesome.
The plastic housing and super small circuit board have little clasps holding them into
the exterior gray housing.
Unclasping those allows the plastic to release and reveal this fantastically blue ribbon
for the button wiring.
It's always fun when the insides look better than the outsides.
Each little black rubber pad on the bottom of the buttons touches the conductive pads
on top of the blue ribbon.
Then the massive blue ribbon plugs into the tiny circuit board on the back to handle all
the input data.
It's pretty interesting.
The buttons themselves are also uniquely shaped and only fit in one hole on the controller.
Kind of like what we saw with the Nintendo Switch buttons when we were swapping it into
a clear housing.
The rubber pad is what allows the buttons to be compressed and then springs them back
up into place again.
I might sound like a broken record at this point, but a transparent controller would
look pretty fantastic.
I almost forgot to plug the micro USB cable back into the controller and route it through
the little plastic pins that keep it firm and secure.
But yeah, PlayStation has done pretty well with this one.
They should definitely include a simple power brick in the box, but depending on your nostalgia
level towards PlayStation games, this might be a worthwhile purchase.
I'll have both the PlayStation Classic and the Nintendo Classic linked in the video description
if you want to check out the current pricing.
But I think it's a pretty good gift idea.
Hit that subscribe button if you haven't already, and let me know in the comments if you had
to pick one, PlayStation or Nintendo, which would it be?
Thanks a ton for watching.
I'll see you around.