A hardware modder named tschicki has created a true PS2 handheld console. He directly uses the original PlayStation 2 chip and completely reverse-engineers the motherboard to natively run PS2 games.
The project, launched in 2022, has undergone four years of development and is now highly complete. Specifically, the handheld console features a 5-inch 480×800 resolution 60Hz IPS screen, an asymmetrical joystick layout, a 3D-printed casing, and two 5000mAh batteries, providing approximately 4.5 hours of battery life on a single charge. It incorporates a custom heat pipe and heat sink design, and also utilizes the fan from the Nintendo Switch Lite for active cooling.
Tschicki emphasized that he removed six original chips from the original PS2 SCPH-7900x and SCPH-9000x models and soldered them onto a custom motherboard he redesigned to enable power supply, video output, and other functions. To achieve better image quality, the developers also added a custom FPGA-based video processor that directly obtains digital video signals from the GS chip, bypassing traditional analog-to-digital converters and thus avoiding image quality loss.
In other aspects, Tschicki also modified the original PS2’s Boot ROM to enable it to directly launch homebrew programs. He also thoughtfully provided two microSD card slots for the device: one disguised as a PS2 memory card to load save and launch files; the other, based on the open-source MX4SIO standard, directly accesses the SD card’s native storage to load files from the ROM library.
See photos below:
