Author Topic: Whats a Playstation 1 PSIO?  (Read 1666 times)

Whats a Playstation 1 PSIO?
« on: March 16, 2022, 12:34:07 pm »
Ive just seen a PS1 being sold with a boxed PSIO on Ebay and the auction is running v high so im curious as to what this bit of hardware actually does?

Anyone on here know about this and fill me in?

I can see its listed on the VG database with only 4 in peoples collections.

 Heres the auction (its not mine!!!)
Ebay Auction
« Last Edit: March 16, 2022, 12:39:09 pm by endemonadia »

dhaabi

Re: Whats a Playstation 1 PSIO?
« Reply #1 on: March 16, 2022, 12:46:10 pm »
PSIO is a third-party accessory released many years later after the PlayStation had been off the market that allows users to play ROMs of games from native hardware once the system hardware has been modded.

Here is the product's website.

Re: Whats a Playstation 1 PSIO?
« Reply #2 on: March 19, 2022, 11:07:51 am »
The PSIO is an optical disc emulator (ODE), which mimics the function of the PS1's disc drive in order to play games off an SD card instead of the original disc drive. Don't let the emulator portion of ODE trick you into thinking the games are just being emulated though; the games are all running off the PS1's original hardware in the exact same way they do from a disc drive. The emulation part comes from the PSIO tricking the PS1 into thinking it is the disc drive and that the ISO game files on the SD card plugged into it are actually game discs. They're pretty cool little devices.


However, if you were going to get a PS1 with an ODE I'd definitely jump for the Xstation instead. Not only does it look way more aesthetically pleasing, but it just works better with games too. Both require the system to be modded and do require an experienced modder to install them. I've installed about 20 Xstations for myself and various other people. I've installed one PSIO and while it seems to work fine I definitely prefer the Xstation over it.