Drake bought gold PSP for $30000

Drake’s latest music video appears to confirm the rapper bought a $30,000 golden PSP from Grammy Award winner Pharrell Williams.

Rapper Drake released a new music video earlier this week, and eagle-eyed fans spotted a golden PSP in the video that cost the rapper almost $30,000.

The new video was for the rapper’s latest single, “Jumbotron S*** Poppin’”, and featured a very shiny handheld console that seems to be the same one sold at auction last year. In the video, it’s visible right at the beginning, again at 0:52, and once more at 1:28 (thanks, Kotaku).

The PSP, or PlayStation Portable, first launched in 2004 in Japan and 2005 in the rest of the world, as the first ever handheld PlayStation console. The handheld sold over 80 million units in its ten years on store shelves, before being replaced by the PS Vita, which did not sell quite as well, to say the least.

Among the PSP’s fans was none other than musician and 13-time Grammy Award winner Pharrell Williams, who was apparently such a fan of the console that he decided a standard edition of the console just wasn’t enough.

Drake's custom gold PSP also came with a custom-made Goyard carry case. Picture: Joopiter

In 2008, the singer had a 14-karat gold casing custom made for the console, replacing the usual plastic shell the handheld is usually housed in. This made the handheld a little bit too heavy to carry around in everyday life, weighing almost 700 grams compared to the PSP’s usual 280 grams, so Williams also commissioned a custom Goyard carrying case for it.

His passion for the PSP and his love for his custom gold variant seems to have run its course last year, as Williams sold the console alongside a number of other items in an auction. That’s where Drake seemingly comes in.

The PSP sold for a staggering $19,375 USD, or just about $30,000 AUD, according to the auction listing, and included the PSP itself and the custom carrying case, but no games were included in the sale. At the time, it wasn’t publicly known who the lucky buyer was, but now it seems we know the answer.

The gold PSP appears multiple times in Drake’s latest music video. Picture: YouTube

Drake isn’t the only celebrity splashing cash on expensive games consoles. It recently resurfaced that Lewis Hamilton gifted his brother a gaming station, sporting a PS4 in a special briefcase containing a screen and more. The setup is likely to have cost more than $1500.

The two, who are both Formula One drivers, reportedly play Call of Duty frequently when one of them is on the road, but there may be a cheaper option in the future. Microsoft recently said it wanted to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo handhelds, should its $100 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard get approved by regulators.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.