While Rockstar did release three major GTA titles for the handheld— Liberty City Stories (2005), Vice City Stories (2006), and Chinatown Wars (2009)—the sprawling world of San Andreas was considered technically too large for the PSP’s 32MB of RAM and 1.5GB UMD storage capacity at the time.

The three-city map of San Andreas (~36 km²) is far larger than Liberty City Stories (~8 km²). The PSP cannot stream the world fast enough from UMD.

Players were thrilled to have the opportunity to play GTA: San Andreas on-the-go. The game's portable design allowed for new gameplay experiences, such as quick saves and a more compact map.

Many downloads only change the intro screens, icons, and background music to look like San Andreas while keeping the original PSP game's missions. 2. PPSSPP Emulation (Android/PC)