The PlayStation Classic ships with two replica PlayStation Controllers (the original model, which are without analog sticks), an HDMI cable, and a USB Micro-A to standard USB-A cable. An AC adapter for the console is sold separately. The console weighs about 170 grams (0.37 lb) and is about 149 mm x 33 mm x 105 mm (5.9 in x 1.3 in x 4.1 in) in size, approximately 80% smaller in volume than the original PlayStation and 45% smaller in width and length. It includes ports for both controllers, HDMI output, and power via USB. The controller's cords measure approximately 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) long. It cannot use PlayStation memory cards. Internally, the console uses a MediaTek MT8167a Quad A35 system on a chip with four central processing cores clocked at @ 1.3 GHz and a Power VR GE8300 graphics processing unit. It includes 16 GB of ECC flash storage and 1 GB of DDR3 memory.

The Classic uses the ReARMed branch of the free and open source emulator PCSX to play its games.