A few weeks ago I wrote about taking a chance on a cheap “junk” PSP-2000 from Japan, replacing its faulty charging port, and ending up with one of the nicest handhelds I own.. One of many PSP’s I’ve bought though.
Quite a few people here on Lemmy reached out afterwards asking about jailbreaking, or just sharing that they planned to buy UMDs for it. I guess this article is my answer (or maybe just yet another thinly veiled excuse to write about my favorite old handheld…the PSP) to that.
Rather than another super technical wiki, I wanted to write a bit of step-by-step with just pictures of all of it. I cover installing ARK-4 custom firmware, setting up a microSD card, loading games, movies and music, a handful of homebrew recommendations. I really, really love Sony’s PSP. I think as far as industrial design language goes, you just can’t beat it.
So if you’ve recently picked up a PSP, are thinking about picking one up, or have one sitting in a drawer gathering dust, I hope this helps you give it a second life!
And if you don’t want to read through, then ask me here and I’m more than happy to recommend things to you.
I used to have a PSP2000 that lasted me quite a bunch of years, hacked to hell back in the day. It was truly glorious. I’m now considering a Vita. It should be about as easy too, right?
They’re about the same now. You can do temporary or permanent. You can get a SD card adapter to not use their proprietary storage.
And then you can install all psp stuff done there too.
I traded mine in when I got a steamdeck, I went back to a PSP instead of a vita for it’s size. Just installed a usb-c charger mod on my psp2000 too.
Perfect, thanks! I might consider just emulation on the Deck, too.
I’ll recommend RetroDECK for emulation on the Steam Deck!
https://retrodeck.net/
Yeah…I made a mess with these emulation center apps, and they’re all over the place now, with barely anything working. I’m considering a full reinstall, because there’s folders somewhere it still catches on during a reinstall.