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.
Thank you for putting this all together! Any idea if the PSP-1000 would work with the same setup? I’ve got one collecting dust that I would love to try this with.
Yes, absolutely no difference! It works just the same :)
Excellent, you’re a gem!
You can even run GTA 3 (rebuilt in the Liberty City Stories engine) on your PSP-1000 if you’d be so inclined after jailbreaking!
I interviewed the folk behind it (Barcode Studia) a little while ago, and they made sure that not only was the game emulateable but playable on every PSP model, including the PSP-1000 :)
https://gardinerbryant.com/rewriting-liberty-city-an-interview-with-barcode-studia-on-rebuilding-gta-iii-for-psp/