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 got a PSP 3000 in 2012 and jailbroke it. It was part of a long line of jailbroken portables:
DS Lite: 2010
PSP 3000: 2012
OG 3DS: 2019
OG Switch: 2024
Then I got a Steam Deck in 2025 and could run all of the games from those portables without having to jailbreak anything. Glad I got it while the price was reasonable!
My Steam deck is my go to emulation machine outside of ds/3ds. I still prefer to use my modded new 3dsXL for that. It’s been a long time since I broke that thing out though. More of a collectible at this point.