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.

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.

Hey thanks for sharing! I'd love to set one of these up for my kid (he's 4) to play old emulators with. Is there a way to get it working in a kiosk type mode where he can't get lost in a system menu or otherwise "stuck" outside of a game? I know I've configured emulators to auto launch roms before,, but can the psp be setup to auto launch the emulator on startup, for example?

Can you still mass unlock trophies with these? I remember somebody telling me that your psn level has some benefits and a cap based on games platinumed?