I know, I know, I’m going over old ground here, but it is important to remember that my opinion of new toys can change over time. I feel it is only fair to spend some time reviewing things I bought a while back to let you know whether they turned out to be proper raspberries or not. In the case of my Sony PSP, it’s getting better every few weeks. You may be aware that Sony announced was is effectively the PSP 2, or NGP (Next Generation Portable), and my PSP, the PSP-3000 is already a facelift out of date due to the slidey-screened PSPgo, but as portable consoles go it is still holding ground, accompanying me on most trips away from home. I’ve had my PSP since April 2009 as keen readers may well remember, and in the review I posted back then I had a rant about online game distribution. Well, my rant still mostly stands – I own quite a number of games for my PSP and almost all of them are second hand from eBay or car boot sales. However I do also own a couple of download-only games such as the now obligatory Angry Birds, and as a consequence

I’ve found that carrying discs around as well as the console is a pain. The PSP game discs (known as UMDs) are very brittle and most of mine have cracked so it was with great relief that I discovered the PSP has now been well and truly cracked.

Thanks to the very unofficial release in to the wild of the Sony’s digital security measures used to protect unofficial software from running on the PSP, a number of hackers have been hard at work creating a Custom Firmware (CFW) which can be executed directly from the user interface (XMB) (are you keeping up with the acronyms?). The CFW allows you to do all sorts of fancy things that Sony either didn’t think of or don’t want you to do. The biggest advantage being that you can copy you UMDs to the memory card inside the PSP so you don’t have to carry any games with you any more. After an evening of backing up my games I’ve discovered the once plentiful 8GB memory stick is perhaps a little on the small side now. Obviously Sony don’t like people doing this because if your PSP is capable of backing up games from disc and playing them, then there’s nothing to stop you acquiring games freely from less legitimate sources. For me, though, it’s a case of backing up my games before they physically fall apart!

For those who have a PSP (even the latest PSPgo), you can very easily run the CFW upgrade as described below. I’m going to assume you already have a basic knowledge of copying files between your computer and PSP and extracting files (go get 7-zip). The CFW can be uninstalled to take you back to the Official Firmware, or a simple reboot will also have the same effect. The one prerequisite is you must be on Official Firmware v6.35 at the time of writing. If you have a newer firmware such as 6.37 then you are out of luck, if you have an older one then upgrade to 6.35 by downloading it from this location:

http://psp-ofw.pspcustomfirmware.com/ofw-635.php

Save it in the folder PSP\GAME\UPDATE on your memory stick and then execute it from the XMB.

Once upgraded, you’ll need the 6.35 Custom Firmware from here:

http://www.psp-hacks.com/file/2052

Extract the contents and use it to populate two new folders on your PSP’s memory card, PSP\GAME\635PROUPDATE and PSP\GAME\635FastRecovery

Create a folder in the root of your memory card called seplugins. Download UMD Dump from here:

http://www.psp-hacks.com/file/2029

Copy the umd_dump.prx file in to the seplugins folder, and then create a text file called VSH.txt in that folder. Copy the following line in to the text file:

ms0:/seplugins/umd_dump.prx 1

Finally, create one more folder called ISO on the root of the memory card. This is to store the game backup images of your UMDs.

Now go and take a look at the XMB again and you’ll find on your memory card under the Games section ‘635 PRO-B Updater’. Run this and upgrade your PSP. When it reboots you’ll find yourself in the custom firmware which you can confirm by going to Settings > System Settings > System Information (System Software version should be 6.35 PRO-B). Make sure that UMD Auto Start is off (Settings > System Settings > UMD Auto-Start) and go take a look on the XMB at the game you’ve just put in. Hold down the PSP Home button (the PlayStation logo on newer PSPs) for about 10 seconds and then let go. The memory stick access light will flash lots and you’ll hear the UMD drive spin up. Leave for a while until the light stops flashing and you’ll find your game copied to the memory stick. It’s that easy!

If you have to reset your PSP for whatever reason (for example, if your battery dies completely) then your PSP will drop back to the official firmware. Just run the 6.35 Fast Recovery application to jump straight back in to the custom firmware.