Hackers mod a Sony PlayStation Portal to run PSP games
(2024/02/21)
- Reference: 1708473555
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/02/20/playstation_portal_ppsspp_emulator/
- Source link:
Three months after the November launch of the PlayStation Portal, Sony's game streaming handheld has been hacked by Google security engineers to run PlayStation Portable (PSP) games in emulation.
The PlayStation Portal is a small tablet computer with the handles of a DualSense controller attached to its short edges. The $200 machine is not a portable PlayStation: it relies on a nearby PS5 console to render games. In effect, it's really more of a remote, Wi-Fi-connected monitor with a built-in controller for playing streamed games.
It doesn't have the computational grunt necessary to play the latest titles on its own. However, Andy Nguyen and Calle Svensson, two information security engineers at Google, plus an unnamed collaborator with the handle "xyz," on Tuesday [1]revealed that the device has sufficient horsepower to run the open source PPSSPP emulator that allows PlayStation games to run on devices other than Sony's own kit.
[2]
Nguyen told The Register that while the performance of the emulator on PlayStation Portal hasn't been measured, PPSSPP plays Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and Tekken 6 "very smoothly."
[3]
The crew responsible for porting the emulator to the Portal haven't shared details how they made it work, but Nguyen explained that it didn't require a hardware exploit and was [4]done entirely in software. Nguyen also revealed that there's about 6GB of free storage available in the Portal device.
That means there should be enough space on the handheld for a couple of PSP titles – many of which were originally stored on optical Universal Media Disks capable of holding 900MB or 1.8GB of storage, depending on whether it was a single or dual-layer disk.
[5]Nvidia reckons this itty-bitty workstation GPU won't run up your power bill
[6]Add bacteria to the list of things that can run Doom
[7]AI PC hype seems to be making PCs better – in hardware terms, at least
[8]40 years since Elite became the most fun you could have with 22 kilobytes
But before you get too excited about playing your old PSP titles on the Portal, Nguyen [9]also admitted that "There's no release planned in the near future, and there's much more work to be done."
Nguyen announced that – based on the positive feedback – the team may show off the mod in videos over the coming weekend. ®
Get our [10]Tech Resources
[1] https://twitter.com/theflow0/status/1759627938910089575
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZdWDexFYancHB1hCMqoNKQAAAI8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZdWDexFYancHB1hCMqoNKQAAAI8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://twitter.com/theflow0/status/1759636325932638248
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/12/nvidia_workstation_gpu/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/31/bacteria_runs_doom/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/ai_hype_pc_better/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/18/elite_game_retro/
[9] https://twitter.com/theflow0/status/1759634540501565586
[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
The PlayStation Portal is a small tablet computer with the handles of a DualSense controller attached to its short edges. The $200 machine is not a portable PlayStation: it relies on a nearby PS5 console to render games. In effect, it's really more of a remote, Wi-Fi-connected monitor with a built-in controller for playing streamed games.
It doesn't have the computational grunt necessary to play the latest titles on its own. However, Andy Nguyen and Calle Svensson, two information security engineers at Google, plus an unnamed collaborator with the handle "xyz," on Tuesday [1]revealed that the device has sufficient horsepower to run the open source PPSSPP emulator that allows PlayStation games to run on devices other than Sony's own kit.
[2]
Nguyen told The Register that while the performance of the emulator on PlayStation Portal hasn't been measured, PPSSPP plays Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and Tekken 6 "very smoothly."
[3]
The crew responsible for porting the emulator to the Portal haven't shared details how they made it work, but Nguyen explained that it didn't require a hardware exploit and was [4]done entirely in software. Nguyen also revealed that there's about 6GB of free storage available in the Portal device.
That means there should be enough space on the handheld for a couple of PSP titles – many of which were originally stored on optical Universal Media Disks capable of holding 900MB or 1.8GB of storage, depending on whether it was a single or dual-layer disk.
[5]Nvidia reckons this itty-bitty workstation GPU won't run up your power bill
[6]Add bacteria to the list of things that can run Doom
[7]AI PC hype seems to be making PCs better – in hardware terms, at least
[8]40 years since Elite became the most fun you could have with 22 kilobytes
But before you get too excited about playing your old PSP titles on the Portal, Nguyen [9]also admitted that "There's no release planned in the near future, and there's much more work to be done."
Nguyen announced that – based on the positive feedback – the team may show off the mod in videos over the coming weekend. ®
Get our [10]Tech Resources
[1] https://twitter.com/theflow0/status/1759627938910089575
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZdWDexFYancHB1hCMqoNKQAAAI8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZdWDexFYancHB1hCMqoNKQAAAI8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://twitter.com/theflow0/status/1759636325932638248
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/12/nvidia_workstation_gpu/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/31/bacteria_runs_doom/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/23/ai_hype_pc_better/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/18/elite_game_retro/
[9] https://twitter.com/theflow0/status/1759634540501565586
[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Nice.
jake
The press using the term "hacker" properly for a change.
Rare, that. Beers all around!
Let's remember this thing is basically an Android tablet so the fact it got hacked doesn't surprise me. However the lack of even a mini sd card slot means the use it has as a portable gaming device is limited, even if you hack it.