So you have your own PSP, and would like to "hack" it? So what are the advantages? you will say. Well, I think that "Hacking your PSP" is not the most appropiate title, as it can be legal if you don't use copyrighted material, I like "Unlocking your PSP" much more.

Why? Because your PSP is a lot better than you think! Actually, it could run homebrew (software for PSP), you could play downloaded games for free off a Memory Stick (We have a game download list here), have many features, if Sony hadn't limited its power. Some examples of useful homebrew are PSPradio (allows you to listen to radio from your PSP), a Messenger for PSP, in fact, a lot of incredible things.

So what are you waiting for? "Hack" your PSP now! Of course, Sony doesn't want you to do it, as you could use it to play games for free, and not buying them, so it puts some limits to hacking. But there are still ways to do it, and here are the instructions!:

Downgrading your PSP

First you have to downgrade (which basically means the oposite to upgrade) your PSP's firmware, to 1.50. When you have this firmware, it will allow you to run homebrew from it, including loaders (that will allow you to play games off your Memory Stick).

There are many methods to downgrade your PSP to 1.50. Actually, the higher your actual firmware, the harder to downgrade, as Sony keeps adding more and More security. You can find all this downgrading methods on our PSP Downgrading guide.

However, there are some exceptions to this. Actually, there are HENs (Homebrew ENablers) that let you run homebrew from your actual firmware.However, I do not recommend them, as they cannot run all Homebrew and don't allow you to do many things, like customizing your XMB. The HENs that exist are:

- 3.50 Lumines Exploit
- GTA (Grand Theft Auto) Exploit