Downloading Games to Your PSP - a Pandora's Box?

One of the most contentious issues surrounding the PSP is the ability to play games from a memory stick, without the ever-spinning UMD. To download psp games to psp seems like a fairly innocuous idea, but such an ability could open up some very dangerous doors.

Those games could be ripped from a UMD, or, according to Sony's nightmares, downloaded off the internet. It is such that Sony has done all they could with firmware updates to prevent this occurrence. Still, one cannot deny the allure of playing games off of a UMD, as games tend to load from UMDs very slowly most of the time.

So, how does one go about this legally nebulous area? Well, with Devhook, it's not so hard. Devhook is a firmware emulator and ISO loader that is capable of loading games requiring firmware as high as 3.02 from a UMD or from the memory stick.

It's as simple as installing Devhook and dropping your ISO file into an ISO folder on the base of your Memory Stick Pro Duo. So if you are wondering, how do I mount psp games to memory stick, that's really all there is to it. Once your ISO is loaded in the ISO folder, you simply have to order Devhook to do its thing.

You may be surprised that it's not a very difficult thing to do at this point. However, if you were wondering how this was so easy, be aware that this process requires the 1.50 firmware, or a modified version of a later firmware, such as 2.71 SE-C. As stated before, Sony certainly is not a fan of this process, as it opens the door wide open for piracy.

Legal owners of UMDs can certainly rip them onto their memory sticks, but it is quite possible that far more PSP owners abuse this vulnerability to run pirated games. Truly, this process makes running PSP games very convenient. A few smaller ISOs on a large memory stick can make running a PSP library very easy, but convenience loses out to security very highly in this matter.

Of course, there are other applications for Devhook. Say you enjoy the homebrew that 1.5 allows, but you want to play a game that requires later firmware. So, how do you play psp umd games from a memory stick? You can play the UMDs directly using Devhook on your memory stick.

Simply load up Devhook, and select "run from UMD." Simple as that! You can enjoy all the homebrew you've come to know and love, and play the latest and greatest UMD games available. There's no reason why someone with older firmware should not be able to enjoy the latest Grand Theft Auto title, after all.