Thanks to this hack, you can now run games locally on the PlayStation Portal.

He PlayStation Portal This is a rather unique accessory from Sony. The remote controller with built-in controller for PS5 hit the market in late 2023, and while it stood out for its great design, it was also criticized for its limited capabilities. The thing is that its purpose is very limited, since it was conceived as an extension of the console and does not allow playing locally. At least that’s how it was until now.

In the last few hours, a Google researcher has announced that hacked the PlayStation portal, allowing you to emulate games directly. That is, without the need to connect to the Internet or other devices. Andy Nguyen shared a photo on X (Twitter) where you can see the Sony gadget running version Grand Theft Auto for PlayStation Portable (PSP).

“After more than a month of hard work, PPSSPP is running natively on PlayStation Portal. Yes, we hacked it,” the aforementioned user wrote. Quite a curious feat, and one that probably won’t please Sony one bit. Although the expert revealed a few details about how he made this possible, he avoided going into detail. And it is logical that this is so. Otherwise, you may have legal problems with the Japanese corporation.

The curious thing about this case is that hacking the PlayStation portal did not require any intervention or manipulation of the equipment. Nguyen commented on social media that he was able to run the emulator exploitation of vulnerability in Sony software. Judging by his messages on X (Twitter), he managed to bypass the block imposed by the manufacturer and install the APK version of PPSSPP for Android.

PlayStation Portal can run PSP games locally

Since the researcher has only shared a photo so far, we don’t know how much PSP games are actually playable on this device. Andy Nguyen clarified that does not intend to make the implemented hack public in the near futureand that there is still “a lot of work” ahead. This suggests that some stability or Crash another type.

As stated earlier, it’s likely that Sony doesn’t like what Nguyen achieved with the PlayStation Portal. However, in addition to the hack itself, this incident allowed us to learn some details about this PS5 accessory. As the expert commented in response to his original tweet, the device 6 GB internal memory.

At the moment, we don’t know how much of this space Sony’s operating system takes up. One thing is clear: with such limited capabilities, it is impossible to install any other game other than the emulator. Considering that any modern AAA game uses at least 40GB of onboard memory, you can forget about hacking the PlayStation Portal to turn it into some sort of Steam Deck or ROG Ally.

While Nguyen doesn’t have plans to publish this hack anytime soon, it will be interesting to see if there’s more news about PlayStation Portal’s capabilities as an emulator in the near future. It is assumed that Videos of the device in action may be published soon.but nothing “official” was mentioned about it.