Hacking the PSP: Cool Hacks, Mods, and Customizations for the Sony PlayStation Portable

by Auri Rahimzadeh

We're not just playing games. You love your PSP. You loved the first edition of this book. If you're ready for more fun, here it is. Check out: Networking hacks that let you IM and speed up multiplayer game action. Awesome audio, video, and image hacks. Game hacks that let you use a single UMD cartridge for multiplayer games. The ever-popular homebrew applications, with secrets for sneaking them past the firmware. We're taking playtime to a whole...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0470104511
• ISBN13: 9780470104514
• Release Date: October 2006
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Length: 378 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Useful book

I recieved a PSP for christmas, but until I got this book I had no idea what a powerful machine it is! This book will teach you how to do anything you have ever wanted to do, including; build a battery pack, revert your firmware (without bricking your psp!), turn a one player game into a two player game, write your own homebrew applications, watch Tivo, take documents with you, teach your PSP how to read, instant message, and tons of other cool hacks! The accomompanying website is also a great help, since it is filled with homebrew applications! I also highly suggest his other book, Geek my Ride.

Great book

I managed to get a copy of this book directly from the author, for review on psp-hacks.com (a site I admin). I've been using the PSP for over a year, and knew pretty much all there was to know. I didn't think this book would cover everything it should, but amazingly enough, it did. It also covered things and explained them in such great detail that I was shocked. The book covers stuff I haven't seen before, such as building a mount to put in your car, and making your own adapter to use other memory stick format types. If you are new to the PSP scene, I very highly suggest this!

Making other PSP books obsolete

With the complexity of today's gaming consoles, it's no surprise we need books like Hacking the PSP. The amount of things that can be done to this little handheld is astonishing, and there isn't another book out there on this console that covers this much. The flashy, foil cover isn't just for show. It's there to grab attention away from the other books on the same topic because they're nearly rendered useless. Hacking the PSP is a 300+ page book that offers something for anyone who owns the console. The basics are here, from simple things like getting video onto the console to playing around with photos. The extensive coverage of the web browser is by far the most well written guide on this feature yet. The layout is simple, easy to follow, and the pictures clear enough in black & white to understand. That's the type of thing covered in other books and the manual though. To make this stand out, Auri Rahimzadeh digs deep to offer some remarkable things to do. He goes above and beyond the call by including a chapter on basic C and C++ programming to get simple code up and running. It would have been expected to toss the code out there for the people who understand it, but Rahimzadeh takes the time to explain the origins of the code, how it works, and why you would want to do this in the first place. Little tips strewn throughout the book offer tiny tidbits that are useful and possible without any hacking. All of those game save pictures on the memory stick can be changed to your liking, something not covered in Sony's manual. It's not the easiest process (and it's arguable that it's not even worth it), but it's here in plain English if you want to give it a shot. The side bars, like the explanation of widescreen and various resolutions is informative, not just filler. Rahimzadeh tosses in some light commentary at times too. This breaks up the guide and offers something different than instruction. Hacking the PSP covers things away from the internals of the system too. If you want to build a cheap car stand for your console, the deeply involving guide is more than enough to do so. It may not look pretty, but it seems functional. There is plenty of information on keeping your battery going, even going as far building an external battery pack if your addiction has gone way over the point of no return and you cry if the included battery dies. The only complaint here isn't against the author, but time. There's zero coverage on newer firmware updates, and while the hundreds of links provided will guide you in the right direction, it's now history to be discussing the 2.0 firmware. The speed of PSP development is simply too fast to keep up with in a book like this. It's the same problem with the other PSP-based books too. We'll never see a definitive guide until this console is dead and gone. Until that finally happens, we have Hacking the PSP, and aside from the web, it's all we need. O'Reily's PSP Hacks, while a solid book on its own, pales in

Wonderful book for any PSP owner

This book is worth all the money you pay for it. Even if you are "teh l33t h4x0r", I am sure you will learn something new out of it. It is nearly flawless and the author put up a website for it, a forum, and also his email address and IM names. I even got more help from him over AIM last night and he actually talks to people and helps when I didn't understand some of the terminology. that was a cool experience. All chapters that make up the 300+ pages have some great stuff. While I am currently at the firmware version that doesn't have homebrew compatiblility yet, which homebrew apps are the cream of the crop of hacks, I can still do a lot with my 2.6 PSP. Auri does a great job of putting in all the necessary pictures and then some, as well as keeping it in a personal tone to avoid what plagues most manuals and related books. It didn't bore me and I want to do so much more out of the book. Sheen rates it at 5 stars

A PSP Must Have!!!

Anyone who truly wants to harness the power of the PSP needs this book. The book detalis many audio, video, e-book, and game hacks, while also having an indepth step-by-step section on downgrading a PSP. The downgrade enables users to run many different applications. The illustrations and steps allow very easy use with great results. The author also has a web page and e-mail address listed in the book in the case more help is needed. All of this info. makes "Hacking the PSP" the Holy Grail of extreme PSP use.