He PlayStation Portal It is a rather peculiar accessory from Sony. The remote screen with integrated controller for the PS5 hit the market at the end of 2023 and, although it has stood out for its great design, it has also been the focus of criticism for its limited capabilities. The thing is that its purpose is quite limited, since it has been thought of as an extension of the console and does not allow playing locally. Or that’s how it was until now, at least.
In the last few hours, a Google researcher announced that hacked the PlayStation Portal, allowing you to emulate games natively. That is, without the need to be connected to the Internet or other devices. Andy Nguyen shared a photo on X (Twitter) where you can see the Sony gadget running a version of Grand Theft Auto para PlayStation Portable (PSP).
“After more than a month of hard work, PPSSPP is running natively on PlayStation Portal. Yes, we hacked it,” the aforementioned posted. A rather curious feat and one that probably won’t please Sony one bit. Although the expert gave a couple of details about how he made this possible, he avoided going into too much detail about it. And it is logical that this is. Otherwise, he could be exposed to some kind of legal problem with the Japanese corporation.
The curious thing about this case is that hacking the PlayStation Portal did not require any type of intervention or manipulation of the hardware. Nguyen commented on the social network that he managed to run the emulator exploiting a flaw in Sony software. From what appears from his posts on X (Twitter), he was able to evade a block imposed by the manufacturer and install the APK of the Android version of PPSSPP.
PlayStation Portal can run PSP games locally
Since the researcher has only shared a photo so far, we do not know to what extent PSP titles are truly playable on this device. Andy Nguyen clarified that has no intention of making the implemented hack public in the immediate future, and that there is still “a lot of work to do.” This suggests that some stability or glitchs of another type.
As previously said, it is likely that Sony does not like what Nguyen has achieved with the PlayStation Portal. However, beyond the hack itself, this case has allowed us to learn some more details about this accessory for the PS5. As the expert commented in a response to his original tweet, the device has 6 GB internal storage.
At the moment, we do not know how much of this space is occupied by Sony’s operating system. What is clear is that, with such a limited capacity, it is impossible to install any other game that is not an emulator. Considering that any modern AAA title uses at least 40 GB of internal storage, you can forget about hacking the PlayStation Portal to turn it into a kind of Steam Deck or ROG Ally.
While Nguyen does not plan to release this hack to the public any time soon, it will be interesting to see if there is more news about the PlayStation Portal’s capabilities as an emulator in the near future. It is speculated that Videos of the device in action could soon be releasedbut nothing “official” has been mentioned about it.
