PSP WOW blog

The worst part of the Sony’s PlayStation Movable (PSP) is that you cannot play all formats of discs on it in the way it is purchased from the department store. You can play only discs that are in the Worldwide Media Disc (UMD) format, and these discs are costlier than the average discs available. So, if you want to watch the movies in your existing DVD assemblage on the PSP, it is not possible. You can not even play games from your old collection on this Playstation Portable. So, what do you do? Do you chuck out all the stupendous SEGA and Atari games you played on your GameBoy and Nintendos? Indeed not! There is a way by which you can make your PSP compatible with all these games, and much more! And that is, the PSP firmware downgrade!

Let us see what a PSP firmware downgrade actually does. The earlier versions of the Playstation Portable were compatible with all kinds of disc formats, such as DVDs. However, as newer and newer versions of the PSP began hitting the markets, they stopped using all formats. This happened after the version 1.50 and for this reason, the version of PSP 1.50 is called the original or classic Playstation Portable in some places. Now, if you have a PSP version higher than 1.50, then you can play only UMDs on it, according to the way Sony has programmed it. It is attractive to note that the UMDs are also a Sony product, and so by this Sony is ensuring a higher peripheral profit from the PSP.

But when we do a PSP firmware downgrade, we are pulling down the version of the PSP. That is, from a higher version we are taking it back to 1.50. This can be done in as less as ten minutes, with nothing more than a USB cable and a computer. However, it must be told that versions above 3.03 of the Playstation Portable cannot be downgraded yet.

So, when the PSP firmware downgrade is done, the PSP gets ‘unlocked’ to play discs of all formats. You can play all your Atari, Nintendo and SEGA games on this now, and plus you can play all the movies from your old collection. In addition, the Playstation Portab that has undergone a PSP firmware downgrade to the version 1.50 can store your files of movies and music, and you can play them whenever you want. And, as if that were not all, the downgraded PSP can be used to download and play all kinds of games that were not possible in the way the PSP was marketed by Sony.