PSP v1.50 exploit goes live

In what is sure to be music to the ears of many US PSP owners (and many Japanese PSP owners for that matter), the rumours I mentioned in my last post have turned out to be true. The exploit allowing unencrypted homebrew to run on PSPs with version 1.50 firmware (not 1.51 or 1.52) has been released. If you want it, there are plenty of download mirrors here. Spanish PSP-dev team member Killer-X is the guy who discovered this exploit.

I haven't tested it myself (as I don't have a v1.50 PSP), but from reading through the documentation, it's clear that for end-users, running homebrew on v1.50 is not quite as simple as it is under v1.0. On version 1.0 PSPs, it's as simple as pushing a button. Not so with v1.50 I'm afraid. Indeed the new trick has been dubbed a "swaploit" as it involves swapping memory sticks. Yes, you'll need two Memory Stick Duos for the magic to work, with special files on both. The first stick is for the loader. The second is for the homebrew software you want to run. Using a provided PC program called "MSwap Tool" you can create the files to put on both sticks (as the homebrew software will need to be specially converted to run via this method). Then it's a matter of booting your PSP with the first Memory Stick Duo (and no UMD) in, highlighting the loader icon, and not pushing the button yet. Get your second stick ready, hit the button and as soon the program starts running, you need to swap out the first Memory Stick Duo for the second one. Sounds dicey I know, but apparently that's how it's done. Voila! Homebrew running on v1.50.

It may not be the simplest, most elegant system, but it is functional. For now at least. Sony have already begun releasing games that will refuse to run without firmware updates, so it seems obvious that they'll make updates beyond v1.50 compulsory in future games. And so the eternal game of Pong between the console manufacturers and the hackers continues...