PSP Emulator Found in Parappa the Rapper Remaster, Paving Way for PSP Hacks on PS4

If you still mourn for the PSP, hackers might have found a way to get PSP games to run on the PS4. As an added bonus, those PSP games could even run with upscaled graphics. Though of course doing so wouldn't be "allowed."

Hackers found a PSP emulator hidden inside the PS4 re-release of PaRappa the Rapper Remastered. That's right, the PaRappa remastered was an upscaled PSP game, and user KiiWii posted their discovery of the PSP emulator on the GBATemp forum.

Turns out the PS4 remaster version of PaRappa ran on a PSP emulator but used a 4K texture package as a visual update. Using this emulator, KiiWii and other hackers were able to get several PSP games to boot on the PS4 by replacing the resource files in PaRappa.

Images showing PSP games like Loco Roco, Patapon, Namco Museum, and the PSP dev kit test app running on the PS4 were posted. However, the "PSPD" emulator isn't complete yet as there are still a ton of PSP games that don't work yet. Potentially because, as KiiWii says, there might be a 880 MB file-size limit on the emulator.

The PS4 is one of the more popular consoles to hack into, for a variety of reasons. Hackers have already gotten PS2 games to run on the system thanks to a loophole in the PS1 classics library, and now this. These are thanks to the emulators PS4 developers build for the console, which makes hacking it easier than on a, say, Nintendo Switch. Who knows what else the PS4 will be able to do in a couple of years.

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#1 Funny_Colour_Blue 5 months ago

Crisis Core HD remaster!

...guys help me out, I can't think of any other notable games for the psp.

EDIT: I'm being genuinely sincere here :(Edited May 2018 by Funny_Colour_Blue

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#2 WiIIyTheAntelope 5 months ago

@Funny_Colour_Blue God of War: Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta. The only thing those were ever ported to is PS3, so that wouldbe an awesome way to play them on modern hardware as I don't see a decent PS3 emulator happening in the near future.

Oh and Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles. Symphony of the Night and the Rondo of Blood Remaster that was never ported anywhere (and hidden original) all in the same package. Edited May 2018 by WiIIyTheAntelope

#3 Vodka-Tonic 5 months ago

@Funny_Colour_Blue Persona 3 Portable

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#4 Fourfoldroot 5 months ago

There are so many great games on PSP (although, given the volume of games on VITA and my relative lack of playtime I haven't bothered buying one). Something like this might be cool to use but, for me, it's extremely unfortunate that PSP games don't have trophies, and that would likely mean I'd play other games in my backlog first.

#5 Macuelos 5 months ago

@Funny_Colour_Blue The entire Atlus and Sting Entertainment library would be nice. Especially in the case of Sting, Europe only got like half of the games NA did (in general), and NA only got like half of the games Japan did (also in general. Sting doesn't release a lot outside of Japan).

On PSP, you'd get a whole bunch of Dept. Heaven games, there's Knights in the Nightmare, Riviera, Yggdra Union, Gungnir... Hexyz Force, too. The PSP had a bunch of cool games.

Now if only Game Arts had made a Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Harmony on PSP in addition to Lunar: Silver Star Harmony, all would have been well. Oh well.

#6 Monkey-Tamer 5 months ago

If all this was available out of the box I would be purchasing a PS4. Sony keeps making me turn to my PC for backwards compatibility.

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#7 sunotenko 5 months ago

@Monkey-Tamer I think that by now you can't expect backwards compatibility from japanese console companies.

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#8 sunotenko 5 months ago

As someone who was playing Final Fantasy Type-0 HD on my PS4, I am not quite sure I would play a lot of PSP games this way.
Portable games normaly are developed with the limitations of these plataforms in mind, so playing them on consoles generaly doesn't feel very good.