It appears that a group of programmers has managed to run its own test utility on a PSP through a memory stick in a process which many believe may pave the way for the running of copied games on PSP. The feat is made all the more amazing when considering that the PSP cracked was "wearing" the U.S. 1.5 firmware version. Sony had made a point of telling everyone how this version of the firmware would completely eliminate the possibility of running anything from memory stick.
In a video file released to a specialist website, a U.S. PSP, with firmware v.1.5, is shown running a Hello World test application from memory stick.
Considering that a utility that will dump the contents of a PSP UMD disc onto memory stick already exists, this news marks a significant step in the attempt to run PSP games from memory stick.
The video does not suggest that playing copied games is a current possibility since a lot of issues have yet to be addressed. Once the logistics of dumping 1.8 GB onto a memory stick have been sorted out, some suggest sacrificing portability and using a USB hard-drive, there remain other problems, such as decrypting the dumped binaries and the age-old virtual drive creation issue.
It seems that the popularity of the PSP may lead to the unraveling of its secrets but it is unlikely that Sony did not expect that, after all PS2 was the most heavily copied system in the history of consoles but ultimately was also the one that made the most money.
