Looking around the PSP forums, it looks like there are a lot of people currently taking the plunge with downgrading their PSP now that the downgrade software has reached 0.5 Beta, which would appear to be stable and able to downgrade not only PSP’s that started out with 1.5 firmware, but also those PSP’s that came from the factory with firmware 2.5/2.6 already installed.

I’ve not yet taken the plunge, mainly because I am hanging on for the full beta final release of the software, and partly because I am researching the things that I will be able to do once my PSP is downgraded to see if it is worth the risk.

At the moment, there certainly appears to be a number of homebrew developments that work only on PSP’s with firmware 1.5, and the one I’m most intersted in is the Atari ST emulator CaSTaway. This alone may be enough to get me to downgrade my PSP. Also, if your PSP is running firmware 1.5, you no longer need the eLoader and Grand Theft Auto to play homebrew games, as they work directly from the Game folder without the need for an intermediate layer of code.

If you are interested in downgrading your PSP, but are not sure what to do or want to know more about the process, check out this thread on QJ.net that has reached 200+ pages of comments and information on those who have managed to successfully downgrade their PSP to firmware 1.5.

This thread has the instructions for how to downgrade your PSP.

I will post something on my efforts to downgrade my PSP when I finally take the plunge, and hopefully I’ll be able to report 100% success and have some photos of my PSP running CaSTaway!