The team over at Noobz.eu have now released a downgrader for firmware 3.50. Thats right. A downgrader. This means that (as of time of writing) all Sony PSP’s can be downgraded to firmware 1.5.

What does this mean? It means that the world of homebrew, custom XMB themes, and the PSone emulator are all available to those of you willing to downgrade then upgrade to the 3.40OE custom firmware by Dark_AleX.

I’ll admit I’m shocked at the speed this downgrader has been developed, given the exploit was only found a short while ago, but I don;t think anyone will be complaining.

Those PSP owners who have the official 3.30 Sony firmware upwards should take special note about the issues with trying to use official Sony firmware updates once you have committed to downgrading.

Before we get started, let’s have the obligatory warnings:

Any downgrader carries some risk of permanently damaging your PSP. We’ve done everything we can to remove as much danger as possible, but if you choose to use this downgrader, you are accepting all of the risk involved. Nobody else will be held responsible for any damage to your PSP, howsoever caused.

Recent Sony official firmwares (3.30 onwards) have included checks that block upgrade from previously-downgraded PSPs with TA-082 or later motherboards. If you use this downgrader on such a PSP, you will lock yourself out of official firmware updates – although you will still be able to use new OE firmwares when they are released. We intend to release a tool to allow a return to official firmwares in the future.

This software is provided free of charge, so that you can use legitimate homebrew on your PSP. You are explicitly prohibited from selling it, or using it to pirate commercial games or applications. If you want to play a commercial game, do the decent thing and support the developers by buying it. If you don’t, then YOU are contributing to the death of the PSP software industry.

I’d like to take this opportunity to echo the Noobz team’s thoughts quoted above. If you are planning to downgrade and then use a custom firmware, please don’t see it as a mechanism to pirate games, it harms both the PSP and the industry as a whole.

Full instructions and the download link for the software can be found on the Noobz website.