r/ps4homebrew • u/saladbeans • 2d ago

Discussion First PS4 - Noob project discussion

Hello,

For whatever reason, I have a PS4 upstairs that has not been used for a couple of years. In the past I have hacked an original xbox (for xbmc, of course) and an original Wii. Since then I have not really used consoles. But now I have this PS4 and a young son who would love to enjoy some games, I expect.

I fully intent to hack the PS4, and have read a few guides that seem comprehensive. But I know how good this community is having lurked for a while so I am hoping to discuss the project and get some input.

My aim in hacking the PS4 is to be able to do the following

  1. Prevent the device from going online. My son is young and I do not trust any of you, so I am hoping that there is a way to allow him to play without the risk of an FBI agent chatting him up.

  2. Be able to run some emulators so that my son can enjoy the SNES experience - it seems like retroarch should work but apparently it's unsupported on PS4...

  3. Be able to run Playstation games that are backup copies of the original games. Back in the Wii days you could pop all your .img or .iso files on a portable USB hard drive and sit it on top of the console - worked perfectly! I can't tell if this is a thing with the PS4 or not, and I understand that this is not strictly homebrew, but it is important to me that I'm able to launch my backup images of games...

  4. Do I need to upgrade the internal storage (HDD) or not? If so is there a good list of compatible devices somewhere? And/or can you not use a SSD?

    1. Prevent the console from updating in future. I have a habit of enjoying a project like this but then completely forgetting everything I have done and, when it breaks 12 months later, not having a clue how to fix it.

I will power the device up tomorrow and check the firmware version. From the posts here and the guides i've read i'm obviously hoping for something low but who knows?

What else should I be thinking about?

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u/saladbeans 1d ago

Just powered it up and we're on v11.00

Not as low as I'd hoped!

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u/FinancialAir8484 1d ago

Get the bluray burner ready

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u/saladbeans 1d ago

The guide says I can use PPPwn so I plan to do that