How to hack your PlayStation Classic for more games

The PlayStation Classic is, in all honesty, a bit of a letdown.

While Sony certainly hoped it would be as phenomenal as Nintendo’s mini NES and SNES consoles, it leaves a lot to be desired. Sure it’s beautifully made and incredibly dinky and cool but, short of a couple of choice cuts, it features a lacking games lineup and performance issues.

Thankfully, that doesn’t have to be the case anymore. A set of willing tinkerers have blown the PlayStation Classic wide open, revealing a tasty menu to help tweak and boost game settings and unlock support for a plethora of PlayStation games you can add to the device yourself.

Be warned, though. While engaging with the debug menu on the PlayStation Classic shouldn’t void your warranty, the changes you make could be irreversible. If so, Sony certainly won’t help you out with fixing them. As for adding new games onto your PlayStation Classic, not only do you need to be the legal owner of the original ROM but making any physical modifications to the PlayStation Classic will void your warranty completely.

Basically, it’s the same situation as if you hacked your SNES Classic Mini to add more games to it.

PlayStation Classic hack: How to access the debug menu

To gain access to the PlayStation Classic debug menu you’ll need to get your hands on a compatible USB keyboard. Unfortunately, not all keyboards will work and it seems like a trial-and-error approach is the only way to find out. So far, the only confirmed keyboards that work are the Corsair K70 and K95.

However, once you do have a compatible keyboard, tap the ESC key while your PlayStation Classic is loading a game and you’ll open up a debug menu to tweak all manner of settings.

As you can see from the Retro Gaming Arts YouTube video below, the settings are relatively simple and straightforward. You can emulate CRT scanlines if you want a retro feel to your games, and there’s the option to switch the PAL 50Hz games over to 60Hz, which will notably boost the performance of titles like Tekken 3 and Ridge Racer 4.

PlayStation Classic hack: How to install more games

If you’re not satisfied with the 20-game lineup found on the PlayStation Classic, you can now add more games to the list of playable titles without having to crack open your console and solder elements together like one Japanese modder managed to do.

In fact, if you want to add extra games to your PlayStation Classic you can do so by simply plugging in a USB stick and following a few simple steps. However, you do need to be careful as this process could not only break your PlayStation Classic, but you’ll need your own ROMs for the games you want to play.

BleemSync is the easiest way to get different PlayStation games onto your PS Classic as it doesn’t require you to actually modify the files on your console. Instead, you simply load up the game files you want to play and insert the USB into the PlayStation Classic’s 2nd controller port and play. It’s still not quite as blissfully simple as that, but it’s a starting point for those wanting to get more games on their PlayStation Classic.

Install more games on your PlayStation Classic:

1. To get started you’ll need to head to GitHub and download BleemSync
2. Download the ZIP file and extract the contents to the root location of a FAT32 or ext4-formatted USB drive plugged into your PC or Mac.
3. Name the flash drive “SONY” – this is a requirement.
4. In the same root directory that you extracted the ZIP file into, you’ll need to create a folder labeled “Games”
5. Inside here you need to create a folder for each game you’ll like to add to the system. Each folder needs to be numbered sequentially. Each of these folders also needs to contain a “GameData” folder with a “Game.ini” file, cover art image, “pcsx.cfg” file and the game’s “bin” and “cue” files. A template for how game folders should look is located in the initial ZIP file and the GitHub page has an outline for indexing too.
6. More specific details on the nitty-gritty of how to format files and where to find them is outlined in the GitHub page, so make sure to read through that carefully. It also outlines how to install multi-disc games too.
7. Once done you can then go into the BleemSync directory and run BleemSync.exe. This generates a “System” folder containing a database and script to help mount the games.
8. Insert the flash drive into your PlayStation Classic and turn it on, the new games should be on display.
9. Make sure to not remove the Flash Drive while playing or while the unit is in use. Also, it’s not known if all games will run on PlayStation Classic without issues so don’t be surprised if you encounter some problems.