How to Fix PSP 6.20 Games on Custom Firmware

There was a time when a cracked PSP was an open portal.  The warez scene seemed to be one step ahead of Sony, who are extremely zealous about copyright protection, and you could play just about any backup without any hassle.  Required firmware updates have trickled down from Sony, each one required to play the latest game in an attempt to defeat the previous exploits.  In the past year or so, this practice appears to be rather aggressive, as each new game appears to require new methods of cracking.

One of our previous guides “How to get Dante’s Inferno Working on Custom PSP Firmware” showed a rather easy method to get nearly any game up to that point working on a custom firmware (such as M33 or Den-D), but since then new games have been published that require Sony’s 6.2 version firmware.  These new games utilize a new decryption method, and cannot be patched using Eboot Exchange 2.8.  Some of the new games that cannot be patched by EE are:

Screens from Prince of Persia – The Forgotten Sands for PSP

• Iron Man 2
• Prince of Persia – Forgotten Sands
• Metal Gear Solid – Peace Walker
• FullMetal Alchemist
• What Have I Done To Deserve This, My Lord?
• Hexyz Force

Screens from the Japanese version of FullMetal Alchemist for PSP

Of course, there are methods to manually patch your games (UMDGen 4.0, etc), but these are rather complicated, especially when compared to the ease of Eboot Exchange.  Another method to patch recent games is with the use of ISO Tool 1.51.  Not only will it patch 6.20 games to work on the recent custom firmwares, but it does it right on the PSP: no PC required!

Before you begin, you must know that this method does not work with Compressed Images (CSOs).  After you successfully patch the file you can create a new CSO to save space on your Memory Stick.

On the next page we show you how to perform the decryption and patch…

1. First of all, you need to download ISO Tool 1.51 and extract it. Download ISO Tool 1.51 here.

2. Copy the iso_tool directory to your ms0:/PSP/GAME/ directory.  You can either copy the files directly to your memory stick using a card reader, or put your PSP into USB mode and copy the files to the drive letter that appears.

3. The ISO Tool 1.51 should show up in your Games list in your Memory Stick.  Find ISO Tool 1.51 and run it (press X).

Selecting ISO Tool 1.51 from your game library

4. A simple text-based GUI appears, which is actually much easier to use than Eboot Exchange, in my opinion.  There are two sub-steps: First you must decrypt the Eboot and then patch it to the file.

Decryption submenus

5.Use the D-pad to select the game you want to decrypt and press X.

1. A submenu comes up asking you if you want to make a backup, but select “no”.
2. Another submenu comes up if you want to make a backup.  Select Yes.
3. Finally another submenu asks you if you want to start.  Select Yes.

Decrypting the Eboot before patching

6. Once the Eboot has been decrypted, you must now patch the ISO (Remember that CSOs won’t work).

1. Navigate to the ISO file that you just decrypted and press X.
2. On the submenu select “Patch”
3. On the next submenu select “Prometheus method”.

Patching the ISO with the decrypted Eboot

7. Your ISO file is then patched with the newly decrypted Eboot and is ready to run on M33 5.50 and Gen-Dx custom firmwares!

Successfully running a backup of Iron Man 2

(OPTIONAL) If you are running M33 5.0, then you really should upgrade to 5.5, but if you absolutely won’t upgrade, then you have a few more steps before your ISO file will work…

8. Navigate to your ISO and press X.

1. Choose PRX Import
2. Pick libfont.prx

Now your game backup will work with M33 5.0.