With the amount of new releases every day from the PS4 scene, it’s very easy to get confused as to what is possible and what is not with a hacked PS4 today.

Yesterday, I started to seriously look for what can be doable, as a programmer, if you want to start creating homebrew for the PS4.

The answer, from my perspective, is, not a lot, yet.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean that as a way to say hackers/developers on the PS4 scene are not doing everything they can to bring more people to the scene. It’s simply what I can witness, in particular comparing with my early experience on the PSP, more than 10 years ago.

When I joined the PSP scene back in 2006, anyone who wanted to create homebrew for the device had a plethora of tutorials to choose from on how to install the unofficial SDK, created by homebrew enthusiasts. At the time, it was very easy for me to get started and ultimately release my PSP homebrew, Wagic.

I wouldn’t have the kind of time required to work on a massive homebrew game anymore, but I’m still interested to understand what exists for people who want to give it a try on the PS4.

There exists SDKs for the PS4, but they all have severe limitations that, in my opinion, don’t make them “ready” for a “regular” programmer willing to create a simple game.

Here’s what I found. Of course, if I’m missing something here, I’m more than willing to update the article!

TL,DR: for people who are not blessed with a firmware 1.76, the only viable option to create “reasonable” homebrew apps at the moment is to use some official Sony tools, that you cannot, technically, acquire legally. But there’s hope that a few hackers are trying to change the situation.

1. Hitodama/psxdev’s PS4SDK

Developer Hitodama, known for his work on the PS Vita, had created a pretty useful SDK for the PS4 in the 1.76 days. Psxdev has built a series of libraries on top of it, which helped him develop some minimal homebrew as well as port an msx emulator.

The SDK, coupled with psxdev’s additional libraries, has support for grapics, sound, and controller input.

As far as I could see, it’s the most advanced open SDK available for PS4 Homebrew, but it’s only compatible with firmware 1.76 for now. It can be found on psxdev’s github here. (Also the liborbis libraries for sound, etc… as well as the fmsx port).

What about firmware 5.05?

I asked psxdev about support for the latest 5.05 exploit, which he said is in his plans.

@frwololo problems with dm. Basically Offsets and dinamic/static resolution for 5.05 on hito sdk. I have been away a few months, but i will update all soon for 5.05. — bigboss (@psxdev) May 30, 2018

There is a 4.05 branch but I believe it is not actually working for 4.05. (but looking at a diff with the master branch can guide some of us into understanding what it takes to port the SDK to other firmwares).

Last but not least, psxdev has been hinting that maybe he’s already “there”:

Well old stuff fine on 5.05 pic.twitter.com/MXbWvTacM9 — bigboss (@psxdev) May 31, 2018

2. The “Payloads” SDK

Another SDK has been available for a while (based on CTurt’s original SDK for 1.76) which hackers on the scene have used to compile payloads for the exploits. You can think of payloads as very minimalistic homebrew applications that focus on “system” changes. E.g. registry updates to let you see the debug settings, or in-ram hacks, etc…

Because of its focus on payloads, that SDK does not have support for graphics or controllers. Well, it does, kind of. According to the readme:

Whilst the SDK isn’t capable of most basic functionality yet, such as displaying graphics, or receiving controller input, there are workarounds: rendering to an HTML5 canvas, and using third party USB controllers, or a DS/PSP wirelessly for example. The SDK is currently in a state where projects like an FTP server, a mini Pong game, or GameBoy emulator could be developed.

People with enough motivation can use it (and have used it, as proven by the sample homebrews above) to create homebrew. My personal take is that it’s not worth (for me) the time until it supports the PS4 peripherals more “natively”.

For those interested, sce.party have a great tutorial on how to install and use that SDK on Windows.

What about firmware 5.05?

Certainly, versions of this SDK for firmware 5.05 must exist somewhere since developers on the scene have been able to port their payloads. Maybe the 4.xx version works out of the box for 5.05? I haven’t tried.

For those willing to try, I would suggest to use xvortex’s fork, simply because I assume he must have something that works on the latest firmware.

3. The OpenOrbis Team PS4 SDK

Open Orbis team, the folks behind the Mira project, have promised they would provide tools for people to build their own homebrew.

As of now, unfortunately, their github for the SDK remains very empty. Same for the accompanying toolchain. SpecterDev has shared a roadmap for Open Orbis projects, but I’m not sure if the llvm linker alone will be enough for people to get started. He’s told me that for now people can use the Sony SDK, but I don’t think that’s an actual recommendation, just the current status.

What about firmware 5.05?

The Open Orbis SDK/linker would be all about 5.05. It’s just not there yet

4. The Sony leaked stuff

There’s a leaked Sony SDK out there. People have been using it in combination with a leaked Unity SDK to build PS4 homebrew, and you’ve seen them floating around. Tutorials also exists on some PS4 scene sites on how to use all these tools and where to get them.

Sony have been on a witch hunt trying to remove that SDK from the intertubes, sometimes catching open source alternatives in their net. I fundamentally believe that people using the leaked official tools are hurting the scene in the long run. Using these tools does not bring the kind of attention you really want from Sony. Furthermore, if you use a leaked (copyrighted) SDK, and ultimately become involved one way or another in creating an open source alternative, you’re putting your open source project at risk.

I strongly recommend people to stay away from the official SDK. Then again, at the time being, it seems to be the only alternative.

What about firmware 5.05?

I don’t know if the leaked stuff is compatible with 5.05

Conclusion

My perception is that we still don’t have a “noob friendly” way to build homebrew for the PS4. However it is great to know that a few teams and individuals do intend to make some Toolchains available to the community sometime soon, for firmware 5.05.