Google engineers' hacked PlayStation Portal plays GTA Liberty City Stories: Report

A screenshot from GTA Liberty City Stories (Image via Rockstar Games)
A screenshot from GTA Liberty City Stories (Image via Rockstar Games)

A team of Google software engineers has hacked the new PlayStation Portal to run GTA: Liberty City Stories natively. While Sony originally released the handheld console to run PlayStation 5 games, Andy Nguyen (X/@theflow0), xyz, and Calle Svensson (X/@ZetaTwo) have reprogrammed its software to run emulated games from the PlayStation Portable. The project reportedly took over a month, and the game is now running on the platform.

However, the Google Cloud Vulnerability Researcher revealed that the team has no intentions of releasing the prototype to the public soon.


Google software engineers reprogrammed the PlayStation Portal to run GTA Liberty City Stories

On February 19, 2024, Andy Nguyen shared a post on X revealing a screenshot of Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories running on the PlayStation Portal. While there are many GTA-like games on the PlayStation Portal, Liberty City Stories is not listed officially.

The team of Google’s software engineers flashed the PPSSPP Emulator to the console to run PlayStation Portable games natively. One user named Nuckels (X/@Nuckels) asked if the project required any hardware exploitations. Andy Nguyen stated that it was all software-based.

The new PlayStation Portal uses the internet to stream games from a running PlayStation 5. Another user named Treynath84 (X/@Treynath84) asked how much storage the handheld console had. Andy replied that the SD card storage is approximately 6 GB.

The reprogramming of the software allowed the PlayStation Portal to play GTA Liberty City Stories without any internet connection.

The project demo delighted the fans, and many shared their positive remarks.

However, the software engineer revealed they have no plans to release it to the masses as the project has many things to fix.

Readers should note that Liberty City Stories was originally a handheld console title that Rockstar Games released on the PlayStation Portable. Later, it was ported to PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Apple iOS, and Android. Currently, the official version of the game is only available on smartphones. Therefore, despite a new GTA 5 update, the gaming community widely appreciates Andy Nguyen and his team's work.


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