What you need to know
- A VR/AR developer is porting the PlayStation Portable emulator PPSSPP to Oculus Quest headsets.
- A few games were shown off and ran well enough, though there were obvious bugs and graphical glitches.
- The software is in closed alpha, but the developer is accepting beta testers who are interested.
While Sony's first foray into the handheld console space, the PlayStation Portable, was discontinued in 2014 after a decade, someone is bringing those classic portable games into the new space of virtual reality.
VR and AR developer Luboš Vonásek showed off a little of his project of porting PSP games to the Oculus Quest on Twitter. Vonásek said that while progress of porting the PSP emulator PPSSPP to the VR headset is going slowly, he noted that some games are "pretty playable already."
He showed off a short reel of games running on the Quest including a Dragon Ball title, Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, Lego Batman: The Video Game, the PSP port of NASCAR 07, and Star Wars: Battlefront II. The games in the clips appear to run very smoothly, though some have obvious graphical glitches.
Vonásek noted that the emulator VR port is still in closed alpha and is not ready for a public release yet. He said that the official PSP games he has tested work fine, despite some bugs, though third-party ports had issues like Duke Nukem 3D becoming a 2D game in VR.
Porting @PPSSPP_emu into VR on Oculus Quest goes slowly. Some games are pretty playable already. pic.twitter.com/VeqQxd6LlmAugust 6, 2022
Anyone interested in beta testing the software can contact the developer through the official PPSSPP Discord server, and message him to join the PPSSPP VR test group.
The PPSSPP emulator allows PC and Android devices to run PSP games in a much higher resolution than the original handheld could. Sony had closed the PSP digital storefront on the handheld itself last year, but its games can still be downloaded on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita. A small selection of PSP games are also available on the PlayStation Plus Premium service launched last June.
The Meta Quest 2 offers increased power, resolution, and flexibility over the original virtual headset. It is a complete, all-in-one headset that does not need to be tethered to a PC or smartphone in order to work.
