PSP case modding

Of course, whenever I take any bit of electrical kit to pieces I assume that I will have broken it, so it came as no surprise that when I attempted to switch my PSP on, nothing happened. Out came the screwdriver again while I stripped my PSP down once more and checked that I hadn’t done anything stupid when reassembling, but everything seemed in order. After reconstructing once more I tried to power the device on – nothing happened! I sat there looking rather confused and feeling somewhat despondent for a while before it finally dawned on me – my PSP broke a few weeks ago and the battery would have been well and truly dead by now. Sure enough, after hooking the PSP up to a USB port for a few minutes it powered on without issue, followed by much relief on my part.

Once I’d pumped some juice into the PSP I fired up OutRun 2006 once more and gave the new analogue stick a test drive. Everything felt fine, as did all the new buttons and D-Pad, and hopefully this analogue stick will last a bit longer than the old one. I’m not 100 per cent sure that I like the clear blue face plate, but PSP Tree does have 20 different colours to choose from, so you’re bound to find something that you like if you want your PSP to look a little different. I think I’m going to leave it blue for a little while and see if it grows on me, if not, it’s only a five minute job to switch back to the original black face plate.

I have to say that I’m somewhat disappointed with the build quality of the PSP. After all, having a major component fail after only a year is not good, and I’m not particularly rough with my machine. The worst part is that a handheld isn’t like a normal console – if the controller for my X360 breaks I can just replace it, but if part of a handheld breaks it’s a little more complicated. That said, at least you all know now that if any part of your PSP does give up the ghost and you're handy with a screwdriver, while not being scared of getting your hands dirty, you should be able to repair it like I did.