The Tom's Guide team is divided on the PlayStation Portal. I personally belong to the former of these two stances, ranging from one that questions the raison d'etre of a handheld device that relies solely on remote play to an Entertainment Editor who realizes how important this type of device is to game play when using a TV.

Well, after "a month's worth of effort," two engineers at Google have managed to get a PSP emulator working locally on the device. In one fell swoop, the hacker community greatly increased the value of this $199 machine.

The first thing to know is that engineers Andy Nguyen and Calle Svensson were able to get the PPSSPP emulator to run locally on the 6GB of internal storage with a "software-based" exploit without modifying the PS Portal's hardware They have succeeded in getting it to run locally.

So far, all that has been confirmed is that it runs "Grand Theft Auto 3," and given the storage capacity, the number of games that can be installed on it may be a bit limited.

In any case, being able to play without the need for remote play is going to be a big step forward for portable gaming consoles, and Nguyen has confirmed that "we may have some videos later this week to demonstrate" emulation in action.

It's worth a quick disclaimer here: if you download the console's BIOS and ROM, you are breaking the law.

In my Xbox Series S and Steam Deck emulation work, I have created ROMs for my own games, which is technically legal. Please do the same and do not engage in piracy.

As for when we will be able to jailbreak PlayStation Portal with this workaround, we will have to wait a while; Nguyen confirmed that "no release is planned in the near future, and there is a lot of work to do."

Putting the PSP emulator on here is just the beginning. Now that these engineers have lifted the lid on getting the software to run locally on the portal, the emulation opportunities and the potential to truly use this as a portable gaming system are endless.