We all were surprised and a bit shocked after Sony’s release of the Playstation Portable firmware 6.61 a few months ago.
But is this new firmware responsible for CFWs being unable to connect to the PSN services?! Well…
Yes and no.
It is true that Custom Firmwares for the older base firmwares 6.20, 6.3x and 6.60 are currently not able to connect to the PSN services (Error code: ‘80435061’), but Sony did not completely exclude CFW users from using the PSN services.
The convenience of using the PSN services, regardless of installed base firmware, seems to be gone (for now), but the released Custom Firmwares for the base firmware 6.61 are still kicking it!
PSN access is still possible via 6.61 OFW (Sony’s official firmware), 6.61 ME-2.3, 6.61 LME-2.3 and 6.61 PRO-C2 (CFW’s most recent build by qwikrazor87).
Since a lot of Themes and Plugins are not and (most likely) won’t be updated for firmware 6.61, staying on a lower base firmware seems to be a much more convenient choice.
Older CFWs showed us how to do it, and I think it should be possible to update the 6.20, 6.3x and 6.60 builds of the ME, LME and PRO CFW to properly mask themselves as firmware 6.61, which, in the end, will grant them, once again, full access to the PSN services.
While I am currently having some fun with a PSPgo and a DualShock3 controller (yes, you can pair those 2 devices), I am going to test the various builds of LME CFW and PRO CFW (for the various OFWs), and will report which ones are broken and require fixing.
Being able to use the convenience of the 6.20 permanent patch and using the PSN services is something that should not be a choice on the PSP, at least not in 2015.
Stay tuned for an update on using the PSN services on lower (base) Custom Firmwares!