The goal here is to install a hack application called “Free McBoot” on a memory card. It should be noted that a PS2 slim is basically required for what we’re about to do because you’ll need to swap discs on the fly while the unit is running. Anything newer than 8B may require a physical mod chip be soldered in. PS2 slims that were manufactured in 3rd quarter 2008 came with different versions of firmware, so it’s a crap shoot. If your date code is 8C, the mod may or may not work. Mine is 4C, which means it was manufactured in the third quarter of 2004.įor this to work, you’ll need a PS2 slim with a date code of 8B or earlier.

The second digit in the date code is the quarter of manufacture, A through D for first through fourth quarter of that year. The first digit in the date code is the year of manufacture. Here’s what the date code looks like on the PS2 slim. You must have a PS2 slim that is manufactured before the 3rd quarter of 2008. Find Your PS2 Slim Manufacture DateĪ not on the version of PlayStation 2 slim required. The list looks like a lot, but you should have most of this stuff lying around if you already own a PlayStation 2. Some tape – I used Scotch, but a lot of people use duct tape.A DVD+-RW drive capable of burning DVDs and CDs.One USB 2.0 flash drive formatted FAT32.One retail legal Playstation 1 game disc (game doesn’t matter) or CD-based PS2 game disc (these are rare).One retail legal PlayStation 2 DVD game disc (game doesn’t matter).A PlayStation 2 controller (wired is preferred).A PlayStation 2 slim model manufactured 3rd quarter 2008 or before (more on that later).Keep in mind that you still need a Free McBoot-compatible PS2 slim for this to work (details for determining your PS2 slim version are below). Just search eBay for “Free McBoot” and purchase a 8MB memory card with the Free McBoot hack already installed on it. If you take a look at this and decide that it’s not for you, you can forgo this entire guide and spend around $10 on eBay to achieve the same result. So I went down in to the basement, dug it out of a box, blew the dust off it, and got started.īefore you read through this guide, let me save you some time. I didn’t know such a thing existed, but hey – I’ve got one of those. While researching Vita homebrew, I came across a video from 2012 where someone demonstrated a soft mod for the PlayStation 2 slim. What scene isn’t booming in 2018? The PlayStation 2 scene. The PS Vita scene has blown up in 2018 and a flood of new mods and homebrew are out. I recently did a write-up on how to softmod a PS Vita and a PlayStation TV.

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