Everything people ask first

$50 per console. That's the work, whatever your console turns out to need — there are no tiers and nothing is held back as an upsell. Games are loaded before you collect it, at no extra charge.

Two things can add to it, and only if they apply to you:

• Delivery, +$15 — only if you're outside the cities we cover for free. Drop-off in East Palo Alto and meet-ups in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Redwood City or Mountain View cost nothing; anywhere else in the Bay Area, or mail-in from anywhere in the US, is $15 once per order rather than per console.
• 128 GB card, +$30 — only if you don't already have storage. Includes the SD2Vita adapter, tested, set up and loaded with your picks. Bring your own card and adapter and there's nothing to pay; filling it is part of the $50 either way.

So a local customer with their own card pays $50 flat. Someone mailing in a console and buying storage pays $95. Bring two consoles and you get 10% off; three or more, 15%.

East Palo Alto, California. Yes — bring it over and you pay $50, nothing on top. It's the option most people take.

We're open Saturday and Sunday, 1–7pm, and Monday to Friday, 7–9pm, Pacific time. Arrange a slot in advance either way.

Most jobs take under an hour on the bench, so a weekend afternoon is the one to book if you'd rather wait for it than come back. The weekday evening window is only two hours, so those are usually drop off one evening and collect the next.

Can't get to us? We'll meet you in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Redwood City or Mountain View at no charge — that's still $50 all in.

Anywhere else in the Bay Area, or mail-in from anywhere in the US, is $15. That covers tracked and insured return shipping and is charged once per order, not per console.

Same day or next day from drop-off or arrival, and there's no rush fee to pay because we don't sell one.

Most jobs take under an hour on the bench, so a weekend drop-off is frequently same-day. Ask when you book and we'll tell you honestly whether you can wait for it.

The console, its charger, and any memory card you want data copied from. If you're having storage configured, bring your SD2Vita adapter and microSD card too.

Leave game cartridges, cases and accessories at home — there's nothing we need them for.

No. Every firmware the Vita ever shipped with can be modded, including the final 3.74 release.

The one difference is permanence: on 3.60 and 3.65 the hack survives a full power-off directly. On 3.66 and above we downgrade the firmware first to get you there — that's included in the $50, not a surcharge. If you'd rather we didn't touch the firmware version, say so and we'll leave it; you'll just need to re-run an exploit, about a minute, after each complete shutdown. Standby is unaffected either way.

Not if you tell us it matters. Migrating your saves is part of the standard service, so they come across to the new storage as a matter of course.

That said: back up anything irreplaceable before it leaves your hands. That's true of any shop, and we'd rather say it than not.

Yes, and it's the same $50. The whitelist bypass is included, so games that were never approved for PSTV will run — bear in mind some expect a touchscreen the PSTV doesn't have, so a few stay awkward regardless.

On completion, once the work is done and tested — not up front. In person for local jobs, or before it ships back for mail-ins. Nothing is charged if you change your mind before work starts.

No. This is a software service: we don't open consoles, replace batteries or screens, fix charging ports or thumbsticks, solder anything, or install internal modifications.

There are good reasons for the line. Software work is reversible, low-risk and doesn't put us inside a fifteen-year-old console with brittle ribbon cables. Hardware repair is a different trade with different tools and different liability.

If your Vita needs physical repair, get that done first — then bring it over and we'll happily do the software side.

An SD2Vita is a passive adapter shaped like a game card — it slides into the game card slot exactly like a cartridge. There's no fitting involved and nothing gets opened.

What we do is the software half: format the card correctly, install and configure the mount plugin so the microSD becomes the console's main storage, and migrate your existing data onto it.

Bring your own adapter and card and the setup is part of the $50. If you'd rather not work out what to buy, we'll supply a 128 GB card with an SD2Vita adapter for $30 — that's the only physical item we sell, and buying your own is genuinely a bit cheaper.

An SD2Vita adapter (the v5.0 revision is the common one) and a microSD card from a retailer you trust. 128 GB is the sweet spot and is plenty for a large library; any modern Class 10 / U1 card is faster than the Vita's slot can use, so don't pay extra for speed ratings.

Or skip the research: our $30 option is a 128 GB card with an SD2Vita adapter, already tested and set up when you collect the console.

The one thing that matters is authenticity. Counterfeit high-capacity cards report a size they don't have and silently destroy data once they fill up. Buy from a proper retailer, not a marketplace listing that seems too cheap. We capacity-test whatever you bring and will tell you if it's fake before we put your saves on it.

Not ourselves — but it's worth mentioning when you get in touch, because a battery that won't hold charge makes a firmware downgrade genuinely risky. In that case we'd either skip the downgrade or ask you to get the battery replaced first, rather than take the chance with your console.

Yes — you don't collect an empty console. Tell us what you're into and we'll have it loaded before you pick it up.

Emulated systems, free on request. PSP and PS1 run through Adrenaline at close to native quality; NES, SNES, Mega Drive, Game Boy, GBA, PC Engine and arcade all run through RetroArch. Ask for it and we install the emulators, map the controls and test them at no extra charge — you're handed a working machine rather than a config screen. Not interested? We'll leave them off.

The free catalogue. Hundreds of games written and given away by the Vita and retro homebrew communities, full source ports of Doom, Quake, the GTA III-era games and plenty more, plus public-domain and freeware titles. It's far bigger than most people expect.

Anything you already own. Bring your cartridges and we'll dump them to the card; bring PSN purchases and we'll get them across. Your collection, backed up onto your own console, so you stop carrying cases around.

Retail games keep working exactly as before — custom firmware sits alongside the official system, it doesn't replace it. Content you've already bought and downloaded stays put, and we can back your cartridges up onto the card so you stop carrying them around.

Two practical notes. An SD2Vita adapter occupies the game card slot, so you can't have a cartridge inserted at the same time. And PSN itself is unreliable on a modded console: signing in can prompt a firmware update, which is the one thing you must never accept.

If regular PSN access matters more to you than modding, say so before you book — you may genuinely be better off leaving the console stock.

Yes, and it's a common request — a modded Vita is worth noticeably more than a stock one. Same service, same price. Mention that it's for resale and we'll set it up generically rather than around your own tastes.

Honestly? There's a small risk, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. It's smaller than it would be at a shop doing hardware work, because we never open the case — but it isn't zero.

Installing custom firmware is close to harmless: worst case it doesn't take and we try again. The genuinely risky step is a firmware downgrade, which rewrites the system software. That's why it's optional, priced separately, and only ever done on a console we've checked first with the charger connected.

If a specific console looks like a bad candidate — a battery that won't hold charge, signs of a previous failed mod, storage that's already failing — we'll say so and decline rather than gamble with it.

Mostly, yes. We can remove the custom firmware and wipe the card so the console behaves as standard again. The exception is the firmware version itself — if we downgraded it, it stays downgraded until you deliberately update. Ask and we'll walk you through it.

Because a system update removes the hack, and on some firmware versions there's no way back afterwards. It's the single most common way people undo work they paid for.

Your console comes back with update prompts handled, and we'll show you how to keep declining them. If one slips through, get in touch — it's usually recoverable, occasionally not.

Our workmanship. If the custom firmware fails, a plugin we installed misbehaves, or the storage we configured stops being recognised within 30 days, bring it back and we'll put it right at no charge.

It doesn't cover accidental damage, liquid damage, a system update you accepted, hardware failures unrelated to our work, or software you installed yourself afterwards. Cards and adapters you bought carry their own manufacturer warranty.

Since we never open the case, the realistic failure mode is a firmware operation that doesn't complete. If something we did leaves the console in a bad state, we'll work to recover it at our own cost, and in the large majority of cases that works. It isn't a guarantee, which is exactly why we check the console before starting — if yours looks like a poor candidate, we'll tell you and decline the job rather than gamble with it.

Any time before work begins — you get it back untouched and there's nothing to pay (return postage only, if you mailed it in). Once the work is done it can't be un-done for free, though we're happy to restore the console to stock if you've changed your mind about modding.

Any remaining Sony warranty, yes — although given the Vita was discontinued years ago, that's theoretical for almost everyone. Our own 30-day workmanship warranty applies regardless.

Absolutely, and we set it up so you can. VitaDB Downloader is installed on every console we mod — an on-device store for community homebrew, so you can browse and install more without a computer or any help from us.

Email with what changed and roughly when. Most issues are a plugin conflict or a full card, and they're fixable over email in a couple of messages. If it needs to come back in, within 30 days that's covered — and if you're local, that's a ten-minute visit.

Usually, yes, and it's the same $50 — a half-finished exploit, a broken plugin config, a console stuck without a working file manager are all software-recoverable in most cases. If it's been left in a state that needs hardware intervention, that's beyond what we do, and we'll tell you straight away rather than charge you to find out.