Hi folks,
This is my first post here, I've been a fan of Ben's Show for a while and after doing much searching but not getting very far I figured here might be a good place to ask for for Raspberry Pi Zero advice.
So I've got a PS4 console (not sure of the exact model number but it's one of the early 500GB models) that I'd like to upgrade the hard drive on. Unfortunately one of the USB ports doesn't work. Normally this isn't an issue, until it comes to upgrading the hard drive. It seems that when upgrading the hard drive you need to plug in both a USB stick with the PS4 firmware files on it and a controller as Bluetooth doesn't seem to work when the PS4 is in safe mode. Even swapping in the drive from another PS4 doesn't work :-(
At first I figured, hey, no problem... I have a USB hub, I'll pop everything into that and then plug the hub into the PS4. That doesn't work either... not sure if it's just the USB hubs I have (I tried about 3 different ones) that aren't supported or if it just doesn't support USB hubs in Safe Mode.
The machine is out of warranty and I'm not that great with electronics (I've done basics like fixing a PS3 with a hot air gun, well to a point where it starts up and the fans sound like they're taking off) but I'm a bit reluctant to take apart a working PS4 (and a repair from Sony is around £150 ish and for that I could just replace the console!).
So a couple of months ago I spotted a guide on how to emulate mass storage devices etc using a Raspberry Pi Zero. I managed to get it running as a mass storage device but couldn't get much further than that. This got me thinking... would it be possible to configure the Pi to emulate a mass storage device and PS4 Dual Shock 4 controller well enough that the PS4 thinks that both a controller and USB storage device are plugged in, and then have it send joypad commands to the PS4 to go through the menus to install the firmware on a new hard drive.
I've done a bit of Googling for DualShock 4 emulators but only seem to come up with how to use a DualShock 4 controller with a retro emulator. So I wondered if anyone knew if it was possible to grab the raw USB data from the controller and possibly "play it back" to the PS4 controller from the Pi?
I also figured if it's possible, perhaps it might be possible to automate a Pi Zero to backup content from the PS4 (save games, video & screenshot captures) and emulate multiple USB storage devices for the family so we're not overwriting each others saved games :-)
Rob
