Wow: You can play PlayStation games on a Nook Simple Touch

Barnes and Noble’s Nook Simple Touch eBook reader can play PlayStation 1 games. No, this isn’t a really late April Fools’ joke. I’m serious; take a look:

The video is courtesy of a Nook Simple Touch user by the name of Sean, who shared his project with Hack a Day. It shows him playing PlayStation titles such as Crash Team Racing, Spyro 2, Monster Rancher 2, and Wipeout 3 on the device’s black and white e-ink screen. The last game crashes, but Sean doesn’t think it’s his fault: “Wipeout decided to die for whatever reason, It could be a bad rom… :'(.”

So, how did Sean pull off this feat? You can do it too. First, you’ll need to root your Nook Simple Touch. Lifehacker has full instructions (with video).

Next, you’ll need to download the Free PlayStation Emulator (FPse, which turns the bottom-half of your Nook’s screen into a touch controller) as well as any games you may want to run. FPse can be downloaded from the official Google Play store. The ROMs you’ll have to find on your own.

You may also want to get NoRefresh to eliminate refreshing (remember, the device was designed for turning virtual pages, not playing complex video games). As you can see, the result is pretty impressive graphics, all things considered:

This hack is a very straightforward one, assuming you’ve already rooted your Nook Simple Touch. If you haven’t, I would only recommend doing so if you understand the risks and are okay with something potentially going wrong.

The Nook Simple Touch is ridiculously easy to root, which has resulted in hackers doing all kinds of crazy things with the eBook reader. In my eyes though, Sean’s hack takes the cake. Suddenly the Nook Simple Touch is that much tastier at its $99 price tag.

Image credit: Sean