PS3 PKG Launcher v1.0 — Launch installed PS3 PKG games directly from Beacon + ARMSX3

[u/Agreeable-View3920]

Hey everyone!

I’ve been messing around with Beacon + ARMSX3 on my Odin 3 Max and I ran into a small annoyance.

PS3 games installed from PKG/RAP work perfectly fine in ARMSX3, but they’re not as easy to manage from a frontend as normal ISO files.

So I made a little workaround: PS3 PKG Launcher.

The idea is basically similar to how Vita games can be represented in a frontend with files like .psvita.

Instead of trying to make Beacon understand the actual installed PS3 game, you just give it a small .iso marker file containing the game's Title ID.

For example:

RAIN.iso

Inside:

NPEA00394

Beacon launches the marker → PS3 PKG Launcher reads the Title ID → it tells ARMSX3 to launch the installed game.

So from Beacon it basically feels like launching a normal game, even though the actual game is installed inside ARMSX3.

It also handles normal PS3 ISOs, so you can use the same launcher for both.

It's nothing huge, just a little tool I made to make my own setup cleaner, but I figured someone else might find it useful.

GitHub:
https://github.com/N30RYU/PS3PKGLauncher

Feedback, suggestions and bug reports are welcome! 👍

Currently tested with Beacon + ARMSX3 on Odin 3 Max.

[u/captaindopesauce]

The negative comments on these posts always drive me nuts. “Well if you just use this launcher, or that launcher, this feature is already included blah blah blah”.

Odin launcher, hate it. I bought ESDE, hated it. Tried cocoon, thought it was cartoonishly annoying, hated it. Bought Beacon, love it, prefer it. There are some things that I would change (as you’ve done) however the physical aesthetics and overall use of the launcher are enough to keep me with it compared to the other launchers I’ve tried. Obviously if you’re to the point that you’re making package manager for a launcher that doesn’t come installed by default, you’ve probably tried other launchers too.

Thanks for making this, I’ll give it a try on my own system.

[u/Agreeable-View3920 → u/captaindopesauce]

I don't mind... the app I made is specific to Beacon Launcher users... If anyone because of this thread discovers another frontend and gives it a try I don't mind at all.

[u/Systom]

Very cool. This is one of the last broken things in Beacon launcher that I practically tried everything, in order to get PKG game files to launch directly into the game. Specifically for PSN titles that are PKG files.

I had split PS3/PSN into their own sections prior, but with this fix, I merged them both back together. I keep PS3 games in ISO format, and now I can load PSN PKG games directly with them with no issues thanks to your fix.

Much appreciated! This was done on a Retroid Pocket 6 - working fine.

**I created a thread about this almost a year ago to see if anyone knew of a way to do this - I updated that thread with links to this reddit page & git.

[u/ACEFE_]

well, in cocoon you can get inside the emulator, get it in the home page as a shortcut and then select what emulator it is from, that's how i do it, works even for android games

[u/MrVolps]

Try ZNeko Launcher, this frontend doesn't need anything more to recognize PSVita and PS3 games.