There are also some alternatives on google like this one that promisses Windows and Visual Studio support. I just remember that we used Visual Studio 2008 too (but for the officially licensed Sony SDK) when developing for PSP in 2010/2011

Advice:

Download virtualbox

Install Ubuntu

Install shared folders. (basically means that you can access your linux stuff from windows)

That way you can manage your files from windows tools, while using pure linux to do the compilation

I can't afford Visual Studio... Hopefully eclipse will do. Will it?

20 minutes ago, Brian.Washechek said:

I can't afford Visual Studio... Hopefully eclipse will do. Will it?

The community editions are free. I don't know if the PSP SDK will work with those versions, however.

1 hour ago, Brian.Washechek said:

I can't afford Visual Studio... Hopefully eclipse will do. Will it?

Any IDE you can configure to invoke a custom compiler will be fine; any VS edition should work, Eclipse probably could. 

You may be better off not bothering using the IDE (except maybe to edit your source files) at first. They won't magically integrate with the PSP toolchain, unless you find some kind of pre-configured template project. You're going to have to hook into the IDE's ability to invoke custom build toolchains to invoke the PSP compiler, linker, packaging tools, et cetera. That means you have to learn how to do that with whatever IDE you're using AND you have to learn how to correctly invoke the PSP compiler, linker, packaging tools, et cetera. 

You should probably learn how to do the latter on its own first. Then worry about wrapping an IDE around it.

Alright. This is all new to me. Would you mind if I temporarily made you my PSP game coding mentor? I shouldn't be that burdensome. But I like steps listed.

Step 1 is what?

I guess my question are why are you so hell bent on programming a console ( portable or not ).  Getting the toolchain working is part of the battle and not a simple one. If you are not familiar with cross-compilation and the required setup as other have mentioned then you are going down a path that will lead to you getting frustrated and giving up before you even start. Once the toolchain is configured correctly, then you have to now worry about the hardware and all its idiosyncrasies. I would suggest start of with smaller task before diving into the deep end of the pool. Have you ever worked with the GCC toolchain ? If not, get familiar with it first. Have you ever done any cross-compilation ? If not start cross-compiling a few simple application and then testing them on the target system.

You're correct about me. I am really about console programming. I can drop that if you would like.

What do you recommend I do first? I am new GCC toolchains. You were saying that I should look into the GCC toolchain first?

Your goal is as pointless as it is directionless. You do know that a video game console is still just a computer, right? In fact, they're usually far less powerful computers than regular PCs sold around the same time. I could understand if you just liked the PSP or NES or Atari 2600 or whatever and just thought it would be a cool exercise (kind of like that guy who made the Halo game for the Atari 2600). But you strike me as someone who isn't even experienced in video game development, nor are you focused on any particular system. You need to learn to crawl before you can walk (so to speak), and there should be an actual reason for supporting a certain system.

It's rather like a baby who hasn't even learned to crawl yet being hell-bent on using some kind of vehicle, without having a clue what vehicle they want to use, and so is just randomly trying out everything he can find, bikes, unicycles, tricycles, trucks, hoping to find something he can figure out how to use.

If your desire to develop video games ceases just because the video game is for a PC rather than a "console", I would suggest that perhaps game development is not for you. On the other hand, if it's actually your desire to develop video games and you still want to even if it's on a PC, start by developing something for PCs. Get experience there. After that, if you find it so fascinating, port something you made (or even a libre game someone else made) to the PSP or whatever. Whatever your interests are, you need to take it one step at a time.

If all you want is to start developing games, and you are a beginner, I would recommend you download one of the following engines instead of worrying about setting up complex toolchains and getting homebrew SDKs from various places on the internet:

• GameMaker Studio 2.
• Unity3D.
• Unreal Engine 4.

GameMaker is more geared towards 2D games. Unity and Unreal have templates for both 2D and 3D games.

hey are all free to download and test, so just pick one and try it. If you don't like it, try one of the other ones.

Look at some tutorials for the chosen engine, then try to make something very simple (e.g. Pong). Keep making increasingly complex games. Later on you might decide you want greater control, or just want the experience of doing this stuff without engines. At that point, you can look into other options (e.g. using libraries like SDL with C++, or similar). That's for future you to worry about, though.