Friday, February 03, 2006 - Posts

Namco Museum Vol.2 - New Info & Screenshots

Here is some new information of Namco’s PSP game collection “Namco Museum Vol.2”, which will be released on February 23.

Namco Museum Vol.2 is the 2nd title following the “Namco Museum” released for the PSP on February 24, 2005. The new title took the potential of the PSP hardware, to deliver better functions and graphics.


http://pspupdates.qj.net/mu2_02_0203.jpg

http://pspupdates.qj.net/mu2_12_0203.jpg

http://pspupdates.qj.net/mu2_25_0203.jpg

Source: GameWatch via PSPUpdates
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In Stores: Madden 2006 - Xbox 360/PSP

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP) - It's one way to get yourself ready for the game on Sunday.

The version of Madden 2006 for the Xbox 360 has all of the basic features of the title for the other gaming console systems but the color and detail that the new console system from Microsoft offers gives you a look at the game that's rivaled only by watching the game on HDTV.

Playing the game on a high-definition set, you can actually see the texture of the jersey material on players, the turf looks like actual grass, rather than a sea of green, and you can see the individual droplets of sweat as the players compete.

For those who want to get their game on as they travel about this weekend, the title is also out for the Sony PlayStation Portable.

The PSP title has similar graphics, though, obviously, not as big as you'd get with a big-screen set at home.

Both titles are rated "E" for everyone by the ESRB.

Source: Channel 3

(note: You can also buy Madden 2006 from Amazon.com here)
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Syphon Filter: Movies & Developer Interviews!

Shaweet - check out the collection of Syphon Filter movies and developer interviews at GameSpot...

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Review: Nyko's Theatre Experience

PSP gets theatrical
The Nyko Theater Experience may seem like a grand name for a wee podium for your PSP, but this isn’t just a makeover for your machine – it does stuff too.

On the surface, it’s a nifty-looking PSP carry case covered in black brushed aluminium. But when you open it and pluck your PSP from the form–fitted neoprene lining that keeps it snug and secure, you will behold a selection of specialties for your enjoyment.

Gasp! Nyko’s gadget has a battery that adds a tremendous seven hours of battery life to the PSP, more than doubling movie-watching and game-playing time to 12 hours: enough for anything bar a 23 hour trip on a Boeing 777.

Marvel! At the ingenious inclusion of dual headphone jacks so you and your loved one can listen together with his ‘n’ hers headphones as you beat prostitutes to death in GTA.

Relax! There’s a much-need stand that purportedly opens with the ‘ideal viewing angle’ so you can rest your hands.

Smirk! At the supposedly excellent stereo speakers, as you broadcast your bad taste in movies to the entire cabin/carriage/top deck.

Get yours now for £90 from a bunch of suppliers including the following: Bluetrade, Mydogandbone, Podpower , Easypsp  and Amazon.

By Ruth Brown


Source: Stuff Magazine
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Dragon Ball Z Arrives on PSP

Big haired alien scrapping comes to Sony's handheld

Atari has announced that it is bringing the manic action and heart-wrenching storylines of Dragon Ball Z to PSP in the form of Dragon Ball Z: Shin Budokai.

Shin Budokai is being developed by Dimps, the team responsible for the Budokai beat-'em-up series on consoles, and offers a similar style of action for PSP owners.

A total of 18 playable characters from the series will be available, all of whom have the ability to launch high speed strikes, counter attacks and transform into more powerful forms during the game.

There are seven different game modes, including a gripping story mode, and a chance to scrap against other PSP owners using the handheld's WiFi capability.

Dragon Ball Z: Shin Budokai will be released for PSP, with a UK release date yet to be announced

Source: GamesRadar

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Fluff Interviewed (Author of Psix, a PSP Shell)

PSPEmulation has interviewed Fluff, one of the developers behind Psix, the new homebrew PSP application shell:

1) Could you tell us about yourself? Where you work and where you live ?

I'm a graphics designer that works for a major japanese gaming magazine as well as some console hardware/mod manufacturers, Moved from Toronto, CA, to UK 3 years ago.

2) When did you first get into computers and coding?

I'm not entirely sure of the date, but i started out doing graphics and some coding for commodore 64's demo scene. (Binaryzone PD)

3) What made you get into the PSP Homebrew scene?

I didn't plan on it to be honest, i answered a request from Qubitz (the main coder of psix) for a graphic designer, and together we devised and created PSP Arkanoid (Before any PSPSDK existed)

4) How often do you spend time coding on the PSP?

Not long, i had done alot of coding on the previous psix incarnation (one seen in the video clips a long time ago), but the general sloppyness of the code and the resource issues resulted in the complete rebuild and rethink of psix.

5) What problems have you had to overcome and how much have you learned while coding for the PSP?

My main problem was overcome by getting qubitz to code it :P

6) There are many people interested in developing for the PSP. What words of wisdom can you offer them in their quest?

Don't make our mistake and announce any speck of information about it until its ready for release, because a large portion of the psp scene is comprised of heartless, freeloading flamehappy kids that will tear you a new one if you don't please them specifically and tend to their every need.

7) Do you believe Homebrew is truly pushing the limits of the PSP, or is the best yet to come?

Homebrew never, ever pushes the limits of the psp, as great as we think something is, you can bet that however we have done it, could be done 10x better with the correct resources and tools.

8) What are your thoughts on Sony constantly updating their firmware to counter the progress that the PSP underground community has achieved?

I support it to be honest, iso loaders played a large part in flooding the scene with freeloaders with no real desire for homebrew, just that they wouldnt have to pay for retail games, though it may not be the main or only cause, i have no doubt that the creation of the iso loaders played a part in the frequency of security updates.

9) What's your favorite Emulator/Homebrew release for the PSP and why?

Probably the original gameboy emulator that appeared when the psp homebrew scene was first born, sure its really poor by todays standards, but it played a nice part in showing everyone what was possible, its things like that, that impress me more then porting quake 2 or even psix itself.

10) What influenced you to continue your work on Psix after it seemed the project was frozen.

The project was put on hold, because my father died and i didnt feel like dealing with both the project and the assholes that commented on it, i continued with the project with qubitz once i had time to grieve, which is acceptable as far as i'm concerned, people often tell me "nobody asked you to code it", yet they seem to forget that when news was first posted, there were only 2 main comments, the first that it was fake, and the second that "release it now we want it"

11) What are your thoughts on the PSP Emulation/Development Scene and how can it be improved.

Firstly people need to respect the developers alot more than they currently do, right now they look at developers as slaves, demanding various things from them and taking every shred of work they can, proclaiming the entire time that homebrew should always be free!

12) Tell us about Psix, What makes it stand out above the rest?

Right now, it doesnt stand above the rest as far as features are concerned, but we have both the knowledge and motivation to change that, coupled with a great beta team and hopefulyl in future, Pro members to give input and suggestions, it should turn out to be a really nice application.

13) What happened to Qubitz he was the one that originally worked with you on Pspos, which was renamed to PlayStation Interface X (Psix)
Is he working with you again?

Qubitz as i've said countless times on various forums, is the main coder of psix, Pspos was our original project, but due to certain issues (leak of info), we got quite annouyed, and subsequently, qubitz released the binaries and source we washed his hands of it.
i continued to code it on my own, getting pretty far but the foundations of my project were fundamentally flawed, eventually qubitz expressed intrest in working on it with me and from the start (2 months ago), it sort of just turned out that qubitz would do the coding and i would do all the graphics and manage the interface, such as what goes where, and why.

14) Are you still looking to add video Playback and if so what codecs do you hope to be compatable?

We are still looking to include video playback, more specifically, were will be developing a module based PMP that psix can use within it's shell, before people cry gpl violation, we have already discussed the matter with the authors of PMP, and so long as we provide the source code to the module on request, and insure that the module can be individually loaded, then we are okay to use it without issue.

15) You originally came from Zima's site Ps2nfo.com what did you do while you were there are you still part of that site?
on a side note (Zima used to be a neogeo rom dumper along time ago named Rs he ran the site NeoGeo Country)

That's actually a rumor spread by Yoshihiro, i came from nowhere in particular, infact, i had signed up at ps2nfo.com to ask for assistance with my ps2 modchip, and i was promptly banned because it was a 'rival chip'.

16) Why should someone purchase the PRO membership over the Lite version? What are the differences?

It almost seems a waste of time to express that pro membership isn't paying for psix, its paying for administration fees and access to the development area of psix, because no matter how many times i state that, people read it as "well whatever it still means you pay for pro", even though pro is just 'beta', and lite is just 'stable', all additions we make to Pro, will be added to the FREE Lite version, when they are stable, it is just our form of quality control and insuring that the final release (which is free), will be feature packed and bug free, if people don't like it, theres many alternatives to psix.

17) A long time ago there was some heat between yourself and Sonyxteam. Is there still hatred for each other or did you resolve your differences?

That's all old hat really, basically i called out yoshi on his lying ways, and he replied by posting a long post on their main site full of lies about me, quite comical in my opinion i must say.

18) Can you explain more about the UMD/Homebrew boot tool and also Advanced boot configuration (2.00 eboot support)

Not entirely sure on UMD, but in future versions of both Pro and Lite, we hope to be able to offer 2.00 PSP compatibility, retaining the ability to launch eboots, even from psix, though im sure when that time comes, people will cry that we 'stole fanjitas code' or something very similar.

19) How many people are working with you on Pspix? Who designed the Logo??

Right now, theres 3 people on the team, myself, qubitz and AyAnAm1, who recently joined us, the logo i had designed a while ago.
 
20) What are your long term goals with Pspix? Is there anything you wish you could add but dont have enough information.

The long term goals are to work with our beta team and pro members to make psix as good as it can possibly be, and finally release a complete, bug free product (that will be free).
 
21) To end this interview do you have anything you'd like to say to your fans?

All of them know i love them, everyone else hates psix :)

Source: PSPEmulation
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Super Spy comics return to PSP

Last summer, Matt Kindt began formatting his Super Spy comic for the PSP. Unfortunately, the series stalled after the first entry—until now. We're happy to see that Kindt, the award-winning creator of Pistolwhip, has found the energy to continue with this project, as he is now dedicated to posting a weekly Super Spy tale every Sunday night for the rest of 2006. If you're looking to get some added value out of your PSP, Kindt's work is the perfect opportunity.

Direct links (ZIP files) to the first three updates (unzip and place in PSP Memory Stick's PHOTO folder):

Safehouse
Spy Vs. Spy
THE Super Spy

Source: Joystiq
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Google targets PSP to build municipal Wi-Fi networks

Google recently met with Sony to discuss how users could use their PSPs to access municipal Wi-Fi networks, which Google hopes to bring to the San Francisco area and beyond. The San Francisco network would be free to the city and its users, to an extent—Google will likely offer a premium service, featuring higher speeds for paying customers. In addition, with the proper network access installed on the PSP, Google could deliver location-specific ads to gamers. That is, Google can track which access point the PSP is connecting through and send out an ad for a business around the block.

Source: Joystiq

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psp°map - Find PSP players in your area

Sentinel posted this news in our Submit news forum:

Hi!

I would like to tell you about a new psp site. I'm a student from germany and I'm working on an example project for my computer-science diploma-thesis.

That project is called psp°map (which stands for 'meet and play') and should help psp owners finding other psp gamers in their area and assist them in organizing meetups.

http://www.pspmap.net

Some features:
you can add your favorite locations, games and friends
you can set your current location, which other gamers can see (and maybe join you)
add new events (meetups)
the app suggestes possible friends in your area, based on how many same locations you like
it will soon be possible to use your mobile phone to find other gamers near you when you're on the road (e.g. when you missed your train and have some time ...)
AJAX-powered interface

The site is online since yesterday and I hope you check it out and maybe spread the news.

Thanks and bye,

Mario Eckl

Source: PSP News

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Homebrew Releases for February 3, 2006

Talk about the revenge of the remotes... there's been two remote control apps released in the past couple days, including today's "Tokes PS2 Remote for PSP"... check out the new releases:

Games
Rise of the Triad v0.99 - The classic game, ported to the PSP!

Applications
Tokes PS2 Remote for PSP - Control your PS2 with your PSP!

Emulators
NeoCD v0.1 Beta 8 - It's been updated again :)

Software Development
Lua Developer Lessons 1 and 2


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Homebrew: Snes9xTyl 0.03 Coming Soon?

Miemt11, the developer who has made quite some mod versions of MPH’s Firmware Launcher and other good stuffs, has spotted an interesting banner on Yoyofr’s forum:

http://pspupdates.qj.net/coming6dx_0203.png

He was interested and posted in the forums. Soon after that, Yoyofr replied:

“here's a status update for next release :
* some small bug fixes (gfx rendering, memory card issues, ...)
* 2 releases : one with sound mixing (not emulation, only mixing) on the media engine, requiring kernel mode, so firmware 1.0 & 1.5
one with standard mixing on main cpu, in user mode, so probably working on all firmware until 2.6 (but not sure since neocdpsp is user mode only and doesn't seem to work well on 2.0+ firmware)
* mode 7 optimizations for "not rotated" rendering (for example maps in rpg, ...).
* minor new features : delete rom in file browser, delete save state

I'm currently working on stability issues when you go to sleep mode & resume.
As soon as it's ok, I'll release it. Perhaps I'll implement a new menu using neocdpsp work from radius, I've to check with him
more to come...”

Hmm… v0.3. This is a good news. Keep it up, Yoyo, and Miemt11 too!

Source: PSPUpdates


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GTA: Liberty City Stories Giveaway

Playing homebrew on your PSP through the eLoader, and still can’t get enough GTA: Liberty City Stories in your life? Lucky for you (unless you do not live in the US and are under 18) Rockstar has started a giveaway contest to promote their homebrew enabling goodness free of charge.

The contest, dubbed the Fully Equipped Giveaway, will dole out 10 prizes of t-shirts, custom PSP skins, a hardshell case and a custom PSP carrying lanyard. There will also be one winner to receive the grand prize of a brand new PSP with all of the above mentioned. Registration is easy enough, just fill out your name at the site and hope you hold favor with the gods of randomness.

[Register here]
[Thanks for the info, DrNicket]


Source: PSPUpdates

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Rise of the Triad Homebrew Released for PSP

I know I usually post a list of new homebrew every day, but there wasn't a lot today... This is a big announcement, though - Rise of the Triad for the PSP! Any gamer tends to know about ROTT - just an amazing game that came from the same developers of Duke Nukem 3D.

Check it out here!

http://pspupdates.qj.net/rott099gibs.gif
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Looking to Learn the Lua PSP Programming Language? New Tutorials Posted Online!

Yeldarb has written another great set of programming tutorials. This time he is concentrating on Lua, the easy-to-understand scripting language for PSP.

Click to read Lesson 1 and Lesson 2.

Click here to get all the Lua stuff you need from the official Lua Player web site.



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