Hacking the PSP Blog

StrmnNrmn looking for suggestions for Daedalus R10

Right on the heels of his Daedalus R9 release, StrmnNrmn is looking to you, the PSP homebrew community, for suggestions on what to include in the next version of his N64 emulator. Here's what he said in his blog:

The areas which clearly need lots of work are speed and compatibility. Unfortunately it's a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation - if the emulator runs slowly, it doesn't matter if certains roms don't run, because they'd still be unplayable. On the other hand, there's no point in having an ultra-fast emulator if it doesn't run the games people want to play. As I see it, I have to keep working on both of these things - in the long term, it doesn't make sense to concentrate on one and not the other.

I think the best approach is to alternate on work between the two areas. R9 saw significant speed improvements, but almost no progress with compatibility, so I'm currently leaning towards trying to get a few of the more popular titles running. But you're the ones who are going to be using the emulator, so I want to hear your views on what I should work on next...
...
Have a good play with R9 to see what's changed - maybe some things are working better than you expected. Maybe some things are no longer working? Here are a few suggestions:

• Speed. Make it faster generally? Is there a specific game that runs slowly which you'd like to see an improvement with?
• Compatibility. Should I work on FlashRAM support? Is there a specific game that doesn't boot, or crashes the emulator? Does your favourite game boot, but then crash when you try to start playing?
• Audio. The audio support is quite new. Are there certain games where it doesn't work? Should I try to improve the audio so it's less choppy?
• Graphics. Maybe your favourite game runs, but there are significant graphical glitches?
• Save Games. Save game support is currently 'in' for EEPROM and MemPak based saves, but very flaky. Should I work on improving this so you don't lose your hard-earned progress?
• Savestate. Would it be better for me to implement savestate support, so you can save an resume a game at any point?

Source: Retro Console Dev

Daedalus R9 Released!

Earlier than originally expected, StrmnNrmn has released Daedalus R9. A couple weeks ago he gave a rundown of features that he wanted to include in this release and it appears as though he has accomplished his goals. StrmnNrmn gave a brief summary of things to expect from this release and also provided a note about the audio support. Here's what he posted on his blog:

I've talked a bit about what's in this release, so I'll not repeat everything here. Here's a summary though:

• Faster
• New UI
• Audio
• Various graphical fixes

Please note - as audio support is very much 'beta' at the moment, it's disabled by default. You can enable the setting either in the front-end, or from the pause menu.

Please also note: To keep the distribution size down, I've not included any 'preview' pictures for the rom selector alongside the emulator. You can download and extract the 'Extras' file above for a few sample previews. It should be easy enough for people to create their own preview pictures - see the readme.txt for more details.

You can download Daedalus R9 and test drive it yourself using the links below.  I've also provided the links to the extras mentioned in the above note. ENJOY!

Daedalus PSP R9 for v1.00 Firmware
Daedalus PSP R9 for v1.50+ Firmware
Daedalus PSP R9 Extras & Source

Source: Retro Console Dev

Circuit City Testing Used Game Sales

According to an investor note from Lazard Capital Markets, Circuit City is testing the viability of used game sales in select stores and on its website.

Currently, circuitcity.com’s pre-owned offerings are quite limited. Used PlayStation 2 software includes just 15 titles, with games such as the Guitar Hero II bundle ($74.99) and Lego Star Wars II ($17.99). Xbox 360 currently has 12 used offerings, PSP has seven and Xbox has six.

Lazard analyst Colin Sebastian said that Circuit City’s interest in the used market is of “limited” threat to used games leader GameStop.

Sebastian noted that it’s not the first time a big-box retailer has tried to get into used games, as Best Buy tested the same waters last year with what Sebastian called “limited success.”

He also points out that while the used games market is a highly profitable business, there are a significant amount of hurdles to overcome managing used games. Retailers have to have in place a dedicated inventory tracking system, an adequate way to restock high-demand products and a sales team that knows how to evaluate used titles.

Sebastian said that used videgame products generate over $1 billion in revenues in North America annually, with almost 50 percent gross margins. He added that about 25 percent of specialty game retailers’ revenue comes from used product sales.

Kris Graft
February 22, 2007

Source: Next-Gen