Hacking the PSP Blog

Rumor: No Denying It, PSP2 Is Coming

And not only that, it looks like it's coming later this year. There have been rumors ever since the DS Lite hit that Sony was also planning a redesign of its portable. Some of those rumors have ground in reality, some of them are just wishful thinking. Nothing official has been announced, and Sony has shot down any chatter regarding a redesign saying it's not happening. With all this, PSP2 looks to be a pipe-dream — Like it's not happening.

Apparently, it is.

Various third party and highly placed sources state that the PSP2 is coming. Speculation is swirling around the industry, and third party publishers are hoping to tie their games to the PSP2 launch. Thing is, Sony has yet to pass along any information about when that will be. Meaning we won't see big third party titles at launch.

Word has it that a big announcement will most likely hit at E3 with Sony unveiling the redesigned portable. An announcement of launch date (which should be sometime 4th quarter) is entirely possible as well. The redesigned product apparently does exist as this is what we've heard so far:

• The screen is gorgeous
• The loads are faster
• Improved buttons
• Internal flash — 8GB
• Possible touch-screen
• Possible built-in camera
• Uses UMD

The recent blockbuster success in Japan should prove that the PSP is anything but dead and deserving of a make-over. Stay tuned!

Brian Ashcraft
March 12, 2007

Source: Kotaku

PS3 Home to launch in October

Sony plans to launch its ambitious PlayStation 3 Home environment - announced at GDC last week - this October, and expects the initial free download to weigh in at "under 500MB", with subsequent patches "hopefully" integrated via a streaming solution "that makes them negligible".

A closed beta phase for around 15,000 users will take place between April and August, with an open beta for 50,000 or so operating between August and October.

That's all according to a "third party relations" question-and-answer PDF uncovered on Sony's developer website, which sheds further light on the service unveiled during Phil Harrison's GDC keynote.

Certain Home features are likely to be accessible via PlayStation Portable and mobile phone in some form, Sony says, while users can also expect to visit paid-for special events, and experience increasing levels of integration with the console's more traditional features as development accelerates. For example, it will be possible to track down friends easily from day-one, but you will only be able to seamlessly launch into a game of MotorStorm together once Sony gets round to coding that bit.

Another element that will take time is the environment's persistence. "Currently Home is not a persistent world, so when you leave Home, all of your possessions go with you. For instance, it is not currently possible for other users to visit your apartment while you're not there," Sony says. "We are working on the persistent aspect of Home, and expect to implement it in the long term."

Read the full article here...

Tom Bramwell
March 12, 2007

Source: EuroGamer

2.71 (TA-082 and TA-086) Downgrader - Corruption-free

XsavioR of the Exophase forums has released this 2.71 downgrader for TA-082 and TA-086 PSPs, tagged "Corruption-free". At the end of the entire procedure, whose instructions can be found in the Readme included in the package, the result is a FW 1.50 PSP.

The "Corruption-free" tag comes from this 'brew's feature which eliminates superfluous corrupted keys from the first generation of idstorage patcher. It will only corrupt those keys necessary to run FW 1.5. As it's also integrated into one package, this downgrader saves the newly-initiated into homebrew the trouble of "even knowing what idstorage is," XsavioR explained in the Exophase forum. This package also includes HEN-D, necessary for the downgrader process.

(Due props: Homebrew author credits the original TA-082 downgrader by Dark_Alex, Mathieulh, Harleyg; and 1.5 enabler by Chilly Willy.)

There ARE a few words of warning regarding the use of this 'brew, though, so now, it's time for a few very red and emboldened letters to scream at you.

THE DOWNGRADING PROCEDURE ALWAYS HAS A RISK OF BRICKING YOUR PSP. THE HOMEBREW AUTHOR REQUIRES THAT YOU UNDERSTAND THIS RISK, AND KNOW THAT YOU USE THIS PROGRAM AT YOUR OWN RISK.

THIS DOWNGRADER IS ONLY, ONLY, ONLY FOR:

• TA-082 AND TA-086 2.71 downgrading to FW 1.5
• New users WHO STILL NEED TO DOWNGRADE THEIR 2.71 TA-082 and TA-086 PSP. If you have used the first generation of idstorage patcher, sorry, but NO GO. This also won't fix PSPs which have already run an idchanger app. Perhaps there is another app for this.

THIS GOES DOUBLE: DO NOT USE FAKE MEMORY STICKS WITH THIS HOMEBREW!!! The use of fake Sticks in downgrading or upgrading has a chance of BRICKING. READ THE README FOR INSTRUCTIONS AND OTHER WARNINGS! CHARGE THE BATTERY! Or better yet, KEEP THAT CHARGER PLUGGED IN WITH THE BATTERY @ 75% OR MORE!

Done? If you have understood all the risks, and you find that this program is for you, Download link is below. If this program is NOT for you, you can see if the TA-082 Easy Downgrader (for 2.80) or the original TA-082 Downgrader for 2.71 Firmware with HEN-D from Dark_Alex and co. For new information not covered here, as well as questions you may have, you may be directed to the homebrew author via the source link below.

And if you've downloaded this homebrew already, why are you still reading this and not the Readme?!

Again, WARNING: Firmware modifications can potentially damage your PSP beyond repair. Use this at your own risk.

Download 2.71 (TA-082 and TA-086) Downgrader - Corruption-free

Source: PSPUpdates

Off Topic: Jack Thompson suing Take-Two -- 2007 Edition

Sisyphus ain't got nothin' on Jack Thompson. The infamous anti-games lawyer, who former ESA head Doug Lowenstein said should be ignored by the gaming press, is suing Take-Two Interactive to prevent the sale of Manhunt 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV. Thompson plans to file suit the week of March 19 and he is looking to "prevent the sale of two hyperviolent video games set to be released this year and sold to anyone under 17 years of age." Which reads like two objectives.

In the following paragraph, the clarification is that the games shouldn't be sold to anyone under 17 because both games will be rated "mature." According to the ESRB website, neither game has been rated at this time. Not to mention that even if they are rated M, they shouldn't be sold to anyone under 17 anyway. At this stage we know little to nothing about either game, Grand Theft Auto IV's trailer hasn't even been released yet. For all we know it could be sunshine and lollipops. This lawsuit is a bit premature and could simply be viewed as Thompson trying to get another advanced copy of a Rockstar game. Don't give in Take-Two, we expect him to wait for the game just like everyone else. Thompson says he is going forward with the lawsuit because he "still has his testicles, both literally and figuratively" despite Take-Two's efforts to have him disbarred.

Read the full text including Jack Thompson's press release here...

Alexander Sliwinski
March 10, 2007

Source: Joystiq

GDC07: A Conversation with Phil Harrison

Following his keynote presentation on Game 3.0, Sony's view of a 3rd generation of games on connected platforms with dynamic content, Brian Crecente of Kotaku sat down with Phil Harrison, President of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios. Here's some of what they talked about:

Crecente: It's amazing, both understanding what happened during your presentation today but also we posted it and looking at the comments. People are like "Sony's back" Did you you see this as a defining moment, did you think this was going to be a huge moment for the Playstation 3?

Harrison: I think that the.. where to begin. I know that Home is really special and I know that it has the potential to be incredibly powerful not just as a brand, but for the consumers and the industry, so it's not a complete surprise. But you never know until you stand up in front of an audience of experts, yourselves, the media last night or the development community today. So clearly we have been doing a lot of internal show and tell on Home for a long time. Only just recently did we start to share with our third parties which is I think where you probably got your uh..

Crecente: No comment.

Harrison: You're the one saying no comment now.

Laughter

Harrison: And that's fine, we obviously have to include our close partners in our plans early so we can consult with them and get their feedback. Every single meeting we've done with them, every single presentation we've had universally positive, incredible feedback, so that gave us a lot of confidence, but like I said you never know. The reaction has been tremendous and I'm very much looking forward to getting online and reading the forums and seeing what people are saying. Sadly since I've come off stage I've sat doing broadcast interviews.

Crecente: Speaking of third parties... in that tip we received the person who tipped us said they felt that developer were now being told they had to do this extra work.

Harrison: I don't know who told you that, but they have told you wrong information.

Crecente: How does it work? Is it a requirement, like say awards, the trophies. Does that have to be in all games now?

Harrison: We've made no statements about that, so I don't know how anybody would have told you that because we haven't told that to any third parties, categorically.

Crecente: OK, have you decided on that?

Harrison: We are consulting with our third parties. I don't think every game needs to have trophies, my personal opinion. I don't think we need to have it. But if it's meaningful to the community, then just the simple fact of buying the game, owning the game could trigger a trophy. Now a developer has to create a bitmap to show their game saves or their icon on the cross media bar anyway. So for them to take a small bit of 3D geometry, maybe a character, an object, or a weapon, what ever, and put it through RSDK and create an icon, it's like ten minutes work. So this is very low impact. Very low intensity work that would be required to support Home in a very simple straight forward way.

Crecente: What about... these areas within home where you can create a store or a location? In talking to some developers around GDC I think while a lot of people are very excited I think one of the concerns is that the only people who could really, really make use of that in a big way, like what you were showing is like an EA. Do you think that the smaller third-parties are going to be able to use these services.

Harrison: It's really easy, it's Maya. I don't want to mischaracterize it and say it's cut and paste, because it's not. But if you are building a 3D world for your game. I have to be careful because I can't use real world examples.

Imagine a game that has a realistic street scene. It would be very simple to grab four of the buildings in that street scene that have been already created for the game anyway and for those to form the walls or the boundaries of the space. You could put a realistic floor down, you could put video, you could put banners. There are lots of ways you could do it. You could either do it very ultra realistic or you could do it sort of crazy weird, sci-fi. There are lots of approaches you could take, the simplest way would be to reuse 3D content. That was exactly the philosophy behind the choices we made in the tools and technology to make it really low impact for developers.

Now I understand why developers are asking questions because we've not shared all of the information with them. But we will address that.

Crecente: One of the things that have baffled a little bit is that there are some things that stand out about the PS3. One of them would be the hardware, you guys have not had any hardware problems. Everyone else has had hardware problems at launch and the PS3 seems pretty rock solid. Why haven't you tried to market it better. I've gone through eight Xbox 360s. Nintendo less so, they've had their strap issues, but we've also had a few reports of other problems. But zero with the PS3.

Harrison: It's not really surprising. Sony has a rich history of manufacturing skill and quality control going back sixty years. I come from a software background not a hardware background, but since I've been at Sony you realize there is something in the fabric of the company about the way we care about quality, the way we care about reliability, the way we care about the consumer. And so this has been played out in the fact that the Playstation One, Playstation Two and now the Playstation Three have all been incredibly well-built, incredibly reliable platforms, even though they often have been at the leading edge of available technology at the time.

But to pick-up on your question why don't we market that? That's like saying you know, when did you stop beating your wife. You can never turn a perceived negative into a positive. I don't think you need to market quality, quality is something people know.

Crecente: You can't say our console doesn't break.

Harrison: Yeah, forgive me, but that was a really stupid idea.

Crecente: But the thing that among hardcore gamers there was this perception of negative PS3 news and it's like why not say, hey, look what we did right?

Harrison: I had this conversation with N'Gai Croal, I don't know if you read the piece. By what measure was the Playstation 3 not a resounding, successful launch? Because we sold out, we managed to continue supply, we have had great line-up of software. We outsold ourselves in the same time frame and then you add to that the zero, although I'm sure it's not zero, clearly there is someone out there who has had a problem, it's never zero, in terms of notable problems, there's nothing. And I'm sure there were some people who had already written that story who felt damn I can't publish that story.

Source: Kotaku

PiMPStreamer v0.80 now does Wii and PS3!

Tada! DickyDick1969 updated PiMPStreamer to v0.80, which has no new features for one of the best free streaming solutions for the PSP... but lucky you if you have a PS3 or Wii in the living room! DickyDick1969 says he's extended PiMPStreamer into a fully HTTP-browsable wireless FLV video streamer, tested on a Wii.

He hasn't tested it yet, but he believes you can also use FLV-capable PocketPCs with this build. And a response to Dicky's blog says that he's also tried it on the PS3 browser, something Dicky didn't mention, and it worked nicely there - although he's asking for a video size option in a future build, since the PS3 can support higher resolutions than the Wii. Good point, too.

Basic instructions: install to PC, run PiMPStreamer, configure Opera (or the PS3 browser) to the PC's IP address at port 3333 (configurable), go forth and multiply.

Basic warnings: since this is a new feature, there may be some inevitable bugs to deal with. DickyDick1969 will be happy to hear of detailed bug reports via mail (check the source link for more info). Also, Dicky was only able to test with a wireless Wii, and is rather worried that the Wii's limited memory capacity will be enough to handle really long FLVs.

Hey - we've all enjoyed PiMPStreamer on the PSP, right? Now you can't lug around a PS3 (or even a Wii) and the TV around the house for portable media viewing... but hey, do the math:

(PiMPStreamer) + (PS3 or Wii) + (Living room couch) + (mood lighting) + (sappy chick flick) + (girlfriend of your dreams) = (the perfect Valentine evening).*

TOO BAD IT'S MARCH.

(*) The equation presented above has been verified by a panel of independent experts and found to be entirely accurate.

Download PiMPStreamer v0.80

UPDATE: DickyDick1969 wastes no time as he has released v0.81 of the PiMPStreamer installer. He mentions that he added a new "rendersize" option which can also be of use for all you PSP Users. Please check out the article to know more about this.

Download PiMPStreamer v0.81

Source: PSPUpdates

GDC 07: PSP won't get redesign; new colors coming soon?

People have been longing for a PSP redesign. It's not happening. John Koller explained that there are currently no redesign plans, regardless of all the rumors that have been on the Internet for ages. One of the main reasons PSP won't get a redesign comes from the issue of screen size: Sony will never make the screen smaller. In fact, the generous screen size of Sony's portable is considered one of the system's greatest advantages.

Rather, Sony is looking to continue to add more value to their existing model. Eventually, Sony of America does plan on releasing new colors, but they're waiting for the right opportunity. It's no secret that handheld owners purchase multiple systems, Koller explained. Especially if they're of new colors. Undeniably, launching a new color will spur sales of the system, even if it doesn't necessarily expand the audience.

Andrew Yoon
March 9, 2007

Source: PSP Fanboy

GDC 07: Firmware gains inspirations from homebrew

Although the PSP hardware may not change anytime soon, the system will still continue to evolve through software. John Koller reminded us that PSP has the ability to continuously expand its functionality. "We have released 13 firmware updates since launch."

I asked him about his stance on incorporating features from homebrew, and he admits that Sony actually watches what the scene does. "RSS is actually from homebrew," he admitted. Future firmware revisions may incorporate some of the additions that custom firmware users have been able to enjoy for months.

Unfortunately, full resolution AVC support doesn't seem to be on the table any time soon. Phil Harrison was actually surprised when I told him that the resolution was locked. John Koller, on the other hand, discussed how the perpetually-delayed PSP movie download service would be one way for fans to (eventually) watch full resolution videos on their handhelds.

Andrew Yoon
March 9, 2007

Source: PSP Fanboy

Will PSP Come Home?

The shockwaves felt from the announcement of Sony Computer Entertainment's impending online community Home are still rippling through the industry. So far, of course, that impact has put all the focus on PlayStation 3, but in the future, SCE may be able to use re-direct some of the Home movement towards its other "Game 3.0' system, the PlayStation Portable.

In a Home technical FAQ on Sony Computer Entertainment's DevNet service, the company addressed the question of whether Home will be accessible outside of your PlayStation 3. The company confirmed that aspects of Home are being considered for use on PlayStation Portable and possibly cellphones. Sony did not answer directly what its intentions might be with a mobile version of Home or give a timeline of when to expect further answers on these possibilities. The full quote about how Home relates to PSP is as follows:

Q: Is Home a PS3 specific service? Will users be able to access Home through other devices? Initially Home will only be accessible via that PLAYSTATION®3, although over time our intention is to enable users to interface certain Home features and services via other networked devices such as PlayStation®Portable (PSP®) and mobile phones.

Read the full article here...

Nix
March 9, 2007

Source: IGN

GDC 07: Less than 15% of PSP owners have a DS

John Koller, Senior Marketing Manager, revealed an interesting internal statistic in last night's blogger panel: according to his research, only 11-14% of PSP owners have a DS. Although the system may be selling less than Nintendo's dual screened portable, it's clear that Sony's device is targeting a completely different market from Nintendo.

"We're not just competing against Nintendo," Koller explained. The platform has to compete against the iPod, the Zune, and a plethora of other multimedia devices. When asked how Sony will attempt to differentiate their offering even further, Koller simply smiled and hinted that the XMB will become much more fleshed out in the coming months.

Andrew Yoon
March 9, 2007

Source: PSP Fanboy