Tuesday, August 07, 2007 - Posts

M33 believes Sony will make the "ideal firmware"

Russian hacking team M33 quickly and easily grabbed the attention of the PSP homebrew community for continuing work on custom firmware after Dark_Alex suddenly quit the scene. The team of five have met their fair share of complaints and praise over the past weeks, many complimenting their quick work, but lamenting the numerous patches made to tackle a persistent list of bugs.

Interestingly, in the team's first public interview, they revealed that they believe Sony will ultimately make the "ideal firmware." They believe that consumers just want the ability to do more with their system, and Sony will learn from the homebrew community: "When Sony understands the useless of their attempts to fight against CFW, they WILL release the firmware that will allow to run homebrew."

The battle against homebrew shouldn't be equated with the battle against piracy, they note. "Sony should allow homebrew development, as on PS2 in RTE (Runtime Environment) on which you can program homebrew, but can't run ISO." Certainly, we applaud the hard work of many homebrew developers out there -- if they could be recognized without piracy running rampant, all PSP owners would benefit.

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Andrew Yoon
August 7, 2007

Source: PSP Fanboy
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Off Topic: Nintendo patents new portable

The Mario Factory files a patent in the US for a portable gaming system that is controlled by tilt and movement.

The latest video game-related patent to turn up at the US patent office shows images of a portable console--looking not unlike an original Game Boy--which detects when it is moved or tilted.

The motion-sensing handheld patent was filed on March 30, (published on the Web site on August 2) and explains the handheld's new controller system, "Simulation refers to game control for analogously representing a change caused in the actual space in a form of a game-space state change, based on at least one of an amount and a direction of a tilt, movement or impact applied to the housing."

Read the full article here...


Emma Boyes
August 7, 2007

Source: GameSpot

View US Patent Application



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Off Topic: Microsoft pulls trigger on 360 price drops

Word of a price drop for the Xbox 360 has been buzzing since before last month's E3 Media & Business Summit. The rumors got even louder recently as the Hollywood Reporter cited retail sources in detailing a $50 price drop set for August 8. That was soon corroborated by a pair of leaked retailer newspaper ads for Wal-Mart and Toys "R" Us that was set to run in the following Sunday's paper. Those were closely followed by a Circuit City flier that specified a $50 price drop for the Premium Xbox 360 bundle, a $30 drop for the Elite, and a $20 cut for the Core.

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Brendan Sinclair
August 6, 2007

Source: GameSpot
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Pachter: PS2 Price Drop In 2007, PS3 To Drop For GTA IV

In his latest notes wrapping up news for July and early August, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has predicted that the PS2 could see a price cut in anticipation of the holidays, but that a drop in the PS3's price might be delayed to early 2008 alongside GTA IV and Metal Gear Solid 4.

"We continue to expect higher average console prices to be an impediment to rapid sell-through of hardware," said Pachter, "and we expect cycle-to-cycle declines of 10% or more for hardware sales to persist through the end of summer 2007."

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Brandon Boyer
August 7, 2007

Source: Gamasutra
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Record Haul of Chipped Consoles Seized in UK

Police officers have swooped to make the largest ever console chipping seizure in UK history.

ImageThe discovery of chipped Wii and Xbox 360 consoles at a residential property was made after officers first raided a tradesman’s stall at a Halifax market. When his residence was later searched, West Yorkshire Police unearthed a staggering 246 Wii and 168 Xbox 360 consoles.

Also included in the haul were 19 PSPs, 12 DS Lites, 6 PlayStation 2s and 6 PlayStation 3s, along with other pirating material such as computers used for the duplication of copied discs, illegal chips, 300-400 copied games discs, and £5,000 in cash.

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Tom Ivan
August 6, 2007

Source: Next Generation
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