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PSP Firmware Broken - Emulation for All
ZiakII writes "Endgadget is reporting that the PSP firmware 1.50 has been broken." From the article: "a group called PsP-Dev have apparently confirmed successful a homebrew bootstrap on 1.50 (no word on 1.51 or 1.52). What's that mean for the indie developer/emulation/warez communities? Well, pretty much the same as before--use your hardware the way you want it. For SNES emulation, that is. Obviously." Tom's Hardware has the story as well.
programs found on shipping PSP disks...
The Tom's Hardware article makes it sound like we can get both detailed info about the internal hardware APIs and the DRM systems used in the PSP by reading the P-code for some of the avaliable libraries on the disks...
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
The article has been updated to indicate this is not compatible with firmware versions 1.51 or 1.52.
I've commented on this at f13, but I have to admit - the prospect of playing movies at full res + enhanced homebrew webbrowsers, email clients, music players and various other web tools has me more interested than playing Final Fantasy II, which I commented on in my first post about this. It's one thing to get more games out of a gaming system, but it's another thing to actually expand functionality. Unfortunately, Sony will squash this with the next big title. Dead to Rights: Reckoning, Coded Arms, Armored Core, Death Jr., Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City - any/all of these WILL have firmware updates on them. Personally I'd skip games I'm looking forward to in order to keep my PSP working the way I WANT it to work.
Assuming the linked hack is real - and we'll know on Wednesday 1PM EST...when they're supposed to post the "launcher" - then I'll be able to do anything I please with my own PSP. If Sony wants to forcefully drive a firmware update down my throat with GTA or Coded Arms, well, shit, I simply will never buy another UMD. There's too much use to be gotten out of the unit when homebrew code can run on it.
schild
editor, f13.net
Is this good for Sony, because they're going to sell more units?
Or is it bad for Sony, because they're going to sell less games for it?
Personally I think it is a good thing for Sony, even if they will never understand it. Hell I can't even understand why they didn't try to make it an open platform in the first place.
This is unconfirmed and there is little reason not to take it as fake right now.
:\
The only people to confirm it working are the people releasing it
They announced it a few days ago and said "we will show it to you on the 15th of June at 15:00"... sounds like a clever ploy to get more hits on their website.
This is not news. Yet.
You paid $250 to play ROMS!
There is truth in humor.
Read the rest of the linked post and discover why DRM technology is a potential risk to end users.
one of these days, a manufacturer would figure out that the best part of consoles/handhelds is that they are actually very versitile pieces of hardware.
The business model for most manufacturers is to sell the consoles at a loss (or close to it) and make money from licensing deals with big-name game publishers. If I buy a PSP to run a web browser, e-mail client, and various other freeware apps, Sony either loses money or makes not enough to justify the sale. They want me to buy commercial games, for which they get licensing fees.
Take TiVo as an example, they don't officially support mods to thier box, but they have forums for the mods built right in to the official TiVo Bulletin Board. People love TiVo, and (before cable company DVRs) won the DVR war, hands down.
TiVo's business model is selling subscriptions to their service. If you put a web server in your TiVo, an ethernet card, a cache card, bigger hard drives, and so forth does nothing to harm their subscription revenue screen. In fact, the more you invest in the box, both in time and money, the LESS likely you are to drop their subscription service.
I can't speak for the n-gage, but as far as the GBA, SNES emulation is sss-lll-oo---wwwww
Im talking 1/2 speed on basic games, and forget sound, not to mention on the GBA you are missing 2 buttons. Also, due to the resolution of the GBA screen you lose a decent amount of the image to cropping, making some games even less playable then they already were due to the speed and button issues.
SNES emulation on PSP when run in 333MHz mode is essentially full speed (50 - 60fps) with sound at the moment. And those *minor* fps issues will likely be gone wit some optimising. And the screen resolution is higher than the SNES, and it features the needed buttons for input.
The "hype" isn't because it's a Sony handheld. The hype is because it has the specifications needeed to run these emulators decently.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
There's a small problem with your post...
...because I know they'll work well.
:) Also, these emulators will be sure to have save state functions, so playing games a few minutes at a time will absolutely be possible.
The SNES emulators for GBA and N-Gage are crap. I don't know about the N-Gage one, but the GBA one doesn't even have sound emulation!
The closest I've come to good SNES emulation on a handheld is SNES9xj4u for my PocketPC. It can run some games full frames WITH sound. It just sucks that my iPaq 2215 isn't really made for game-playing... the buttons are too small. D:
It's extremely exciting to know that the developer of SNES9xj4u is also working on PSP emulators (the first announced Gameboy emu for PSP was coded by this person)
Also, your statement about "maybe they should just play their full sized console on their full sized TV" holds no water for me. My PSP and DS both live on my nightstand. Every night, before I go to sleep, I have a 20-30 minute gaming session. If I fall asleep with the portable in my hands, who cares, it's plugged in. If I'm trying to fall asleep, it's annoying to have to get up and turn off the PS2/whatever before finally retiring for the night.
I've beaten more RPGs that way...
It's pretty exciting. I'll finally get around to beating games like Final Fantasy V, Bahamut Lagoon, and possibly... hopefully, Tales of Phantasia and Star Ocean.
I really hope this exploit turns out to be real, but if it's not, it's just a matter of time before someone else figures one out.
The PSP is the most ideal portable for SNES emulation at least that I've seen. The buttons are mostly in the right places, the screen is huge and beautiful, and memory sticks are perfect for storing ROMs and saves.
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Have you actually tried running the SNES emulator for Gameboy Advance?
;)
Try that, then come back and let us know how you do in games like Mortal Kombat, or even Super Mario World, where you need extra buttons that don't exist.
Also, tell me what you think about the sound... oh wait, it doesn't support sound.
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There is one room in the house where portable is a good idea...
Do you mean something like the GP32. Sadly you can only import it and good luck on find one. But it was a cool handheld with tons of emulators and everything.
News for ya, if you use a NES emu on the GBA or DS, your just as much of a thief. Nintendo won't care what hardware your running it on, only that you stole the ROM.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
Dude, how ignorant are you? This is exactly what they are doing with the revolution. Look it up.