Will Dark Alex Firmware/Popstation Cause Sony to React Nastily Towards PSP Hacking ?

[wraggster]

Dark Alex`s Custom Firmware/Popstation Release is most likely the biggest release of the year and thanks to all involved.

Now Sonys ballplan was to get the PSP -PS3 machine going which increases sales of both consoles and of their Network store. But thats all changed now.

Sony are bound to lose money over this and like most companys will react to this, we know they forced the closure of the PSP Software wiki in Japan over Devhook. Will they now have a go at the PSP Hacking Scene over this?

I would think that a new firmware will be released but this release will send shivers through them.

Its sure gonna be an interesting month or two ahead :)

But anyway my thanks to Dark Alex and the team for a killer release. Im even thinking of buying another PSP with 2.71 firmware on just to use this custom firmware.

[dejkirkby]

What firmware do you have currently wraggster?

[scarph]

nah nothing new will happen.
sony will never acknowledge homebrew's existence.
theyll just put out new X.0X's until we can't even devhook them.

I'd love to see what would happen if sony did at acknowledge its existence. So many more people would join the scene.

[Insane1]

I have a feeling it won't do much to Sony...A large percent of people out there can't even get to 3.02 OE-B because of their TA-082 (right?) or higher motherboards.

[scarph]

nah devhook releases are now completely legal

they contain no traces of sonys firmware, once YOU get it on to your computer it uses sonys firmware.

its like selling children unloaded guns.
:)

[mcvader]

Just what I was thinking, sony are sure to be pissed but it's their own fault for being so lazy with the security. It's like frankenstein, they created this thing and now it's turned on them.

why would you need to get a PSP with 2.71fw for OE?
seeing you're the king around here you must have a homebrew compatable one already.

[Basil Zero]

yikes, this is getting heated up

Homebrewers VS Sony

the battle continues!!!

[klisejo]

I dont think their goal was to make money with the psp-ps3 store in a sense of ps1 game sales. It was all just a gimick to get psp owners to buy ps3s to utilize a functionality on their consoles. Otherwise, why not just have an online store accessable from a pc?

This release with psx capability, homebrew, and it plays current psp games, is how the system SHOULD be. Its how it should have been since day one. And they wonder why the DS is kicking their ass.

[steve-b]

sony need to get the master hackers on their payroll. that is the only way to stop the scene :)

[Totalitarian]

Sony may likely continue with their suing frenzy and try and bring charges against the major coders of these custom firmwares.

It's extremely doubtful that it will amount to much but if Sony managed to press them on any charges then coders like Dark_Alex could stop coding for the PSP altogether due to aggrevation.

Though in the meantime, they'll probably release a new firmware with 'added security'.

[Darkpaladin]

honestly, sony deserve it for their stupid only for PS3 owners tactic, what do they expect, us to lose homebrew and pay 600 quid for a very limited selection of games?

[Mazero]

I would say this is a huge plus for PSP hardware sales, but a punch in the face for software sales.

[Datahax]

sony need to get the master hackers on their payroll. that is the only way to stop the scene :)

Not likely to happen. Few of them would take the position unless Sony offered LOTS of money, it's a principal thing.

And even if they did, new hackers who wouldn't sell out would just spring up, more dedicated than the ones before them.

[andrewgabriel77]

Well, for one thing alot of people weren't going to shell out $600 for a "PS1 Server" to play said games on their psp's. Anybody who was going to buy a PS3 will probably still buy one. On, another note Dark Alex isn't doing anything illegal...he isn't distributing code or programs owned by SONY, just programs that modify our "legally" obtained updates and eboots. This really won't hurt SONY, but it does give us the opportunity to play ALL of our PS1 games instead of just the ones SONY has put out on their playstation store. If anything this will probably up the sales on the PSP.

[gunntims0103]

ey wraggster why don't you just update your 1.0 psp to the custom firmware 3.02OE-B?

I had a 1.5 for a while and never thought i would update, 3.02OE-B was just too good to pass up.

I don't think Sony will go out of there way to go after the psp hacking scene. Sony is probally in denial about the homebrew scene anyway.

[FrostyTheSnowman]

Sony WILL retaliate. It won't be public or anything, but they won't just sit idly by and allow this to happen. But all they will probably do is revamp their PSX EBOOT security in a new firmware release.

In any case though, screw you Sony. And for Dark_aleX, we're all behind ya buddy.

[Psphreak]

What's Sony gonna do? Same thing they've done this whole way through, issue a new fw. But guess what? That will be decrypted as well an emulated in due time.

If it's locked, give it to the hackers to find the key and letting us use our PSP to its fullest. At this point the PSP is an emulation monster. I'm just curious to see what Sony's next features will be if any...

[Destroyer699]

I think somthing big is about to happen.


Think about it. Sony's big hitter, Psp-Ps3 compatibility, has just been destroyed. People no longer have to buy a 600$ console to play 2$ games, they can get them all for free. Even if they don't own the original games, Sony knows there are pirates who will download them anyway. So now, what does Sony have that the homebrew scene doesn't? One thing, added security. We have 3.02, we have homebrew, we have the whole ****ing lineup of ps1 games running full speed for free. Don't you think that would piss off a big time company a little? The thing I find funny though, is that this was an emulator, not converted psp games. They could have released all at once, but they didn't. They released 5 or so and hoped people wouldn't discover there little secret. Well, we did.


It's your move Sony. Pick carefully....

[mavsman4457]

I'm being 100% honest here and I would hate it if this happened but why don't they just hire Dark_Alex. It would be such a simple solution for them and it would garuantee them a secure firmware.

[orkus]

honestly, sony deserve it for their stupid only for PS3 owners tactic, what do they expect, us to lose homebrew and pay 600 quid for a very limited selection of games?

my opinion too. i really thought about it to buy another psp only to have a full speed emulator for the psx games. i would have paid for some great games too (for a second time)...
but a ps3 is too much!

[Tinnus]

Most, and I do mean, most people who have a PSP don't even know about homebrew and stuff, let alone get around all the hassle to play those PS1 games. And Sony wouldn't want to any public moves to draw more attention (and users) to those "features".

Also, Sony is really dumb for including a full emulator in the PS1 store games. REALLY. If they're clever enough for writing a PSX emulator that runs that well (and I have my doubts Sony wrote 100% of it and didn't "borrow" some code from open source stuff) they would be clever enough to send at least part of the game, or it all, pre-translated instead of emulating everything on-the-fly.

[.:}<3\/!}\{:.]

its heating up!

[Datahax]

I'm being 100% honest here and I would hate it if this happened but why don't they just hire Dark_Alex. It would be such a simple solution for them and it would garuantee them a secure firmware.

Because

1. Dark-Alex probably wouldn't sell out

2. Even if he did, someone would come along to take his place eventually.

3. Why hire Dark-Alex? For what purpose? They probably have more skilled people anyway and it'd be easier and cheaper for them in the long run to try and find a new way to better secure the PSP. Also there's the possibility that someone is purposefully not securing these things as well as they should, I mean honestly if Sony really wanted to stamp out this problem they could of done it a long time ago by making a ton of super complicated security checks. So why haven't they? Then again, why not just let homebrew through with some restrictions? I dunno what they're thinking....

[Emeriastone]

It just goes to show that people don't want to pay moolah for something they already own! And who can blame them?

Thank you Dark-Alex.

[acn010]

Because

1. Dark-Alex probably wouldn't sell out

2. Even if he did, someone would come along to take his place eventually.

3. Why hire Dark-Alex? For what purpose? They probably have more skilled people anyway and it'd be easier and cheaper for them in the long run to try and find a new way to better secure the PSP. Also there's the possibility that someone is purposefully not securing these things as well as they should, I mean honestly if Sony really wanted to stamp out this problem they could of done it a long time ago by making a ton of super complicated security checks. So why haven't they? the PSP.

and another thing is that people wont upgrade anymore if something really terrible happend:eek:

[DKing]

Just put this into perspective - nearly everyone who has seen this, has upgraded. Take into account the millions of people on the internet, who will now be playing Playstation One games for free and with ease. This HAS to effect Sony.

Do you really think there are millions of people out there with PSPs that can even run 3.02OE-B? I'm kind of doubting that.

It's good news for those who have but I think to the average PSP user it doesn't mean anything.

I'd be curious as to what the actual percentage of hackable PSPs still out there is. My feeling is that it's not really that high but who knows...

[808]

1. Dark-Alex probably wouldn't sell out

Every man has his price - if Sony offered him a job and he took it, I think most of us would support him.

[PSmonkey]

Few miss conceptions in this thread. The ps1 dl are not trying to get people to buy a ps3. The whole issue is over security and time constraints. Sony Store is a big part of the ps3 (not psp). Ps1 downloads were a big part of the psp. Sony is working on suport so ps3 units can play ps1 downloads and also that the Sony store will be accessable via the PSP.




Most, and I do mean, most people who have a PSP don't even know about homebrew and stuff, let alone get around all the hassle to play those PS1 games. And Sony wouldn't want to any public moves to draw more attention (and users) to those "features".

Also, Sony is really dumb for including a full emulator in the PS1 store games. REALLY. If they're clever enough for writing a PSX emulator that runs that well (and I have my doubts Sony wrote 100% of it and didn't "borrow" some code from open source stuff) they would be clever enough to send at least part of the game, or it all, pre-translated instead of emulating everything on-the-fly.

I question why sony would need to borrow from the open source comunity. Sony owns the full source of bleem & Virtual Game Station. As well of course has the full documentation of both psp and ps1. I think using stuff from the scene would be a huge step back from what they already have.

I agree on the fact most pople dont have access to a PSP that can run this custom firmware. This alone will help sony greatly.

[gunntims0103]

The thing that i found quite laughable is that Sony basically gave us the ps1 emulator, intern they basically did the homebrew scene,AC, and yoshi's job for us. I dought that Sony knew this was gonna happen and that someone would figure out how to decrypt there fireware to an extent to where we can play out own ps1 games.

[Tinnus]

Hmm, I forgot about Bleem and VGS. Yeah, that would be very helpful considering how good (and fast) they were.

I just found some funny coincidences while playing some games. Might only be coincidences though, and I'm just being paranoid. But it's fun to think that stuff :)

Anyway, I just want bilinear filtering (why the HECK didn't Sony add an option for that?) and a wide screen mode that cuts the top & bottom (like PS1P). Most games don't need the top/bottom 16 or so pixels, and some even have black stripes (crash, ff7, ...)

I wonder if it would be possible to change the actual CODE of the emulator for things like turning on filtering (depending on how Sony did the GPU, assuming you have access to the assembly code it shouldn't be so hard), or it would mess the encryption and such.

[pspleech]

I very rarely post in forums but this one got my attention. I disagree with a lot of the post so far:

1) Sony MAY react to this. They have a history of suing people and being all 'round ###holes.

2) This may not be as major a problem as people are making out for Sony. The majority of people who belong to the "homebrew" scene wouldn't have paid for the psx downloads anyway, so people using their own iso's isn't an actual loss of profit. Neither is this likely to be popular with newcomers due to the new MB's etc.

3) With regard to people saying Sony should do this and that with security, shut up. You don't know jack. Since Sony made fundamental flaws at the beginning of the PSP's life, coupled with the virtual imposibility of making anything truly secure through software (especially when it can be RE'd) they will never kill off the scene. They will merely make it hard for more people to join the scene i.e. downgrading, new mb's etc.

4) Seriously, there is so much good (and free) advice floating around the net for Sony, and somehow they manage to consistenly mess things up, treat customers like mugs, fail to deliver on promises etc. If Sony carry on like this for more than a year (granted thats quite a while) we really could be looking at the death of this company. I can't remember such a large companies fall from grace on the scale of Sony. Everything they touch at the moment turns to s###.

5) I think Sony will likely offer psx downloads etc from a PC in the near future, and it was always their intention. I think the only reason they didn't straight away was to boost PS3 sales. This was an absolute disgrace on their part...along with the racist adverts, fake utube videos etc.

6) Final rant...how can a company be SOOO arrogant in the light of such terrible performance in recent years. Some of the comments from their execs over the past 6 months defy belief. Sony haven't done anything good in recent years...even the PS2 was the worst of the 3 consoles...it just had a massive following from the PS1 which lead to developers supporting the platform. I really think people are coming to the end of their tether with Sony. I used to love this company, but now I genuinely dislike everything they stand for.

[acn010]

The thing that i found quite laughable is that Sony basically gave us the ps1 emulator, intern they basically did the homebrew scene,AC, and yoshi's job for us. I dought that Sony knew this was gonna happen and that someone would figure out how to decrypt there fireware to an extent to where we can play out own ps1 games.

i jut realized that.oh wow lol:rofl:

[SSaxdude]

I'm being 100% honest here and I would hate it if this happened but why don't they just hire Dark_Alex. It would be such a simple solution for them and it would garuantee them a secure firmware.

Then homebrew would probably die because most people (not me) would update their PSP.

pspleech you have some very good point, especially #2. I don't own a PS3 and most people at this site don't.

[SpooForBrains]

This just goes to show there is highly unlikely to ever be such a thing as an unbreakable DRM. DVD CSS? Cracked. iTunes Fairplay? Cracked. PSP PSX emulation? Broken WIDE open.

On the other hand, I wish I could say this would actually have any effect on these companies. As other people have said, most PSP owners have already updated past the ability to downgrade, or have a TA-082. Hell, if the 2.6 downgrader hadn't been developed, I'd be just as stuck as them.

Yeah, iTunes users can decrypt their iTMS purchased music to stick it on non-Apple MP3 players, but most of them just drop some cash and buy an iPod, because it's easier. DVDs still sell buy the truckload, even though people can get the same content for free.

DRM may not be perfect, but it works. I'm just glad that for those of us that don't want to be controlled for other people's profit, there are people out there working to crack it, crack it and crack it again.

[danknugz]

this is possibly the most valid , legal form of emulation, since most of us have scads of ps1 cd's laying around, to be able to just convert them and use them on our psp SINCE WE ALREADY PAYED SONY for the games, thay shouldnt be able to say SH!T! this is flat out fair use. so go suck and egg sorny.

[Anonymous D]

just want to say thanks to sony for giving us the best christmas present ever, a full speed psx emulater! Theyve been owned once again. on another note they could do what microsoft do and have a team of hackers trying to break their software, so that they can find all these bugs...

[ShuzzleBuzzle]

Has anyone ever thought this may be some sort of viral marketing attempt targeted at people who Sony know are going to pirate games or not play their in order to sell the hardware. It just seems so convenient that a full speed PS1 emulator just happens to be included with the ps1 psp games. Face it we are just a small group of people who are most likely only going to tell this to another small group of people.

On a side note does anyone think the emulator they are using is Bleem?

[digihoe]

Well considering that they didn't bother changing the decryption key for each firmware release, they would know that the source for the PS1 emu wouldn't be safe... 3.02 came out after the 3.0 decryption key was know...
Maybe it's some sort of wacky tactics from sony's side, I mean we all seen how wacky thier commercials can be...

Nice Xmas gift, it's the best one of the once I got this year :) Thanks!

[yoshinatsu]

A console that gets modded all the time NEVER fails.
Take PSOne for example. Come on! EVERYONE (I mean EVERYONE) had their PSOne mod-chiped.
Did that harm Sony? NO! They f***ing ripped both Sega's and Nintendo's asses with the PSOne. Why the PSP fail with that? That's a fact Sony has to consider.
Yeah, I know it doesn't hurt Sony, it hurts game developers, but when you take a place against the fans... They're gonna be angry... Just what happened with the PSOne emulator yesterday. They did some bad moves that were against the users of the PSP, and they paid dearly.

[Shyvnal]

Sony were asking to get ownd and they did.

[ab88]

They indeed were asking to get owned *cough*fakegranturismomobile*cough*
*cough*Link-sag*cough* and other sh..*cough*

[imagecko]

I'm being 100% honest here and I would hate it if this happened but why don't they just hire Dark_Alex. It would be such a simple solution for them and it would garuantee them a secure firmware.
lol if you can't beat em join em. good stradagey on sonys part:rofl:

[SnoopKatt]

They probably do not like this, but this is not a huge impact because we're only a small portion of people who know about PSP homebrew, and even less probably know about DAX's custom firmware. However, Sony will probably try to stop this.

[irishwhip]

i think sony should use this as a lesson. they obviously fail hard at security. every new firmware update gets decrypted within days (don't think i'm knocking the talents of the psp coders either, i know they are skilled).
i think the only way sony could defeat the homebrew scene would be to employ all the talented coders like booster and dark alex

[Tetris999]

I dont think their goal was to make money with the psp-ps3 store in a sense of ps1 game sales. It was all just a gimick to get psp owners to buy ps3s to utilize a functionality on their consoles. Otherwise, why not just have an online store accessable from a pc?

This release with psx capability, homebrew, and it plays current psp games, is how the system SHOULD be. Its how it should have been since day one. And they wonder why the DS is kicking their ass.

Im sorry to say, but what you said is totally way wrong out and far fetched

see here, what sony did try to is make therye next gen console a freaking storage device for your psp games, judging that they didnt release a ps1 store for the pc, obviously everybody got mad. the idea seemed gold to sony, heck it was a smart thing to store stuff on youre console, and they though "our psp user's will obviously buy a ps3 for connectivity" unfortunately they were wrong about therye system. ANYWAY i believe that they will release a pc store soon anyway

now to get on to the homebrew part, do you even know what you said? do you even KNOW what the custom firmware DOES? oh yeah its lets you run ISO's "supposebly backupped"<----The Cause of this? HOMEBREW!! why the hell would they allow custom programs be written by people? because people LOVE to have free stuff man, soon as they let you develop stuff for your console, you are gonna be looking for the best, cheap, affordable way out

thats why theres damn modchips out

I have all the respect for sony about why therye trying to stop us, heck if i was the owner of sony, i wouldnt want some losers making money off free pirated games, and crap. To save my money the owner of sony would obviously not let homebrew, piracy onto therye systems. Sony Arent mean and big and evil therye trying to stop therye profits from going down and they go to waste

Its like that saying, the gangsters say " nothing personal just buisness"

Dont Get me wrong, i love homebrew lots and the new psx emulator is awsome, but really you cant justify homebrew, because the first thing thats EVER developed for it is, piracy

EVEN IF homebrew made the system better with calculators and stuff the piracy would still be there, i think its unfair to lots of people when therye things are stolen due to piracy

Stop trying to justify homebrew, because its number one function is piracy, and thats a fact

I agree with many about the ps3- psp was a total piece of bull**** but still i dont think they will keep it that way soon or later theryr gonna release an online store for the pc

Heck this compatibility comes in very handy for any ps3 owner

and sometimes i think sony is, messing up for a purpose

[F9zDark]

Albeit being a user of this firmware(happily) I hate to say it that I do believe Sony will take action over this.

This firmware trumps Sony's marketing strategy (to make money selling us PS1 games we already own). And given the fact that Lik-Sang was trumping Sony's markets in Europe, and they took SWIFT action, I believe the same will come for homebrew.

They have always hated homebrew, yet have had no real concrete evidence to put a stop to it (piracy doesn't count unless they have evidence proving that astute members in the scene are responsible for the lion share of it; but this, they have hard proof that their market is undermined, and being the capitalist nation that the US is, the courts are always interested in protecting the monetary assets of the huge corporations).

I just wonder how Sony will respond? Will file suit or will they do something less conventional? I mean, they do have the Rootkit under their belt; it really surprises me that Sony hasn't made such attempts on scene assassination in the past, considering that they put a rootkit on their CDs...

[Vega]

Sony may very well react to this.... Only time will tell.
But for the record, I believe most of us here that are a part of the scene would not even bother paying for PSX games on PSP. Us from UK would have had to wait until next march also due to the PS3 launch delay. It is more than expected that we would grab our own games and rip them for play on PSP.
As said earlier in this thread, we shouldn't be expected to have to pay for games again. With the amount of sh!t that sony has sent our way, we are entitled to play our own games on our own handhelds. F*ck sony... what gives them the right to tell anyone that they cant play games that we already paid for over 5 years ago? F*ck that.
This is release is the ultimate "shove it up your ass" to Sony, and I thank Dark_Alex for giving me the oppurtunity to do so.
Its just a huge shame that the Scene the only ones who have now got the power to stick it to sony, I do honestly feel for people who are gonna' pay their hard earned money to those sony f*ckers because they updated, have a TA-082 or just dont know about homebrew on PSP.

[Wrrryyy]

This is my first post ever on these boards - I'm usually much more of a lurker, but I needed to voice my opinion on this whole thing.

The firmware is great and was definitely inevitable. Someone was bound to hack Sony's emulator. It's undeniably awesome. However, I read a post a few pages back where someone said something to the effect of "forget Anonymous Coder" and that Dark_Alex beat him to the punch. That's just ridiculous. Dark_Alex did some great hacking, yeah, but he has nothing to do with programming the emulator - that credit goes to Sony. AC's efforts shouldn't be shot down, though. He's an amateur coder who, from what I've read, has done a great job building an emulator from scratch. Of course Sony's emulator is going to be incredible - it's their ****ing system.

Also, it pisses me off to see how many people post "**** Sony" this and "those Sony ****ers" that. Yeah, Sony makes a lot of retarded decisions, but all of this joy that you're getting from playing these games on this hacked firmware is on a Sony system. It's an amazing piece of hardware, whether or not Sony utilizes it correctly. I had a GP2X before I switched to a PSP and it's a world of difference. At least appreciate the hardware and give them a little credit where it's due.

Finally, yeah, I think Sony's definitely going to take some action against this. It's pretty much an attack on a whole chunk of their marketing strategy, even if it's a small chunk of PSP owners. It could turn nasty.

Edit: I guess I have 4 posts. Look at me go.

[BelmontSlayer]

Take PSOne for example. Come on! EVERYONE (I mean EVERYONE) had their PSOne mod-chiped.

I didn't...

:(

[DKing]

Conspiracy theories abound. My take on it is that they wont do anything other than what they're already doing. This doesn't change their 'marketing strategy' one bit. Guess we'll find out!

[emuking]

send their sony ninjas to kill Dark_Alex, he wouldn't have a chance to survive :(
j/k :D

[Accordion]

. on another note they could do what microsoft do and have a team of hackers trying to break their software, so that they can find all these bugs...

that could be the funniest thing i have ever heard! [or read!]

[F9zDark]

Conspiracy theories abound. My take on it is that they wont do anything other than what they're already doing. This doesn't change their 'marketing strategy' one bit. Guess we'll find out!

As far as they're concerned 'its piracy'. We are getting games for free that other people have to pay for. Sure, we paid for them already, ages ago. But Sony will not stand for it this time; the PS1 emulator was their saving grace for the PSP.

Why do I say that? Because the PSP, while having done 'well' hasn't done 'great'; in comparison to the DS who has sold 100,000 units a week, every week, since damn near last January.

The PS1 emulator is EASY buck in Sony's wallet. If a 1 million PSP owners buys 3 games at 5 bucks each, thats 15 millions dollars in their pockets for having done NOTHING. Wow they coded the emulator... Hell they probably didn't even do that, they probably ported over Bleem.

Point is, Sony will certainly react to this. They were probably more than happy to see Devhook .51 emulate 3.02; to them that meant more people able to download PS1 games.

Now OE-B means, 'we're gonna use our own PS1 games and you got nothing to say about it.'.

I can imagine Sony will be reacting to this in the coming weeks.

[FOL]

As far as they're concerned 'its piracy'. We are getting games for free that other people have to pay for. Sure, we paid for them already, ages ago. But Sony will not stand for it this time; the PS1 emulator was their saving grace for the PSP.

Why do I say that? Because the PSP, while having done 'well' hasn't done 'great'; in comparison to the DS who has sold 100,000 units a week, every week, since damn near last January.

The PS1 emulator is EASY buck in Sony's wallet. If a 1 million PSP owners buys 3 games at 5 bucks each, thats 15 millions dollars in their pockets for having done NOTHING. Wow they coded the emulator... Hell they probably didn't even do that, they probably ported over Bleem.

Point is, Sony will certainly react to this. They were probably more than happy to see Devhook .51 emulate 3.02; to them that meant more people able to download PS1 games.

Now OE-B means, 'we're gonna use our own PS1 games and you got nothing to say about it.'.

I can imagine Sony will be reacting to this in the coming weeks.

If SONY, hadnt decided to do the stupidest thing ever, and try to force people to buy a PS3, just so they can play PSOne games, then this wouldnt be happening. I would have gladly paid for PSOne games at their store, even though I have them on CD for my PSOne.

SONY have brought this on themselves, making us non PS3 owners suffer.

[alucard001]

Don't you guys think its a little coincidence that people have been able to hack firmware updates from sony, I think sony is letting the homebrew scene win. Think about it, sony is rich as hell, im sure they have coders with them 1000 times better than Dark_Alex (no offense to Dark_Alex, he is the greatest) Didn't they make the ps3? Anyway Sony is letting little holes in every firmware update, and left a secret ps1 emulator in hot shots golf 2. Sony could just make a firmware unhackable, im sure they got the power to do so, but they know that the only thing really selling their psp's is homebrew, I don't think that they think that their console is selling because of their crappy psp games. So to make the public think that sony is just stopping piracy would be a good idea for sony, so the law thinks, "o well sony does have a homebrew machine, but they are trying to stop it." So sony itself doesn't get in trouble with the law. They close link-sang, showing the public that they mean bussiness, but let devhook go on to emulate newer firmware versions, people said it themselves, sony is getting lazier with the security of their new updates. Sony did this on purpose, to let coders keep on working with their handheld. (think about it)

[alucard001]

Don't you guys think its a little coincidence that people have been able to hack firmware updates from sony, I think sony is letting the homebrew scene win. Think about it, sony is rich as hell, im sure they have coders with them 1000 times better than Dark_Alex (no offense to Dark_Alex, he is the greatest) Didn't they make the ps3? Anyway Sony is letting little holes in every firmware update, and left a secret ps1 emulator in hot shots golf 2. Sony could just make a firmware unhackable, im sure they got the power to do so, but they know that the only thing really selling their psp's is homebrew, I don't think that they think that their console is selling because of their crappy psp games. So to make the public think that sony is just stopping piracy would be a good idea for sony, so the law thinks, "o well sony does have a homebrew machine, but they are trying to stop it." So sony itself doesn't get in trouble with the law. They close link-sang, showing the public that they mean bussiness, but let devhook go on to emulate newer firmware versions, people said it themselves, sony is getting lazier with the security of their new updates. Sony did this on purpose, to let coders keep on working with their handheld. (think about it)

[DKing]

As far as they're concerned 'its piracy'. We are getting games for free that other people have to pay for. Sure, we paid for them already, ages ago. But Sony will not stand for it this time; the PS1 emulator was their saving grace for the PSP.

Why do I say that? Because the PSP, while having done 'well' hasn't done 'great'; in comparison to the DS who has sold 100,000 units a week, every week, since damn near last January.

The PS1 emulator is EASY buck in Sony's wallet. If a 1 million PSP owners buys 3 games at 5 bucks each, thats 15 millions dollars in their pockets for having done NOTHING. Wow they coded the emulator... Hell they probably didn't even do that, they probably ported over Bleem.

Point is, Sony will certainly react to this. They were probably more than happy to see Devhook .51 emulate 3.02; to them that meant more people able to download PS1 games.

Now OE-B means, 'we're gonna use our own PS1 games and you got nothing to say about it.'.

I can imagine Sony will be reacting to this in the coming weeks.


If Sony saw the PSX emulator as the saving grace of the PSP the machine is in a lot more trouble that I thought.

People need to look at the bigger picture. 95% of the PSP owners out there (yes I made that statistic up for this post) can not even take advantage of the OE-B firmware. Now.. If the TA-082 was busted open and was able to run custom firmware like OE-B then I'd be more apt to agree with you.

[alucard001]

sorry for double posting my goddamm internet browser froze...

[Shyvnal]

Sony are money hungry tards like all of us, simple as and i dont blame them for doing what they did.

[F9zDark]

Don't you guys think its a little coincidence that people have been able to hack firmware updates from sony, I think sony is letting the homebrew scene win.

To be honest, I have felt this way for some time. When the PSP launched in Japan at firmware 1.0, it was completely devoid of the AES encryption technology that Sony used to keep the PSP secure. That seems like a huge oversight to me, considering the fact that its not like they DIDN'T have the encryption; all games, even from those days are encrypted with the key that Sony used.

However, to save face, Sony had to update the firmware to seal this leak (no developer would want to produce games for Sony if they would openly allow homemade code to run, without even so much as another program to control its usage).

However, it may have also been a total fluke...


If Sony saw the PSX emulator as the saving grace of the PSP the machine is in a lot more trouble that I thought.

People need to look at the bigger picture. 95% of the PSP owners out there (yes I made that statistic up for this post) can not even take advantage of the OE-B firmware. Now.. If the TA-082 was busted open and was able to run custom firmware like OE-B then I'd be more apt to agree with you.

Perhaps my wording was inaccurate. However, I believe that Sony felt the PSX emulator would intice some homebrewers to upgrade as well as make them more money, which is a win-win situation in their book.

[aries2k4]

Lol, I´m pissing my pants laughing at Sony. They deserve this. what about all of us in Europe who couldn´t play psx games even if you had fw 3.+.
I was thinking the games were reformated. It seem most games are working. they already had their full speed emu and they just throw out a handful of games? they should have thrown out a few dozen by now.
I mean how much trouble is it to change the pic and background icon?
very arrogant on there part.
I don´t think they counted on Dark Alex´s genius.
So, hey, thanks sony for some good hardware and a great emu.
THANK YOU Dark Alex for the best fw on the psp.

[kpaul_nyc]

Sony WILL retaliate. It won't be public or anything, but they won't just sit idly by and allow this to happen. But all they will probably do is revamp their PSX EBOOT security in a new firmware release.

In any case though, screw you Sony. And for Dark_aleX, we're all behind ya buddy.
But it won't matter much would it? We can use our own games now:)

[Ramza042]

Don't you guys think its a little coincidence that people have been able to hack firmware updates from sony, I think sony is letting the homebrew scene win. Think about it, sony is rich as hell, im sure they have coders with them 1000 times better than Dark_Alex (no offense to Dark_Alex, he is the greatest) Didn't they make the ps3? Anyway Sony is letting little holes in every firmware update, and left a secret ps1 emulator in hot shots golf 2. Sony could just make a firmware unhackable, im sure they got the power to do so, but they know that the only thing really selling their psp's is homebrew, I don't think that they think that their console is selling because of their crappy psp games. So to make the public think that sony is just stopping piracy would be a good idea for sony, so the law thinks, "o well sony does have a homebrew machine, but they are trying to stop it." So sony itself doesn't get in trouble with the law. They close link-sang, showing the public that they mean bussiness, but let devhook go on to emulate newer firmware versions, people said it themselves, sony is getting lazier with the security of their new updates. Sony did this on purpose, to let coders keep on working with their handheld. (think about it)



Give this man a cookie, he figured it out.


I'm sure Sony has maybe 5 guys that work on firmware... I'm also sure Sony has no clue about any of this, nor do they really care. 1500 people (out of HOW many millions sold?) "hack" their psp to play old playstation games that they bought 10 years ago. And Sony cares? EVERY PIECE OF SOFTWARE EVER WRITTEN IS HACKABLE. Keep that in mind next time you think Sony could make... no, could even even think about making an "unhackable" firmware. Sony didn't intentionally leave holes in the firmwares, they just happened. If Sony "wanted" us to run homebrew, they wouldn't have started trying to patch all the holes in the first place.

Homebrew is NOT all that is selling PSPs. Trust me. I know 3 people that got PSPs as Christmas gifts WITH GAMES! Imagine that! GOOD games too! Do they care about homebrew? Nope. Do they want to run psx games on their psp? Yep. Are they going to go buy a PS3 to download the games? Nope. Are they going to wait till the PSX games are easier to get? You betcha.

[Destroyer699]

I laugh.

[kiore]

Most of my mates with psp's have got no idea what homebrew,iso,emulators are and are happy to buy $80+ games. But the ones who do know like what I got but dont want to risk their expencive toys. So I dont think the problem is as big as made out.

Dark_AleX is King.

[scarph]

lol i love that someone thinks that its a conspiracy.

I agree with the 5 people working on the firmware thing, but sony is clearly aware about hacks to their firmware.

its not a big mystery to find this site or qj.

but lololol at the conspiracy man

[FireStag]

If you google "PSP Emulation News" this is the first site that comes up, so I strongly doubt Sony is in the dark about their firmware being hacked. And as to sony retaliating, I will say one thing, I've noticed a lot more leechers and seeders on torrent sites since this firmware was released... something Sony might get pissed about.

[jerrt]

I really don't think it is going to cause sony too many problems. I mean how many of the psps bought from the beginning to now are capapble of installing the firmware needed? between bricks, broken psps, people who updated and the new motherboards, what is the percentage of consoles still used that can do this. I mean, alot of people who come to this site have the option, but this sight sort of attracts those people. so really, what is it going to hurt sony? they just figure eventually all the first gen psp's will have died and they won't have to worry about it. [on that note, i'm taking real good care of my 1.5 [: ] {oh and hears to hoping I can get the advantages of the new custom firmware without having to flash my bios}

[alucard001]

Give this man a cookie, he figured it out.


I'm sure Sony has maybe 5 guys that work on firmware... I'm also sure Sony has no clue about any of this, nor do they really care. 1500 people (out of HOW many millions sold?) "hack" their psp to play old playstation games that they bought 10 years ago. And Sony cares? EVERY PIECE OF SOFTWARE EVER WRITTEN IS HACKABLE. Keep that in mind next time you think Sony could make... no, could even even think about making an "unhackable" firmware. Sony didn't intentionally leave holes in the firmwares, they just happened. If Sony "wanted" us to run homebrew, they wouldn't have started trying to patch all the holes in the first place.

Homebrew is NOT all that is selling PSPs. Trust me. I know 3 people that got PSPs as Christmas gifts WITH GAMES! Imagine that! GOOD games too! Do they care about homebrew? Nope. Do they want to run psx games on their psp? Yep. Are they going to go buy a PS3 to download the games? Nope. Are they going to wait till the PSX games are easier to get? You betcha.

lol im just fu!@#$ing with you guys, i don't know what's going on in sony's mind, nor do I care, look we got a ps1 emulator!!! oh final fantasy... (starts playing psp)

[jim80b]

lol
i have not been able to access dcemu since yesterday lunch! thought sony had killed it:) glad to still be here!

[Digital.Mako45]

heh, apparently there was a downtime since yesterday afternoon. :/

[cal360]

sony's going to lose a lot of money out of this new firmware i'm sure they're going to react with something big creating a new firmware, try to take down the hacking community or release an new motherboard which may may prevent homebrew for a while

[alucard001]

there was a donwtime around 6pm to whenever

[DKing]

Well with the release of the TA-082 downgrader I guess the percentage of people able to roll their own PSX games got a bit larger... I still don't think there is a whole lot Sony will do.