Sony Released the Killer Master Stroke ?

[wraggster]

Sony who have been successful in the Video Game industry with the PSX and PS2 have already had a successful launch with the PSP in both the USA and Japan and the rest of the world is anxious to get a hold of one of these awesome machines.

Many like me paid £300 or close to $600 dollars to be the first in the world to get a PSP and our jaws dropped, the PSP is a sexy machine and Ridge Racers was simply one of the best advertisements any new console could wish for. At that time i was pleased i had brought my PSP and infact went onto buying 15 PSP games, much to my childrens pleasure and my wifes dispair but something that happenned 8 weeks or so ago caused a massive surge of interest in the PSP.

8 weeks ago Nem released the Hello World demo and then it became apparent that v1.0 PSP consoles could be used for Homebrew and Emulators (Amateur coding), days later the first emulator was released by Mr Marakichi and as you know we have enjoyed the most awesome 8 weeks ever in an homebrew scene.

Then only a matter of a week or so ago and then also this week the Spanish PSP-Dev group released the exploits for 1.50 PSP users (mainly those who brought their PSP from the USA) and thus another surge of interest has happened and now brings me to the point that a lot of users are considering buying an extra PSP console, one for Homebrew/Emulators and another as a pure gaming console.

Have Sony unwittingly delivered a killer master stroke or is it just a blunder by a big company, i doubt anyone would admit it but they must be pleased at the worldwide interest it has gathered with most major news sites like Slashdot, Engadget etc posting all the exploits and homebrew releases.

Whats your opinion ?

[slayer2psp]

i work at a gamestop here in the usa and guess what im buying another psp just for the home brews and emu im lucky because where i work we already have some used psp in stock my cost for a used psp is $181.00 us dollars almost a hundred dollars less plus i checked the one im getting and it has no dead pixels. back to sony do i want to buy another psp hell no but i have too because i want to play games like Coded Arms and all the others that will have the updates in them im guessing though somebody will figure it out but i dont want wait for that to happen. so sony is selling another psp to me but there not getting any of the money since im buying used the system is already counted as being sold so at least ive got that but in the end they win because ill be buying games and thats what sony relly wants. yes it sucks but what are you going to do

[Omatic]

Well, it seems that they're trying to foil our homebrewing, considering the fact that a highly anticipated game such as Coded Arms is going to update your firmware automatically. It should probably ASK you if you want to first, or something. But I must say, I DO think that the PSP has become the new kill-all handheld gaming system, despite the lack of really good games out for it right now (I only count 5). The next Gameboy is going to have to really step it up in performance if it doesn't want to go the way of the Game Gear.

[BaconButty]

I'm pretty sure it does ask you before trying to update the firmware with Coded Arms.

[shizzle]

i wouldn't be suprised if some of the dev rumors/ theories were planted by sony...

[Onetonbullet]

Um...
Sony does not want homebrew....Sony loses mony on every PSP they sell. That is why games cost so damn much. They make money on software, not hardware. That is why they hate homebrew...They want PSP's in the hands of consumers who buy retail games.

[WSOUNitePirate895]

It really sucks when big buisness does what they love to do, sell things but its never really yours. Look at Windows, you buy a copy for about 200-300 dolllars for th full version, you end up owning ONE use. Sony sells the PSP, but if you want to use their games your going to have to comply with the dictators.

[rock_light]

Isn't there a way to revert back to 1.50 anyways?
If you can do that then why not just do that?
I guess it would be a bit of a hassle to have to set the date, time, etc over again though.

[Cap'n 1time]

Isn't there a way to revert back to 1.50 anyways?
If you can do that then why not just do that?
I guess it would be a bit of a hassle to have to set the date, time, etc over again though.

no, you cant.

[slayer2psp]

sony is evil oh well i now own two 1.5s one for homebrew and the other for the regular psp games im getting midnight club on tuesday so well see if that game updates the firmware or not.

[ArugulaZ]

There could very well be a mod chip in the PSP's future. This could get around all this firmware nonsense once and for all.

Frankly, I'm surprised at how quickly people had hacked the PSP. Most of Sony's systems are considerably more difficult to crack... while people started burning their own Dreamcast discs two years after the system's debut, the Playstation 2 has been so resistant to cracks that a complicated system modification is the only practical way to run homebrews, emulators, and pirated games.

I don't think homebrew software on its own is going to sell many PSPs. I bought my own console in part because I hoped it would be cracked by ingenious underground programmers, but I'm sure far more people purchased it because they wanted their whiz-bang 3D gameplay on the go (and because Nintendo stubbornly refuses to give them games with mass genocide, profanity, and hooker beating, but I digress). Emulators and homebrew games will be of absolutely no interest to them... they want the considerable power of the PSP to be fully tapped, and a single programmer living in a studio apartment, distracted by a full-time job and saddled with a limited budget and primitive development tools, simply cannot do that.

Sony will move a couple thousand PSPs due to the interest in homebrewed games and emulators, but they won't sell any games, and as another poster already mentioned, that's where the real money in the gaming industry lies. If anything, the threat of a firmware upgrade has me thinking twice about future PSP purchases. The game in question is going to have to be INCREDIBLE before I would even sacrificing my emulators... and such a PSP game is a long ways off.

By the time truly worthwhile games like Burnout Legends and Pursuit Force are released, there's a pretty good chance that the latest firmware update will be cracked, thus starting the cycle anew. Unless Sony comes up with a firmware update that's absolutely impenetrable by hackers, we're going to see a lot of them in the future.

JR

[Cap'n 1time]

There could very well be a mod chip in the PSP's future. This could get around all this firmware nonsense once and for all.

Frankly, I'm surprised at how quickly people had hacked the PSP. Most of Sony's systems are considerably more difficult to crack... while people started burning their own Dreamcast discs two years after the system's debut, the Playstation 2 has been so resistant to cracks that a complicated system modification is the only practical way to run homebrews, emulators, and pirated games.

I don't think homebrew software on its own is going to sell many PSPs. I bought my own console in part because I hoped it would be cracked by ingenious underground programmers, but I'm sure far more people purchased it because they wanted their whiz-bang 3D gameplay on the go (and because Nintendo stubbornly refuses to give them games with mass genocide, profanity, and hooker beating, but I digress). Emulators and homebrew games will be of absolutely no interest to them... they want the considerable power of the PSP to be fully tapped, and a single programmer living in a studio apartment, distracted by a full-time job and saddled with a limited budget and primitive development tools, simply cannot do that.

Sony will move a couple thousand PSPs due to the interest in homebrewed games and emulators, but they won't sell any games, and as another poster already mentioned, that's where the real money in the gaming industry lies. If anything, the threat of a firmware upgrade has me thinking twice about future PSP purchases. The game in question is going to have to be INCREDIBLE before I would even sacrificing my emulators... and such a PSP game is a long ways off.

By the time truly worthwhile games like Burnout Legends and Pursuit Force are released, there's a pretty good chance that the latest firmware update will be cracked, thus starting the cycle anew. Unless Sony comes up with a firmware update that's absolutely impenetrable by hackers, we're going to see a lot of them in the future.

JR


you know.. you could have summed that whole boring statment up in 2 sentences... yeah, thanks for thinking about the rest of us with dislectsia.

[ArugulaZ]

Well, I can't say I like you much, but at least your banner is accurate. You really can teach the other members of this forum how NOT to act.

JR

[bkdevart]

ArugalaZ: I prefer long posts, especially in a topic like this... makes it seem more like an actual discussion.
With regards to Sony systems being tough to crack, the Dreamcast was an exception. Sega put together that system using a bunch of well-known, generic bits that were pretty well documented (the SH-4 processor was even supported by Linux). Most consoles use propreitary hardware (as I'm sure you know), and with the exception of the DC, most consoles have required mod-chips. I don't think Sony's any better at guarding their hardware, they just follow the same model that Nintendo (and even Microsoft) have been using: if you want their hardware to do what you want, you better add something to make it do it.
I agree with you on the point that this won't sell many PSP's... I don't even know if the new ones ship with a 1.50 bios on them. But as you had said, dedicated hackers will break through just about anything they can. That still won't attract the attention of the mainstream, though.
What I'm interested in right now is the GPU itself. I've only been dinking with this emu software for a week, so I don't know if the programmers are writing their code using PSP devkits (which I doubt if they're able to clock emus at 333 mhz), the CPU's assembly, or what. Are all coders running purely off the PSP's CPU or have they found a way to tap the GPU(s) for extra horsepower? If the GPU's tapped, the system really could become quite amazing...

[SynergyX]

sony makes its money from the software and they are scared about homebrew making people not purchasing their games. but right now they are maybe losing money as the new exploits have probably sold more psps. the quick hacking of the psp has already put them in an upwards battle from here on out.

two options for sony. one is to do what they are doing and force firmware updates to counter the hacking. and second is to let homebrews slip through. Right now people are seriously thinking of buying two psps (further hurting sony's profits) just to play both homebrew and games. If they let the homebrewing slide than im sure these recent consumers that have bought the psp will be more likely to buy games in the future. I doubt there are many people that actually just bought a PSP just for homebrew and have no intention of buying any psp games (mind you im not talking about just buying it cause you heard of an exploit. You have to honestly say that if you were told that homebrew and psp games can both be played and you still say you have no intention of buying a psp game)

what is left is a competition between homebrew and official games and that comes out to if they start releasing quality games if they do that than the homebrew has no contest against them imo.

Thats the reason why everyone is so hyped up over homebrewing; the lack of quality games that are worth the retail price. Work on these things more than stopping the hackers. and yes i do know that its not that easy to come out with quality games especially early on and especially since they arent the ones developing most of these games. but the damage is already done with the exploits that were released for the relatively, poorly secured psp and in the long run they might have already lost this battle. cut the losses and there are always other paths to the same goal

[geise69]

I was thinking about getting a 2nd psp to play original umd games, but I spent enough money on sony, and I'm sure as hell not gonna update my firmware from 1.0 to 1.5xxx whatever. The only umd games I want that are coming out is Ys VI and Popolocris. I'm just hoping in the future I can buy a umd game, dump the game as an iso and run it off my memory stick. Maybe we can find a way to dump a umd game and figure out how to get rid of the part that asks you to update the firmware. I don't understand how sony can "make" you update your firmware. We should have a choice, but I guess that shows how dedicated sony is to it's customers.

[shizzle]

does anyone know whether or not the tenchu game will require and update, or is this forced update a way off. I imported my orginal psp, and will probably wait until they come out in the uk to get a second.

Then they're comming out at like £179 for a standard pack over gere, so i might as well just import another ( prefferable the rumored silver one, thus staying one step ahead of the trend, and for even cheaper :D)

1timeuser, do u have dyslexia, or was it just a well placed joke.

Gotta love "dislectsia" jokes :cool: :p

[Onetonbullet]

Maybe lesdyxia?