Sony Strikes Back

[RedKing14CA]

The History and Uncertain Future of the PlayStation Portable

[INDENT]Ever since the PSP was launched coders saw it as a good chance to do homebrew and hackers saw it as another console to pirate. It is rumoured that the PSP was first taken to Homebrew with the application "Hello World" and Sony immediately fought back at Homebrew by releasing the 1.5 version PSP in America.

However Sony made a rather large mistake and an easy hack was soon discovered that got Homebrew on American PSP's. Sony unsuccesfully attempted to fight back with 1.51 and 1.52 updates that were required for certain games and Homebrew fought back with SNES Emulators and ports of classic games.

Sony finally started winning the anti-homebrew war (or so they thought) when they released the 2.0 FirmWare with a Web Browser, and requirements to play new games, but Hackers soon got commercial games working on 1.5's again, and Homebrew games soon followed along with a Downgrade that snet storebought 1.52-2.0's back down to Homebrew friendly 1.5!

Since then Sony has been losing the anti-homebrew war by releasing FirmWare Versions 2.01-2.6 with simple fixes and required for games. At the same time Homebrew has been winning with more ports of classic games like Quake and such, UMD loaders, the promise of last gen console emulating, and fancy Windows style programs.

Yet now Homebrew is uncertain. With more advanced and fun Homebrew coming out like a Nintendo 64 Emulator made by PSmonkey and the multiplayer promise of Quake 2 by Mczonk, among other great submissions by other great coders, the future of Homebrew is uncertain.

Sony's future plans shake the foundations of Homebrew such as the promised Playstation One Emulator and the Flash player. Sony seams to finally embrace Homebrew in a way, by releasing their first Emulator and a Flash player, yet programs like the Nintendo 64 Emulator stand no chance of being accepted by Sony, and it would seam that there are chances that several Coders have invested hours, weeks, or months of their lives in failing projects.

Yet ever since the PSP was launched it has had such struggles. Sony releases an update, and Coders release a program that gets Homebrew back on the splendid PSP.

We can only hope and pray that it is just another cycle, another situation where the Coders and Hackers can bypass the new FirmWare!
__________________________________________________ ________

Sorry about the mistakes and how it seamed to drag on a little, its part of my extra credit for Journalism... please make any necessary corrections and post it in the news if you think its good enough (i'd like you to think so)...

thanks for being there Dcemu!!! Im off to send this to my English teacher (so she can give it to my journalism teacher)

[CatfishD]

yeah.... and .... lol


some good information people wanting the background of the PSP i guess :P

[yaustar]

There is a lot of technical jargon in there that won't mean anything to a non technical audience. You need to edit it taking into account of that. Either have a jargon buster some where else or insert it into the essay somehow...

[RedKing14CA]

it was for all you technical people here at dcemu!

[yaustar]

You said it was going off to your English teacher which will then be passed on to your Journalism teacher.

[stealth-patriot]

Wow, thats alot of typing(sorry im a simple fool). Anyways, word is that sony is trying to buy off homebrew sites. There trying to buy pspupdates.com off so that they can sell the homebrew... That sucks Sony! That sucks...

[jman420]

The thing is, sony cant use nintendo emulators on psp, (or they wont) just because it would be A. using a competitive game on their system, and B. it should be considered copyright infringement.. they also cant do PC-Engine, Atari, NeoGeo, due to the same things.. however.. since Sony bought Sega about 2 years ago, they can (but wont) make (or use) Sega Master System, Genesis, Game Gear, Saturn, Dreamcast, SegaCD emulators.. but I cant see that happening . . . .

[RedKing14CA]

Yeah... Atleast there making an emu of their OWN system... Damn prideful money craving people.

Its like they have too much honor to make any emulators. i mean, WTF?

[ByteMaster]

It is rumoured that the PSP was first taken to Homebrew with the application "Hello World" and Sony immediately fought back at Homebrew by releasing the 1.5 version PSP in America.

This is not a rumour. "nem" found out how to do homebrew. The first program released was indeed Hello World by "Saturn Expedition Committee".

Firmware 1.50 for Japanese PSPs was announced March 24th, 2005 while the Hello World release was done May 5th, 2005. It's similar to 1.51 being released *before* PsP-Dev's Swaploit.

Edit
I think it would be a good idea to keep a History of PSP.

Firmware releases see e.g. here
http://www.pspbrew.com/wiki/index.php/Firmware

SEC info here
http://sec.pn.to/pw/?SEC%2FAbout