After being in the works for six years, Kingcom is pleased to unveil and release a full translation of the 2007 PlayStation 2 game, Super Robot Wars: Original Generations.
The game is an expanded remake of the 2002 and 2005 Game Boy Advance games Super Robot Wars Original: Generation 1 and Super Robot Wars Original: Generation 2. Aside from having much higher production values, it also introduced several major changes to the gameplay and storyline that future games in the series expanded on.
Please see the project page for a download link and further information.

https://www.romhacking.net/translations/5817/ ...

Play! is a portable PlayStation2 emulator. The focus of the project is on making PlayStation2 emulation easy and accessible.

Here's changelog for latest dev-build, released 11 Dec 2020:

+ Rename scripts.
+ Actions: Cache Qt on macOS.
+ Remove Linux x86-64 build from TravisCI.
+ Build Linux x86-64 on GitHub Actions.

https://purei.org/

news via http://www.emulation64.com/view/3106/Play-revff172d6b/ ...

Roguelike fans rejoyce! Today is released the full translation of Rogue Hearts Dungeon for the Ps2.
The game is somewhat not very popular, but it was developed for Nethack’s fan base, so if you like these kind of games don’t hesitate to play.
The patch translates every in game text, even if this a beta you will not encounter serious bugs.
This beta lacks some esthetics fixes but it is a full translation.
For more information please grab and read the readme file.
Enjoy!

http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=30964 ...

• No, there's no typo in the title. It's 2020 and Sony's second home console, the PlayStation 2, got a new exploit; and an interesting one at that! Aptly named FreeDVDBoot, this exploit allows users to run burnt homebrew games on an unmodified PS2. Just slide in a DVD into the console as you would with any other game and boot it without any additional tools.
  
  @CTurt , the software engineer behind FreeDVDBoot and fellow GBAtemp member, explained in length his method that exploits the console's DVD player functionality in a blog post. He also made all of FreeDVDBoot's code available on GitHub, along with a step-by-step guide.
  
  
  

  • It doesn't end there either. CTurt further goes on to speculate that this method could potentially work on every single PlayStation home consoles and that he will investigate this possibility in the future:
    

    There's really no reason this general attack scenario is specific to the PlayStation 2 as all generations support some combination of burned media: from the PlayStation 1's CD support, to the PlayStation 3 and 4's Blu-ray support, with the PlayStation 4 having only removed CD support. Hacking the PS4 through Blu-ray BD-J functionality has long been discussed as an idea for an entry point. This may be something I would be interested in looking into for a long-term future project: imagine being able to burn your own PlayStation games for all generations; 1 down, 3 to go...
    Click to expand...

    SOURCE
    FreeDVDBoot code and guide on GitHub
    
    https://gbatemp.net/threads/new-play...odchip.568654/
  
  

...

Huge thanks to everyone that helped get this release ready, over 4 years in the making.

The PCSX2 Dev Team wishes everyone happy emulation with the new release.

The below is a list of highlights, see each respective progress report.

At present we only have the new Windows Installer and Binary available however Linux users can compile from source by following this guide.


Changelog:





https://pcsx2.net/293-pcsx-1-6-0-is-out.html

via http://www.emulation64.com/view/3064...v160-released/ ...

hpsx64 v0290 is released. hpsx64 (Highly-Experimental Playstation Simulator x64) is a PlaysStation (PS) & PlayStation 2 (PS2) emulator for x64 based systems. This is a WORK IN PROGRESS.

hpsx64 Changelog:
hps1x64 v0290 - fixed dma lock/freeze problem, fixed a wraparound invalidation bug, preliminary direct input control pad api, multi-player fixes

http://sourceforge.net/projects/hpsx64

http://www.emucr.com/2020/03/hpsx64-v0290.html ...

This week saw the 20th anniversary of the launch of the PlayStation 2 in Japan -- the beginning of a remarkable era for console gaming.
The PS2 ultimately sold 155 million units worldwide, a record-breaking total that seems unlikely to be rivalled by any other console platform in the near future. Less commonly cited but even more extraordinary in many ways are the software numbers for the platform. Around 1.5 billion units of PS2 software were sold over the years, and though various estimates float around for the number of software titles released on PS2 -- complicated, I suspect, by different ways of counting SKUs and games with different names in various territories -- Wikipedia currently curates a list of almost 4,500 entries.
The 20th anniversary of the PS2 mostly serves to make those of us who were working in the games business at the time feel very old, of course, but it also serves as an opportunity to reflect on how things have changed since the March of 2000. It was an era when consoles ruled the roost; smartphones weren't even a twinkle in Steve Jobs' eye at that point, and the PC platform was going through one of the doom-and-gloom points in its cycle, as retailers reduced shelf space for PC games and digital distribution -- awaiting the arrival of Steam some years later -- remained an unfulfilled dream. Things were simpler in many regards. Video games were all but synonymous with consoles at that point, and there was one business model to rule them all -- packaged games at a largely consistent price point. It's easy to be nostalgic for that simplicity, though it certainly had its downsides; not least the high barriers to entry that effectively prevented anything like today's thriving indie development sector from taking root.
It was also an era when territorial barriers were much higher in the industry. Japan, North America and Europe all had distinct line-ups of software, and even the launch date for the PS2 hardware itself was staggered across territories to an extent that would attract consumer outrage today -- the anniversary of the European launch, as a consequence, isn't for another nine months.
Rather than simply feeling nostalgic (or old), though, I think that the PS2 launch and how the console and its market developed remain important things to study from a business perspective. The world may have been different then, but the core of what it takes to launch a console and convince consumers to invest in it hasn't changed all that much -- and the PS2 remains the single most successful example of that in the industry's history. Moreover, for all that the market may be more complex and diversified today than it was 20 years ago, there are also some notable parallels between the PS2 and its rivals and the situation faced by the upcoming console launches.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...tion-2-opinion ...

It's rare for a company to have such a strong entry into the games market as Sony did with the original PlayStation. What started as a collaborative project with Nintendo in the late '80s soon turned into its own product, taking the market by storm in 1994 in Japan and much of the rest of the world the following year. In March 1999, Sony told investors that it had shipped 54.42 million consoles, a figure that went north of 70 million over the following 12 months.
But the people heading up Sony's brand new video game venture knew that it wasn't enough to just do well the once -- you needed to land another smash hit in the bag before you could consider yourself successful. Going into the PlayStation 2's launch, there was a degree of trepidation among Sony's leaders, all of whom had been in the industry for a while and knew what a fickle beast it could be.
"It was always in the back of my mind," says Chris Deering, who was Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) Europe's boss at the time. "If PlayStation was ever successful, the real proof would be to have the follow up come out and do as well or maybe better."Jack Tretton, who was heading up SCE US, adds: "Everybody was euphoric coming off the success of PlayStation. We had set the bar high but it really exceeded our expectations. Going into PlayStation 2, we were certainly confident, but we were also cautious because it was very rare that the leader of one generation could hold that position in the next. There was a great deal of trepidation not to get caught up in our success and to make sure that we redoubled our efforts going into the next generation."
The original PlayStation had been targeted towards a broad audience. There was promotion aimed at bringing kids on board, like the goofy and colourful Society Against PlayStation commercials, as well as marketing like the rather gruesome print ad featuring two women with bleeding noses for WipEout. For the PS2, however, SCE wanted to bring in a more mature audience. This was part of the reason why Twin Peaks creator David Lynch was hired to make the unsurprisingly bizarre The Third Place trailer.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...world-by-storm ...

Today is the 25th anniversary of the original PlayStation's launch, and Sony marked the milestone by announcing that the Guinness World Records had certified PlayStation as the "best-selling home video game console brand ever."
Between the four main PlayStation iterations, Sony has sold more than 450 million systems. Three of the four systems surpassed 100 million units in sales, with only the PlayStation 3 falling short while still managing to move 87.4 million units. Adding in the sales of the PSP (76.4 million units) and PS Vita (Sony has not disclosed a sales total), Sony has sold over 526 million gaming systems in its quarter century as a platform holder.
Sony's nearest competition for the best-selling home console brand would be Nintendo, but the Switch-maker's investor relations page puts its cumulative home hardware installed base at about 323 million over 36 years (if one counts the Switch as a home system). However, adding in sales of portable systems including Nintendo mainstays like the DS and Game Boy puts the company's cumulative sell-through at a little more than 752 million units.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...illion-systems ...