News/release from Torch


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PSP appears to take center stage in this week issue of Weekly Famitsu. Apart from confirming Patapon 2 (winter 2008) and Loco Roco 2 (no release date), early leaks from the mag also reveals a couple of new games from Arc System Works and Sega. Lair Land Story appears to be another PSP project from Arc after the Guilty Gear XX Accent Core port. On the other hand, Phantasy Star Portable is not the only PSP game Sega is working on as the publisher unveils Garnet Chronicle. Confirmation, details and photos/scans will hopefully come later.

Princess Maker 5 Portable and Soldier Collection (PC Engine Best Collection) were given some space as well, both were revealed at various retailer sites earlier. Last but not least is Namco’s Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2, which is covered here already. In the Cross Panel Review, Gundam Battle Universe gets a nice 8,8,8,9 (33/40).

http://www.psphyper.com/psp/patapon-...weeks-famitsu/ ...

Jf has posted yet another release of the Mac Emulator for the PSP, heres the release details:


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Did Ken Lobb, creative director at Microsoft Game Studios, just confirm motion control will be a factor in the newest Banjo Kazooie game? We're saying it's a "definite maybe." Others are saying yes, based on Lobb's comments in a Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts walk-through with developer commentary. What comments?

Specifically, Ken says "The primary function that Kazooie has in the game is she carries this wrench and the wrench is used for many different things. One of the things that the wrench is used for is to turn these devices. So you basically grab with the wrench and then you twist the controller around and it'll move different things in the game."

http://kotaku.com/5023175/does-this-...ion-controller ...

Capcom has announced that 1942: Joint Strike will be releasing soon. The classically inspired vertical arcade shooter1942: Joint Strike arrives on PSN 7/24 and on XBLA on 7/23.

1942: Joint Strike takes inspiration and influence from the ‘80s 194X series of World War II-themed vertical arcade shooters. The art, sound and gameplay of the new game take cues from the original 194X games, much like Wolf of the battlefeild: Commando 3 (check out our review). Gameplay will resemble the classic 2D style that gamers expect, but the game utilizes a fully 3D engine. Set in a World War II-themed locale, stages, vehicles and weapons have the look and feel of WWII with some stylistic differences.

The new 1942: Joint Strike features 2-player online cooperative play. Graphics and music have been similarly updated by Backbone Entertainment, the developers of this latest entry into the 194X series. There’s also a brand new score for the game created by Norihiko Hibino, an international composer well-known for his work creating music for the Metal Gear series. ...

Capcom has announced that 1942: Joint Strike will be releasing soon. The classically inspired vertical arcade shooter1942: Joint Strike arrives on PSN 7/24 and on XBLA on 7/23.

1942: Joint Strike takes inspiration and influence from the ‘80s 194X series of World War II-themed vertical arcade shooters. The art, sound and gameplay of the new game take cues from the original 194X games, much like Wolf of the battlefeild: Commando 3 (check out our review). Gameplay will resemble the classic 2D style that gamers expect, but the game utilizes a fully 3D engine. Set in a World War II-themed locale, stages, vehicles and weapons have the look and feel of WWII with some stylistic differences.

The new 1942: Joint Strike features 2-player online cooperative play. Graphics and music have been similarly updated by Backbone Entertainment, the developers of this latest entry into the 194X series. There’s also a brand new score for the game created by Norihiko Hibino, an international composer well-known for his work creating music for the Metal Gear series. ...

Well, I remember seeing something called the "State of Homebrew as of August 2007" on DCEmu before I joined.

Since a lot has changed in the homebrew world, why not post another update?

MICROSOFT XBOX 360:



So far, there is not really any easy way to boot unsigned code on the Xbox 360, however, Team Xecuter of Xbox 1 fame, has been working at hacking the Xbox 360 for awhile now, and at one time promised us that they would hopefully succeed in finding a good exploit by 2008.
As of right now, there are two methods of booting homebrew on the Xbox 360.

Method #1 - Join the XNA club and develop or try out free homebrew games.

Method #2 - Use the shader-exploit in Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Video Game discovered by the Wii60 team. This method, however, is nowadays out of the reach of many, as it only worked between updates 4532 and 4548 (which is Halloween 2006 - November 2006). This also required a serial cable and your Xbox 360 to be modded to boot a special version of the King Kong game. But if you did everything properly, you could boot Linux (I've seen uBuntu working on youtube)!

NINTENDO WII:



As of right now, the Nintendo Wii is the only seventh generation console that has been hacked and is able to boot unsigned code. The Wii scene is right now beating the PSP scene and has a lot of good homebrew here and on the way, like a homebrew Nintendo 64 emulator (and apparently Sega CD emulation).

As of right now there are a few methods of running homebrew/unsigned code on the Nintendo Wii.

Method #1 (recommended) - Use the Twilight Hack exploit in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
All you do is put it on an SD card, copy it to your Wii, boot Twilight Princess, load the game, move around, and it crashes the game due to some sort of buffer overflow, which results in the ability to boot unsigned code, from where you can install the Homebrew Channel.

Method #2 - Use the more modernized version of SD Media Launcher and boot Gamecube Homebrew.
This used to be the popular method of playing Homebrew on the Wii, but has since become obsolete thanks to the Twilight Hack.

SONY PLAYSTATION 3:



As of now, PS3 comes in 4th Place, behind the PSP, Wii, and DS and ahead of the Xbox 360. As of right now, there are 2 methods of booting homebrew on the Playstation 3.

Method #1 - The PS3 is able to run homebrew on Linux, with fullspeed NES, Super Nintendo, and Sega Genesis/Megadrive emulation. Sadly, there's a limit, as Sony made it so you cant really use all the power PS3 offers in Linux mode (I believe it has something to do with the GPU and not being able to use all cell cores).

Method #2 - With the 20GB (American/Japanese), US 60GB, EU 60GB, and 80GB PS3s, you are able to boot PS2 homebrew. Even though the PS2 wasnt very popular in the homebrew world, it still has NES (FCEUltra PS2), Sega Genesis/Megadrive (PGEN), and a decent SNES Emulator (SNES-Station).

In March of 2008, Dragula96, a respected PSP coder, posted a video on YouTube showing a Hello World Exploit. This means that we might actually see some good things in terms of homebrew down the road for the PS3.

SONY PSP:



The PSP has probably had the biggest homebrew scene so far. Starting in 2005 with an exploit in Wipeout Pure, which viewed HTML in a browser. Hackers used this to find the Address of the UMD Drive, and found out that the PSP's executable file was EBOOT.PBP.
Since then, there has been custom firmware, PSP phone (official and homebrew), numerous applications (like iRShell and PSPTube), and not to mention Fullspeed PS1 emulation and decent N64 emulation.
As of July 9, 2008, the PSP scene is still going strong. Although not as strong as it was in 2006 and 2007, it is still getting many homebrew releases everyday.

There are several methods of booting homebrew on the PSP, but I will discuss the more popular ones.

Method #1 - For firmwares up to Official Firmware 3.50, there are numerous exploits. Starting at Firmware 3.03, you needed the unpatched Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories. Firmware 3.11 and 3.50 use an exploit in the unpatched version of Lumines. All of these exploits will downgrade you to Firmware 1.50 and are for use only on the PSP-1000 model.

Method #2 (Recommended) - The Pandora Battery.
Not only can it downgrade your PSP-1000 to 1.50 (from where you can go onto Custom Firmware) and your Slim PSP to 3.XX/4.XX Custom Firmware, but it can also be used to unbrick your previously damaged PSP. This tool also works on all the official firmware updates so far, and reception has been universally positive.

NINTENDO DS:
...

Edit: Seems this method only works in the US, If you are in the UK ring MS on 0800 587 1102 to cancel

pibs has posted on our forums a method to easily cancel your Credit Cards off you Xbox live account, instead of having to ring their hot line.

...

It seems that Soul Calibur has been a big hit topping the XBLA chart and getting in to the top 10 of the most played Xbox games. With Rez HD and Ikaruga also big hits for XBLA it make you wonder, did all those Dreamcast/Sega fans move on to the Xbox? (I know I did )

Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3, continues to sell well, mostly likely driven by the Street Fighter HD beta (not unlike Crackdown: Halo beta of last year)

Xbox 360 Top Live Titles (based on UU’s)
1 Call of Duty 4
2 Halo 3
3 GTA IV
4 Guitar Hero III
5 Gears of War
6 Battlefield: Bad Company
7 Rock Band
8 Battlefield: Bad Company Demo
9 Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2
10 Soul Calibur

Top Arcade Titles (Full Versions)
1 Soul Calibur
2 Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3
3 UNO
4 Ticket to Ride
5 Happy Tree Friends
6 DOOM
7 N+
8 Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting
9 Worms
10 Sonic The Hedgehog 2
The above arcade list is based on full versions purchased.

Next week, will Bungie day (and a new free map) help knock Halo 3 beat COD4 to the number one spot?

Red = New

Source: Major Nelson ...