Chilly Willy has released an update to IDStorage Manager, a handy utility that allows users to dump, view, and verify IDStorage keys on the PSP.

v1.2 release. New features are ability to create and delete keys, and the colors are inverted to make it easier on the eyes.

When PSP homebrew legend Dark_AleX decided to take leave of the scene, uncertainty existed for the future of custom firmware. Just who would follow in his footsteps?

Weeks following Alex’s leave, a Russian team of developers known as “M33″ blasted onto the scene, with their first release being a 3.51 custom firmware. Of course, this was a surprise to many, but little did we know that another team with a similar goal would soon be emerging alongside M33.

This team became known as Team Wildc*rd. Their first release, although released to the public eariler than the team wished, was a custom firmware known as 3.40 WildC*rd.

We recently had a chat with Team WildC*rd, to find out more about what’s in store for the next WildC*rd release, as well as their personal views on the homebrew scene.

Read on for the first exclusive interview with Team WildC*rd.

eXophase.com: When was the team formed?
WildC*rd: July 2007

eXophase.com: Was the team created to pick up where AleX left off, or was the timing of AleX’s retirement a co-incidence?
WildC*rd: Not a coincidence. After Dark_AleX announced he was leaving the scene, a thread started on MaxConsole in which a few hackers started talking about how OE works and considered reversing it. People in there spoke on IRC and gathered some experienced developers, and we started to reverse 3.40 OE a short time later.

eXophase.com: Once AleX left, did your team receive any help from him?
WildC*rd: Not from him directly. As Mathieulh has clarified on PSPGen, he got word of our project, and asked for a sample of our code. He realised we were serious, and after we had reversed around 90% of 3.40 OE, he gave us the 3.10 OE source code (with AleX’s agreement) when we had reversed around 90% of 3.40 OE and used it to check our work, verify it, add comments to it, and so on. Unfortunately we kept it on our SVN which was later compromised and it ended up being leaked, which we apologise to AleX for.

eXophase.com: How many members actively contribute to every new custom firmware release that comes from your team?
WildC*rd: Around half of the team contribute to the code, which means about 7 people.

eXophase.com: Perhaps a few words about the different members, and the role each one plays in the creation of a new custom firmware?
WildC*rd: I would prefer not to mention names as everyone makes their own contributions which the team would struggle without. There are people who reverse code and write code, people who think of new features, people who write our statements and readmes, and importantly the testers who we’d be screwed, shooting in the dark, without.

eXophase.com: Is there any sort of an informal rivalry between you and the Russian team M33? Maybe not officially, but will you be trying to beat them to a new feature?
WildC*rd: We pride ourselves on working alongside M33 rather than against them, and are extremely grateful for their recent support after the source code leak. We reversed some of the features they added to 3.5X M33, such as 99.9% NO-UMD compatibility (the np9660.prx patcher), because no custom firmware can be without them, but we write other features by ourself.

eXophase.com: How difficult or easy is it to bring together a whole custom firmware, considering the number of people contributing to it simultaneously?
WildC*rd: Quite difficult; it presents interesting security issues as we have seen. There is also a problem when two people who start reversing a module without being aware of the other person doing it, and end up wasting their time, but sometimes it’s useful to compare code and it helps because it makes it easier to find mistakes.

eXophase.com: What motivates the team? Is it a “damn the man” attitude, or do you see it as just a hobby improving what Sony has released and perhaps giving Sony some ideas on what the people want?
WildC*rd: Our primary aim is to keep providing custom firmware for the PSP scene. The official firmware locks out any attempts at homebrew which we feel is entirely wrong, and we’ll continue unlocking the true potential of the PSP until Sony do it themselves.

eXophase.com: How difficult was it when a certain website got into your group’s secret forums and decided to steal all your code and release it into the open?
WildC*rd: The first few days were very difficult, we felt our privacy and security had been completely violated, and considered ending the project. But then we realised, it’d be pointless to let that site benefit and profit from our hard work, so we released the source ourself, and the 3.40* binaries a few days later. We have re-organized ourselves and are now working towards 3.52*.

eXophase.com: After the

# Fix for frame order corruption
# Reduction in stylus jumping
# Larger GUI tool buttons
# Added first, last, next and previous frame navigation buttons
# Reversed the direction of the shoulder button stylus frame drag to feel like you are dragging a continous strip.
# Ignore drawing strokes that are outside the drawing area, stopping them causing an indication that the film has changed.

-Changes:
-Massive bug fixes
-Sprite gfx bugs resolved(mostly)
-new sidequests
-new challenges
-new characters
-sidequest bugs fixed
-new items
-changed text system
-items display correct text info
-boss gfx changed for some
-music changed / added
-signs fixed (They actually 'say' something);
-fixes in collision detection system for maps (not houses though unfortunately)