Sony Must Embrace PSP Hackers

[Privateer]

I have homebrew apps on my PSP, but I still buy games. In fact, if I didn't have homebrew, I probably would've become bored of my PSP altogether ages ago and just let it collect dust. Emulation kept me interested in my PSP, thus keeping me interested in new PSP games that come along. I think it'd be interesting to compare game purchases between hackers and mainstreamers and see who's actually buying more PSP games and accessories, instead of just assuming everyone with emulators on their PSP's won't buy new games.

[montezuma]

I had an interesting situation with my PSP. I bought it first with Wipeout Pure, which kept me going for a full week. Yes, that's right, a week. Then, when I was about to sell it, OS 2.0 came out with the AVC codec, which amused me for a month or two afterwards. That finally died down, and just in time, a 1.5 downgrader came out and I was able to emulate SNES. (Hell yeah.) But, even that has now faded away, and my PSP just sits around again. There's nothing for it but to come out with new, good games... I'm really only waiting for FFVII Crisis Core, and things like Devil May Cry... all of which are far off. Sony is torturing us with halfassed games. Thank god for Rockstar.

Until then... I'll play my brand new Nintendo DS.

[YourStillWithMe]

I think that the homebrew scene has attracted many people to buy a psp. I know a few of my friends that are just into the psp for the NES, SNES and Gameboy roms. Yeah, so what that people use iso's or whatever the hell. 90% of the other systems you can use pirated games too. Who gives a crap? It will always exist and Sony needs to get over it and try to please the viewers out there. When someone hears from someone that the hacking is trying to be stopped wouldnt that turn you off as a consumer if you were going to buy it? Take away the iso thing for one second and bear with me. Sony is being stupid. I guarantee you if they weren't so stupid it would actually sky rocket there sales this holiday season and attract more people. Or what they should do is come up with an emulator of there own sort of speak that plays Atari, gameboy, nes and snes roms for example. Like the program reads from an entirely different folder maybe caled "All Roms" and it plays .nes, .smc and whatever the gameboy files are and NOTHING else. If sony has enough knowledge to stop us than they have enough brain power to come up with something like that.

Stupid ****ing Sony so queer

Oh and Kaiser-Good to hear from you man. Long time no see!

[FrancisD2d]

Agreed

[mog]

that post sums up just about everything...

i own a psp1000 with v1.0 firmware still intact. the only game ive bought so far is everybody's golf, not because im happy with just playin homebrew but because im too paranoid about buying a game thats gonna update my psp.

if sony hadnt brought out the stupid firmware updates i'd have purchased a good 200+ quid worth of games by now, i can think of atleast 10 games i want.

silly sony!

[Heran_Bago]

Sony has to embrace hackers as much as we have to embrace ISOs.

[wakeuphater]

i just want my psp to print pictures. thats ill.

[Hevyduty]

Sony is the wrong company to bring us an open source/commercial game system. I mean, let's face it. What we gamers want is a powerful handheld with commercial game support, homebrew, emus, WiFi, and 3D acceleration. Basically, a combo of the PSP and GP2x.

Problem is, Sony will never go for it. Sony is a media company. They own a music label. They own a movie studio. They're not going to embrace the use of non-aurthorized music and video. They just aren't. They're going to fight it as long as they can.

Even Microsoft, though not a media company, is a big player in the DRM world. They couldn't do it either.

Honestly, I think only Nintendo can bring this to us. We'll see if they're interested when we learn more about the Gameboy 3D.

[Dj SaTuRn]

it really is sony's own fault

catch me if you can.

...

hold on the FBI is at the door.

[eretsua]

Or what they should do is come up with an emulator of there own sort of speak that plays Atari, gameboy, nes and snes roms for example. Like the program reads from an entirely different folder maybe caled "All Roms" and it plays .nes, .smc and whatever the gameboy files are and NOTHING else. If sony has enough knowledge to stop us than they have enough brain power to come up with something like that.

Of course Sony's developers are technically capable of writing such an emulator only it would instigate a console nuclear war of which the likes have never been seen. The amount of layers that would be employed by Nintendo to stop such an act would drain every law school in the world. Regardless of what kind of defense team Sony might have the case will be settled swiftly in Nintendo’s favor – leaving Sony severely wounded if not dead.

This also one of the reasons why the PSP will not turn into an open source platform. As a company you want to have control. Not only do you want to control what’s available for the machine (because what’s happening in the scene of your machine reflects your image as a company).
For example, if it was an open source platform and a PSP virus would strike the community again that bricks PSPs the majority will be all over Sony demanding tighter security and a replacement unit.

Piracy is an issue as well, of course. Though personally I don’t believe that is the biggest issue. Unless they (and all the other large media-content distributors) have really started to believe in their own propaganda…Not every pirated title/album would have been sold a game or album. They (=the public) get the pirated version because it’s available to them for next to no money (internet subscription + blank media). But as soon as they have to pay full price for the same title they won’t bother. Simply because the title is not worth the full price (in their eyes).
But naturally the tighter your anti-piracy-security is the more likely you are to sell your software.

At any rate you can abandon all hope about Nintendo giving you an open platform cause that is not going to happen, ever. At least not as long as their interest is expressible in monetary units. And Nintendo even explicitly said so on numerous occasions “we’re a company and we will follow the money”, and by rights they should. It’s impossible for one (big) company to release control. It would result in being slaughtered by competition.