What REALLY Destroyed The PSP Scene!?

[Jdemon]

I think Sony has effectively sealed off the PSP from continued hacking with their stratagy. People will continue to rip illegal iso's and try to get them working for a while because not all new games require 2.0 yet. But once 2.0 becomes the standard ripping will dwindle and die. At the same time due to Fanjita's loaders there will be a re-newed interest in homebrew. In a way it's seems like Sony has effectively contained the PSP homebrew/hacking community. Unless someone hacks 2.5, but at this point it doesn't seem likely that that will come to pass.

[soatari]

It is obvious that their biggest fear is piracy. The UMD loaders and dumpers are what scared Sony into this frenzy. Sony breaks even on the PSP hardware. They make no money on the device itself. All their money comes from software and accessories (which is why it is hard to find a PSP value pack anymore).

This might be why they dissaprove of homebrew as well. They don't want any of their market swaying away from them to go play free games. I know this seems like they are being mean, but it's just business. The console was truly NEVER designed to run homebrew. The GAMES folder was for demos of upcoming products, but I think that the homebrew scare (from Sony's perspective) killed that idea until they get homebrew and hacking under control.

Now don't me wrong, I love playing SNES and Gameboy on my PSP, but if it comes down to homebrew or high quality content from Sony (demos and the such), I choose Sony, because that is what I bought this system for. I didn't even know about homebrew until after I upgraded to 2.0.

Please note, that recently I upgraded back up to 2.0 because I got tired of being unable to play the newest releases.

[djub]

The 1.5 loves homebrew. FW above 1.5? Not so much. It will likely stay that way until Sony gets the insane idea of allowing you kernel. Latecomers naturally want to downgrade.

2.0 has homebrew lite, sorta like a demo of what you could do if you had 1.5. It's got a few emulators which are kinda cute, but not much of real substance.

Sony got pretty smart with forced 2.0 games. They make sure you have paid for GTA with the bonus castration of your PSP. Many abandoned their ill-gotten library of iso's in order to play what many say was the first serious title for PSP. Many will continue buying and not stealing games if they are better games, and eventually no one will remember PSPRadio and how cool it really was, beacause you cant run PSPRadio on fw2.75

Sony knows with enough quality homebrew you would become content with your $250 purchase. In order for you to get your $$$ worth you need to buy the newest game, play it through, find it boring and buy a new., with forced FW updates along the way.

The only way to make your PSP better is to buy more Movies/Games !!!

[IndianCheese]

The PSP ain't that old. We all know in the back of our minds that Sony will not win. We've all seen pictures of Sony's PBP compiler, right? As soon as it leaks to the public via a greasy floppy disk that an employee stuffed it onto, we will be able to "sig" our PBP files without any trouble.

[Samstag]

As soon as it leaks to the public via a greasy floppy disk that an employee stuffed it onto, we will be able to "sig" our PBP files without any trouble.

Not going to happen. Security on the signature is extremely tight. It's not something that your average Sony programmer has access to. No code is ever signed until it goes gold, and then it is signed under controlled conditions and the signature goes back in the vault.

[IndianCheese]

Have you seen the screenshot of the compiler?

[MaxSMoke]

You can get alot of free software for the Home Computer. Does that mean nobody buys computer games? Nope. Have people stopped buying Photo editors or Word processors because there are free alternatives? Nope.

The fact is that people are happy to pay for good quality software. And a BIG BUDGET video game is easily going to outshine any homebrew, unless it's a complete mess. So Sony isn't loosing any software sales to Home Brew, and they never will.

What they *ARE* loosing is a small portion of their otherwise feverish supporters by kicking them in the nutz with these firmware Home brew lockouts. They need to open up Home Brew, not restrict it. Home Brew was becoming a HUGE driving force to encourage people to make the leap to the PSP. The PSP is not a cheap system, it needs ALL of the help it can get! And once the PSP has more new fans, those fans will want UMD movies and Professionally made games to play. It's just a matter of fact!

So, too all of these ninnies busy whizzing all over Home Brew as a bad thing, you need to wise up. Home Brew is the biggest draw for the PSP, and without it, I myself, would have sold off my PSP months ago from lack of use. And I have purchased ALOT of games since the March 21st US PSP release, I have about 30 right now. I have so many, I should buy Stock in Sony!

If you think I'm wrong, go look at the games you've purchased. How many of them have held your interest for more then a few days? One, maybe two? Is that even remotely long enough to justify the PSP's cost?? And how many of Home Brew apps and Emulators have you played well waiting for the latest PSP title to get release? I've personally played DOZENS! My 1GB memory stick has nearly 250MB's of just tiny Home Brew programs. I play them whenever I get tried of my Big Budget games, like Xmen2.

Homebrew has been the tasty snack before the meal that keeps me going. It hasn't spoiled my appetite for new games! It's only made it stronger!

So get a CLUE! Home Brew helps sells PSP, PSP Games, and PSP Movies!

[MaxSMoke]

You know what, I'll even do one better. Below is the address to Sony. I'm going to write up a letter in support of Home Brew and send it to them. In that letter I'm going to list all of the Sony hardware and PSP games I've purchased, just so they can see the kind of big customer they are insulting with their attacks on Home Brew games and apps. I've spent at least $1200 on their handheld in the last 6 months. And I bet there are Home Brew users on this VERY website, reading this forum, that have even spent more!

Here's the address, please print out and send them a letter of your own. Maybe together, we can encourage them to find a way to support their software protection without wrecking Home Brew development:

Sony Computer Entertainment America
PO Box 5888
San Mateo, CA 94402-0888

Are you too lazy to type and print out a letter? Then just pick up the phone and call Sony's PSP Division at:

800-345-7669 (800-345-SONY)
M-SAT 6:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m. PST
Sunday 7:00 a.m. – 6:30 p.m

[MaxSMoke]

I finished my letter, here's a copy of what I'm going to mail to Sony. I know letters count x10 as much as an E-mail or Phone call these days, so it's easly worth the postage for the increased chance that it will be read by the right people at Sony:


Dear Sony PSP developers,

Let me start off this letter by saying that I love the Sony PSP. It's been one of the best things I've ever purchased, although maybe not in the way your team originally intended. Well I have purchased many games for the PSP, not all of them have kept me entertained. A few of them, like Mercury, I found to be completely unplayable. Others, like Grip Shift, well fun on the onset, proved less then compelling to hold my interest. But yet, I've never lost interest in the PSP over all of these months, even though many of the games I've purchased didn't get played for long. The reason I continue to be such a big PSP Fan is the Home Brew games.

Home Brew, for those of you that aren't already aware, are the unsigned games and apps that people have made for the PSP using holes in the Firmware 1.0 and 1.5. These tiny games, emulators, and applications, well very simple, have managed to keep me glued to my PSP night and day, well I've waited for new Commercial PSP games to be released. They are the snacks that got me through alot of long periods of software starvation, before I dug into the main course of the next big Commercial PSP game release. Without these Home Brew games, I would have lost interest in my PSP and sold it, long before I ever purchased all of the games I currently own for it.

I know that you sell the PSP for a loss, but even so, the PSP is a very expensive toy. With all of the home console systems selling well under $200 (minus the Xbox 360), it's hard for people to justify the PSP's extraordinary $250 price for a handheld. But thanks in large part to word spreading about Home Brew emulators for outdated consoles, I've personally heard of many people that bought their own PSP. Sure, they start out buying the PSP to play old Nintendo and Sega games, but after they have a PSP in hand, they always start buying movies and games for it soon after. Once you've spent the $250 on the PSP, spending $10 on a Movie or $40 on a game doesn't seem like such a big deal.

Also Home Brew applications are showing the true power and breath that is possible with the PSP. For instance, PSP-Radio is a program that allows people to use the PSP's Wireless internet connection to access streaming internet radio. I've looked for a long time for an inexpensive way to tune into Internet Radio without using a computer, and thanks to Home Brew, I now listen to internet radio whenever I like!

And Home Brew encourages people with a very limited niche interest in video games to take an interest in the PSP. A good example is my mother. She thought the PSP was a HUGE waste of money. But thanks to Home Brew games like Solitaire, Spider Solitaire, and Bejeweled, she's now interested in the PSP herself. I plan on buying her one for her birthday, and she's already looking over UMD movies she can watch when she's not playing free Home Brew games. Right now the PSP has limited it's focus to men between the ages 16 to 35. But thanks to Home Brew, people outside of that demographic are seeing can also serve their needs as well, such as UMD movies, Commercial Puzzle games, Music, and Photo playback. Home Brew is already helping to expand the PSP market!

I know that Sony makes the PSP Hardware in order to sell software. And the idea of allowing free software to exist seems to fly in the face of your business model, but I would beg you to take a closer look, because I think the truth is quite the opposite. You can't sell a game or movie to somebody that doesn't own a PSP. It's that simple. Whatever you can do to encourage people to buy PSP's and use them will, in the end, only encourage more PSP Games and Movies to be purchased in the future.

You *NEED* to get the PSP into more people's. Once they seem how amazing your little handheld is, they can't help but to want more software to use with it. Home Brew helps encourage people to buy the PSP with the promise of free software. And once they have the PSP, the lure of bigger and better Commercial games will easily encourage those same people to buy the high-quality software and movies that will make the PSP the dominate force in handheld gaming that it should rightfully be. Please consider my logic, I think it's very sound. It's the reason I've bought over $1200 worth of games for my PSP!

Just to give you an idea of what a Fan I am of my PSP, and how much Home Brew games have encouraged my interest in the PSP, here's a list of every PSP Game I currently own, as of December 22nd, 2005:

Rengoku
Grand Theft Auto: LC
NBA
Tokobots
Kingdom of Paradise
World of Soccer
MLB
Grip Shift
SSX on Tour
Medievil Resurrection
Spider-Man 2 Game
Ridge Racer
Wipeout Pure
Hot Shots Golf
Dynasty Warriors
Archer Maclean's Mercury
ATV Offroad Fury
Untold Legends
Twisted Metal
Ape Escape: On the Loose
Burnout Legends
Tony Hawks Underground 2
Lumines

Your Fan,
Walter Sharrow
(hand writen signature)

[funkatron1011]

That's a very good letter MaxSmoke