as far as newscontent this post is an old stinking fish.
nevertheless, i have almost reached the sad point, that has been looming on the horizon.
i will soon be owner of a fully functional yet utterly useless PSP.
my PSP runs firmware 2.0. so while it will still work as the excellent mp3-player that it is, and to watch videos, it will have lost it’s basic functionality as a game console. i am about to finish GTA: liberty city stories; down to the last quest actually. then i will have to decide; in order to play newer games – and i even own one such game (me & my katamari), that i have never once played, and i do have a few games on my list – i would have to upgrade the firmware, which would effectively mean i lose access to my homebrew software.
now, i am not a huge homebrew junkie. i have installed only a few games; but among them two real gems: a sudoku game, that can dramatically shorten any train ride, and psprhythm, a sexy interface designed by two german geeks, that transforms my PSP into a sweet retro-beatbox.
i am aware, that there might soon be a new hack allowing people to play homebrew on newer firmware. maybe it already exists. people are crafty. but running after these upgrades takes time, time i’d rather waste playing WoW tbh ;). i know how much times this takes, because i already went through the same ordeal once, when i – then without knowing any better – upgraded from firmware 1.5, still the firmware of choice for homebrew, to 2.0. back then it took a few months before a stable engine was ready.
other people go as far as buying a second PSP, one to run on the latest firmware, one to keep running firmware 1.5. but no way, dog. for me it is a matter of principal. sony’s policy to keep fighting these harmless hacks is just plain wrong. sony should welcome it, when users code homebrew games and software. they should see this as an asset, not as something to combat. the trick to add new features with firmware upgrades is not fooling noone; we all know what this is about …
soon my psp will be electro trash, functioning electro trash, i guess. silly. non mmporg’s are boring anyway…
edit: somewhat related: Protect your homebrew applications with DAS [via boingboing]
i think you should be able to do it the other way round. there are some programs on the net that simulate a higher firmware that is already installed. this is to trick those PSP-games that need a higher firmware. search on pspwelt.com for dev-hook (or so i think…)
have a nice geeky weekend. habi
thx for the info mate. i will look into this. is there such a thing as non-geeky wknds?