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PSP Emulation Madness

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wed Jun 01, 2005 08:34 AM
from the this-is-going-to-be-awesome dept.
Classic Games (Games) Emulation (Games) Portables (Games) Sony
An anonymous reader writes "The PSP is now the ultimate in handheld emulation consoles, already it boasts Full Speed Gameboy Colour Emulation and improving Snes & Master System but added today it also has NeoGeo CD and Sega Genesis emulators added to the impressive list of homebrew releases."
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PSP Emulation Madness 25 Comments More /

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  • This is SWEET... (Score:5, Informative)

    by ALeavitt (636946) * <(moc.liamg) (ta) (ttivaela)> on Wednesday June 01 2005, @08:36AM (#12693407)
    ... but so far it only works on the Japanese 1.00 firmware. So far there's no support for the US versions (1.5 and 1.51) so for most of us, it's nothing to get too excited about... yet. I don't know about you, but I don't want to flash my PSP's firmware... but I'm getting so impatient. Just imagine... a 1GB card of all of your favorite games for all of those classic systems, portable, on that gorgeous screen. I hope they hurry up and figure out how to run homebrew apps on the latest firmware.
      • That's why I don't really get why platforms like Palm don't catch on more. With anybody being able to create and load programs on them, its suprising they don't get more attention. I think they could just as easily create all these emulators for Palm, and not have to worry about being sued. I realize that PSP has a better interface, but couldn't they make something like a keyboard attachment that has a game pad and 4 or 5 buttons?

      • Re:Living under the law (Score:4, Insightful)

        by MoonBuggy (611105) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @08:49AM (#12693527) Homepage
        Y'know there's nothing wrong with media-shifting games that you own. I've seen plenty of collections of old games lying around people's houses, if they own the game but want to play it on the train it's just a little more practical to use a ROM dump on a PSP than bring along a console, TV and bag of cartridges.

        On the other side of the coin, if I wanted to play Sonic 3 on my PSP (since it's one of my favourite games) I'd be quite happy to pay a few £ on eBay for an original cartridge so I'm then completely legit in downloading a ROM of that cartridge and running it under emulation.
      • Clearly Sony doesn't want people to do this. That seems to be the point of the later firmware releases: to block unencrypted binaries. But, I don't see what is illegal or worthy of suit in running homebrew software on the PSP. Unless, of course, that homebrew is compiled (and probably distributed) with libraries that are copyright Sony. As far as I know, that is not the case.

        But, Goddamnit, I can't wait until we can run these emulators on the North American PSPs...oh the anticipation...

      • Re:This is SWEET... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by DeVryGuy23 (869999) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @09:09AM (#12693700)
        There is no reason for Sony to get upset about this. People are simply making their system more marketable. It isnt economically feasible to pirate games using Memory Stick DUO(you might be able to get 1 game on a 1 gig stick, which is freakin expensive), it'd be cheaper to buy the UMDs. As long as the mods dont interfere with the PSPs ability to play retail games, then why would they take legal action?

  • All these are for the 1.0 firmware only (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CerebusUS (21051) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @08:39AM (#12693434)
    No one's cracked the 1.50 or the 1.51 firmware yet, so US PSP owners are still SOL.

  • PIM Suite? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by macemoneta (154740) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @08:40AM (#12693447)
    Has anyone ported a PIM (Personal Information Management) suite and user interface (like Opie) to it yet (or are there any projects in progress)? That would make the PSP attractive as a PDA as well.

    • Re:PIM Suite? (Score:4, Informative)

      by bazio (864132) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @08:44AM (#12693483)
      Don't know if the software has been ported or not, but the PSP wouldn't really be a very attractive PDA option, since it has no touch screen.
          • And the point of a PDA incapable of data entry is...?

            It keeps your schedule, documents, contact list, and to-do items with you in a portable manner. I rarely do data entry on the PDA itself. Other than checking off items or acknowledging reminders - which don't require a touch screen or keyboard - the bulk of the data entry occurs on my desktop/laptop. Some small amount of data entry could be performed with an on-screen keyboard and the two directional/select pads on the PSP. Heck, if you can put your

  • Hopefully Homebrew Will Run Soon.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mean_Nishka (543399) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @08:41AM (#12693459) Homepage Journal
    I will add my voice to the choir on homebrew software.. I bought a PSP at launch and haven't picked it up in weeks.. There's simply no decent software out for this thing, with very little on the horizon.

    Sony would be wise to open the machine up - it'll drive hardware sales certainly more than UMD movies will. Existing homebrew apps like PSPVideo 9 are probably driving more sales than software :).

    • What would make more sense for Sony would be to get sega to make a commercial version of the emulator for the PSP. The question then would be... How many people would pay for the games.
    • Sony would be wise to open the machine up - it'll drive hardware sales certainly more than UMD movies will.

      If the PSP is anything like the PSX, PS2, and presumably PS3, Sony doesn't WANT to drive hardware sales -- unless sales of game and movie media are driven at least equally as hard. The hardware is the razor, they make their money from selling blades.

      Let's keep the attractiveness of emulation on PSP in perspective, too; out beyond Slashdot, very few people actually have enough interest in homebrew p

  • Things they left out. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Rirath.com (807148) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @09:00AM (#12693639)
    They left out NES, TG16 / PC Engine, and the fact that so far, it's only 1.0. They also didn't mention that there's an up and coming emulator called PSPE that can run PSP some homebrew on your PC. No, it can't run PSP games... but it's interesting for devs and just playing around in general, and rather nice to have this early on.

    As much as I support PSP homebrew and emulation, it's premature to say it's "the ultimate in handheld emulation consoles". Many of these emus work at good speed, and many have sound, but it's still very early in the game. This is just ASKING for flames from the DS and GBA fans, not to mention the POCKET PC which can play everything from the Atari, NES, SNES, TG16, Amiga, C64, and etc including SONY PLAYSTATION.

    As for when us 1.5 folks will see homebrew... "soon", if you believe the rumors Several teams are hard at work on it, and the team Dynarox recently announced "In a really near future, a loader will be released to make games work via the memory card.", so far, no reason has been given to disbelieve them. This loader will probably be in the form of a bios replacement.

    And to answer all the silly questions that are bound to pop up: No, you can't do anything right now. No, you can't downgrade your firmware by any currently known methods. And yes, odds are that "backups" and "emulation" will go hand and hand when this is finally cracked. -- No, this did not kill the Dreamcast, and No, it won't kill the PSP either. -- Proof: It's easy as heck to convert video from your DVDs to MP4 and store on a memory card, but UMD Videos are already a commerical success.

  • British Games (Score:4, Funny)

    by mr_gerbik (122036) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @09:10AM (#12693705)
    "already it boasts Full Speed Gameboy Colour Emulation"

    But it only plays British games because the US releases are not in colour.

  • Zaurus (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dangerz (540904) <(ten.zregnad) (ta) (sazd)> on Wednesday June 01 2005, @09:32AM (#12693934) Homepage
    My Zaurus has been emulating other game devices for a couple years now. Declaring the PSP the *ultimate* emulation machine is a little far fetched.

  • Erm, no (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mwongozi (176765) <slashthreeNO@SPAMdavidglover.org> on Wednesday June 01 2005, @10:02AM (#12694317) Homepage
    Anyone who thinks the PSP is "the ultimate in handheld emulation consoles" clearly hasn't heard of the GP32 [wikipedia.org].

  • You forgot the ZX! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Spacejock (727523) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @10:33AM (#12694657) Homepage
    Never mind emulating all those trashy modern toys, I want to know when I can run Sinclair Spectrum games on it!

    • Re:Portable vs Console (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Serapth (643581) on Wednesday June 01 2005, @08:55AM (#12693586)
      Yes, but the Pocket PC video chipsets are pure arse compared. I have a HP3950 iPaq ( 400 mhz arm 64 ram ), and it cant run MAME or any other emulators worth a damn. I also have a PSP, and from what ive seen sofar, it will easily be capable of running most older emu's ( SNes, gameboy, earlier mame, etc... ). You really cant compare the two devices, they have different purposes. When it comes to graphics and sound, the PSP blows the PPC out of the water.

      But thats not the worst part. The controls for a Pocket PC are absolutely horrid for gaming! First off, the placement sucks... and secondly most units cant support multiple button presses concurrently.

      In summary, when it comes to gaming you just cant compare the two devices. The PSP way out performs the PPC, but it damn well better, seeing as it was designed for gaming. That said, it rather sucks at reading Excel spreadsheets :)
    • This is the kind of thing I wish Sony would hear. They actually stand to profit from giving us what we want and opening up 1.5 to homebrew, via sales of memory cards and probably more systems, yet they don't!

      Tycho of Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com] had a little rant [penny-arcade.com] the other day that I thought was quite succinct. Here's an excerpt:

      How would I distinguish the PSP from full platforms? Let me count the ways:

      * Full platforms can play any audio type, or allow applications to do so. . . .

      * Full platforms can play any type of

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