PSP Firmware Broken - Emulation for All

ZiakII writes "Endgadget is reporting that the PSP firmware 1.50 has been broken." From the article: "a group called PsP-Dev have apparently confirmed successful a homebrew bootstrap on 1.50 (no word on 1.51 or 1.52). What's that mean for the indie developer/emulation/warez communities? Well, pretty much the same as before--use your hardware the way you want it. For SNES emulation, that is. Obviously." Tom's Hardware has the story as well.

More interesting is the news about the uncompiled

[stoborrobots]

programs found on shipping PSP disks...

The Tom's Hardware article makes it sound like we can get both detailed info about the internal hardware APIs and the DRM systems used in the PSP by reading the P-code for some of the avaliable libraries on the disks...

Hmm.

[schild]

I've commented on this at f13, but I have to admit - the prospect of playing movies at full res + enhanced homebrew webbrowsers, email clients, music players and various other web tools has me more interested than playing Final Fantasy II, which I commented on in my first post about this. It's one thing to get more games out of a gaming system, but it's another thing to actually expand functionality. Unfortunately, Sony will squash this with the next big title. Dead to Rights: Reckoning, Coded Arms, Armored Core, Death Jr., Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City - any/all of these WILL have firmware updates on them. Personally I'd skip games I'm looking forward to in order to keep my PSP working the way I WANT it to work.

Assuming the linked hack is real - and we'll know on Wednesday 1PM EST...when they're supposed to post the "launcher" - then I'll be able to do anything I please with my own PSP. If Sony wants to forcefully drive a firmware update down my throat with GTA or Coded Arms, well, shit, I simply will never buy another UMD. There's too much use to be gotten out of the unit when homebrew code can run on it.

Good or bad?

[Oldest European]

Is this good for Sony, because they're going to sell more units?

Or is it bad for Sony, because they're going to sell less games for it?

Personally I think it is a good thing for Sony, even if they will never understand it. Hell I can't even understand why they didn't try to make it an open platform in the first place.

Unconfirmed

[SimplePaul]

This is unconfirmed and there is little reason not to take it as fake right now.

The only people to confirm it working are the people releasing it :\

They announced it a few days ago and said "we will show it to you on the 15th of June at 15:00"... sounds like a clever ploy to get more hits on their website.

This is not news. Yet.

Re:You mean like a GBA and N-Gage?

[Audigy]

There's a small problem with your post...

The SNES emulators for GBA and N-Gage are crap. I don't know about the N-Gage one, but the GBA one doesn't even have sound emulation!

The closest I've come to good SNES emulation on a handheld is SNES9xj4u for my PocketPC. It can run some games full frames WITH sound. It just sucks that my iPaq 2215 isn't really made for game-playing... the buttons are too small. D:

It's extremely exciting to know that the developer of SNES9xj4u is also working on PSP emulators (the first announced Gameboy emu for PSP was coded by this person) ...because I know they'll work well.

Also, your statement about "maybe they should just play their full sized console on their full sized TV" holds no water for me. My PSP and DS both live on my nightstand. Every night, before I go to sleep, I have a 20-30 minute gaming session. If I fall asleep with the portable in my hands, who cares, it's plugged in. If I'm trying to fall asleep, it's annoying to have to get up and turn off the PS2/whatever before finally retiring for the night.

I've beaten more RPGs that way... :) Also, these emulators will be sure to have save state functions, so playing games a few minutes at a time will absolutely be possible.

It's pretty exciting. I'll finally get around to beating games like Final Fantasy V, Bahamut Lagoon, and possibly... hopefully, Tales of Phantasia and Star Ocean.

I really hope this exploit turns out to be real, but if it's not, it's just a matter of time before someone else figures one out.

The PSP is the most ideal portable for SNES emulation at least that I've seen. The buttons are mostly in the right places, the screen is huge and beautiful, and memory sticks are perfect for storing ROMs and saves.