PSP Firmware Update 2.8 Available 110
tekisui writes "PSP firmware update 2.8 is out, adding several minor features and one major one, the ability to play music and video out of user-named folders on memory sticks. Finally, I can label my movies and music with useful names, instead of Sony's cryptic naming conventions.."
If you like homebrew...don't update... (Score:4, Interesting)
So now we wait for Dark_aleX to crack this firmware, and for Booster to update Devhook and make the PSP developers "even madder" as users continue to load all versions of the firmware on their 1.50 PSP's.
Thank you (Score:3, Interesting)
What really pisses me off about Sony is that I bought MY PSP primarily as a game machine. I have every Game Boy from the original through the Game Boy Advance and they ALL have backwards compatib
Re:Thank you (Score:2)
I know you don't want to. But there's no need for the reality distortion.
You're not a victim. You can get down off the cross any time you want.
Re:Thank you (Score:3, Interesting)
The Hell he isn't! Sony is trying to break his property by disabling functionality in what they claim is an "update," and is also lying by saying the new games are compatible with his device when they clearly aren't. Therefore, he absolutely is a victim of either fraud or vandalism, depending on whether his firmware got updated or not.
Re:Thank you (Score:1, Insightful)
There are a few key misconceptions that you are relying on in your argument, and so I will try to enlighten you.
Sony has said from the onset of the PSP that they would look to enhance the firmware to provide added functionality. Lets face it; in this day and age, there is no need for set firmware. And if
Re:Thank you (Score:2)
Let me enlighten you of your misconceptions:
First, Sony is in no position to "allow" or disallow anything. Once the customer has bought his PSP, that's it -- Sony no longer has any right to control what the user does with it. Period.
Second, the idea of "legitimate" developers and "legitimate" dev kits is a load of crap. For
How do I become a legitimate developer? (Score:2)
Where do I apply to have my startup company become a legitimate developer with a legitimate development kit?
100% Wrong (Score:2)
Put down the gun and read for a second. NOTHING is 'incompatible', that is false. NOTHING is 'broken' by a firmware update, false. He simply does not want to run a firmware
Re:100% Wrong (Score:2)
Does, or does not, his unmodified PSP run the new game? Since it does not, because it doesn't have the "updated" firmware, it is incompatible! The fact that it can be made compatible does not change the fact that in its current state it is incapable of running the game.
Before the update, it could perform $SOME_DESIRABLE_ACTION. After the update, it could not. Therefore, it is broken because the desired functionality
Re:100% Wrong (Score:2)
It does not.
Does, or does not, your Windows machine run Prey without the drivers required by the game? If you had to install ANYTHING, by your argument, both the PC and game are 'broken'. Absurd.
Re:100% Wrong (Score:2)
Drivers and DirectX can be removed after I'm done playing Prey. The PSP firmware cannot. That's the difference!
It doesn't matter what the actio
Re:100% Wrong (Score:2)
In fact you can downgrade it. Sony doesn't support it, but it is possible. There are a handful of 'downgrader' apps out there that let you flip back and forth.
Are you sure you can downgrade DirectX? Ever tried it?
Microsoft doesn't intentionally break Free games (Score:2)
No, but the drivers required by Prey do not break, say, Lockjaw [tetrisconcept.com].
So what's the procedure for becoming a licensed developer of software for PSP?
Re: Microsoft doesn't intentionally break Free... (Score:1)
I don't see that (Score:2)
You may be right. Such instructions may be there, but I don't see them on my PSP. Maybe my firmware is too old. I bought my PSP the first day they went o
Re:I don't see that (Score:2)
Nope. I just don't sympathize at all. If you want to play the games, you can do it by upgrading the firmware. If you don't want to upgrade the firmware, you can't play the games. You have ample choices.
And they're games. You're the victim of a worldwide conspiracy to force you to go through an extra step to play some games. It's the worst atrocity in handheld gaming history! Worse even than the recent Lemming genocide and the Liberty City murders of las
Re:I don't see that (Score:1)
What brand of GB copier do you recommend? (Score:2)
For people who want to dump their Game Boy Game Paks to a PC or to a PSP with old firmware to run them in emulation, which brand of cartridge copier do you recommend?
Re:What brand of GB copier do you recommend? (Score:1)
Re:What brand of GB copier do you recommend? (Score:2)
Re:What brand of GB copier do you recommend? (Score:1)
I too have one of the Flash2Advance company's older products. But what do you recommend for dumping the 8-bit Game Boy and Game Boy Color Game Paks?
Re:What brand of GB copier do you recommend? (Score:2)
Re:I don't see that (Score:1)
Gaming.slashdot.org must have "it is funny,laugh" icon on every story
Reality Distortion Field GET (Score:2)
Traditionally, consoles have had fixed firmware and all games had to work with all revisions of the hardware. I don't see the reason why Game X won't run on my 1.50 (well, when it WAS 1.50) PSP other than possibly Sony MAKING the developer upgrade the firmware as a condition of being licensed. I
Contradiction (Score:3, Insightful)
The issue is a simple one - using it for homebrew means it's not really going to be useful for games. Using it for games means using it for homebrew is going to be very hard.
I am thinking to buy one as well - but only for homebrew. I ahve no illusions ar expectations that Sony will support me in this regard, so I feel no animosity towards Sony for failing to suypport the device in a way for which they did not mean it
My answer (Score:2)
Since then I have bought two games; Ghost In The Shell, and a collection of ancient Midway games. Neither works with my PSP.
I hope you have an open mind and can see how someone who has bought a machine with one purpose in mind can change the primary purpo
Re:Contradiction (Score:1)
Which brand of copier? Where can I buy one? (Score:2)
If you dumped your own Game Paks, which copier did you use? I wanna buy one! True, Tototek has copiers for Super NES and Genesis, but I'm more interested in the original NES.
*If you downloaded the ROM images, you are violating copyright, and you are likely pirating games published by companies that are still developing official PSP games, potentially denying them a sale. If you downloaded the ROM images of Game Paks that
Get a GP2X (Score:2)
If you don't want commercial games, and you want the most homebrew-friendly handheld platform with a D-pad, get a GP2X from GamePark Holdings.
No wireless though (Score:2)
My ideal object would be something like the GP2X but with Bluetooth 2.0 support for lower power consumption.
Re:Thank you (Score:2)
I own a PSP. I use homebrew tools. I have never downloaded or run a commercial program without a legitimate license. I think many others here are also both ethical in their unwillingness to break copyright law and install / use legal homebrew software on the PSPs they paid for.
Or, IOW: how do you feel about auto-makers requiring you to buy special gas for "their" car that you purchased? Hey! You agreed to the license when you first inserted that key and drove it off the lot! You mean you think you
Re:Thank you (Score:1)
Cars are just one analogy I can use to describe the completely fucked arms race going on between Sony's customer base and their own marketing department. Shall I use another? Or will you bitch about that one too?
I bought the machine and I'll do whatever the fuck I want with it. Further, I will not buy any more Sony products until they change their bad attitude toward their customers. IOW: Sony can blow me. Here's to HD-DVD!
Sincerely,
--Maynard
Re:Thank you (Score:1)
I used to run homebrew on my PSP using 1.5 firmware. Then I realized a couple things: I didn't want the PSP for its homebrew capabilities two years ago, when I heard of it. And secondly, "homebrew" means either emulators and running pirated copies of 15-year-old games or just running really crappy games.
Yeah, I don't miss playing Tetris or Sokoban that much.
Re:Thank you (Score:1)
Re:Thank you (Score:1)
The game WILL run on your PSP; you just need to update its firmware first. The firmware is a free download, so they're not really anything bad by you.
Not wanting to be bitchy, but how does a PSP user upgrade his firmware if he doesn't have wireless? Sure, manual download and then upload via USB (I assume). I have wireless and don't do much more than play games (so I don't care all that much about homebrew stuff, neither do I care about uploading music or videos), so I don't know how I should do it wh
Re:Thank you (Score:1)
Re:Thank you (Score:1)
Thanks, I didn't know. I kept my firmware up to date so I never had problems. In that case there is no problem and the firmware upgrade problem is only a problem for those that don't want to run the latest firmware. In that case it really is simply *their* problem.
"Plug it in"? (Score:2)
So how do I just "plug it in"? I've read that the firmware upgrade process, even if it is automatic, requires that the PSP be plugged into AC power. So what if I have my PSP and buy a new game, but I'm away from a source of AC power? Do video game s
Aha! Maybe that's why I've never seen... (Score:2)
Anyway, thank you for the post. You've shed a little light onto this murky subject without flaming anyone.
Thanks again. :)
Re:"Plug it in"? (Score:2)
If you asked nicely, the store would probably let you use an outlet for 2 minutes.
I still haven't figured out which games are worth playing on PSP... other than SNES roms, that is.
Please read my response to SuperKendall below. (Score:2)
Since that time I have bought two games that I thought might be worth the money. The games were clearly labled for PSP use. They will not run on my PSP.
Yes, I can update the firmware, but then I lose the use of my PSP for viewing videos which is something I now enjoy. This should not s
Re:Please read my response to SuperKendall below. (Score:1)
Many thanks for your post and assistance. :) (Score:2)
Thanks again.
Re:Please read my response to SuperKendall below. (Score:2)
Re:If you like homebrew...don't update... (Score:2)
Sony would lose game license fees (Score:2)
Sony tried a homebrew sandbox with PS2 Linux, but it bombed commercially. Besides, if Sony opened up PSP user mode to the public, the following would happen:
Re:Sony would lose game license fees (Score:2)
1a. I would buy one.
Re:Sony would lose game license fees (Score:1)
Linux on PS3 (Score:2)
Re:Linux on PS3 (Score:1)
And putting Linux on the PS3 is another bullet point to add to it's capabilities. Sony can market that thing as a "secondary" computer. "You want to read your e-mail while someone else is using your windows machine? With Linux on your PS3 you can."
Forced naming is bad (Score:2)
Streaming Video (Score:2)
oh well. perhaps when ps3 arrives video streaming will be an option like location free tv.
Whats with the updates? (Score:3, Interesting)
(this was not a pro-DS post, i am just curious)
Re:Whats with the updates? (Score:2)
The DS firmware can't be updated at all.
Sony mainly updates the firmware so often in order to close security holes which allow owners of the PSP to run homebrew applications on their PSPs. If you want to run newer PSP games, you need to have updated Firmware versions.
DS firmware has multiple versions (Score:2)
The DS firmware has multiple versions, however updating is transparent to the user, and occurs when they fire up a game with the firmware update on it.
The "clearest" update is the one that adds the ability for the DS to talk to Nintendo's WiFi Connection service via ordinary routers. This update also breaks a loophole in the GBA emulation code that allows DS code to be executed from a GBA cart. The first Action Replay relied on this, so the upgrade broke it. I bought one and discovered it didn't work.
Re:DS firmware has multiple versions (Score:5, Informative)
Uhh... sorry, but this is *totally* wrong. The DS firmware is different on later hardware revisions, however it is impossible to transparently update the firmware on an existing DS, because the region of the EEPROM containing the firmware checksum can't be written to without shorting the SL1 pad on the board.
Re:DS firmware has multiple versions (Score:1)
The reason for leaving part of it unprotected, is because it stores a few users settings at the very end of the firmware.
A
Preimage attack (Score:2)
Melissa
Re:Whats with the updates? (Score:1)
Re:Whats with the updates? (Score:2)
Why in the world would I do that?
Why should I care if people do something illegal? Why should Sony be able to use that as an excuse to keep me from doing something legal?
If people drive too fast and the government takes your car away, do you blame those who drive too fast or the government?
Re:Whats with the updates? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Whats with the updates? (Score:5, Informative)
UMDs suck, so I rip my PSP games to ISOs and play off of memory stick - you won't believe how fast games can run that way (or how godawful slow UMD is). Of course, for new games, that involves decrypting the game files, replacing the system libraries with 1.x ones, and a few other tricks. A library of 1.x games will provide the necessary 1.x system libraries, and there are decryption programs to decrypt executables using keys stored in firmware.
The firmware provides some system libraries as well, but I believe those are only for the built-in apps, rather than games. (Makes sense, since no one wants to have to deal with library hell when they buy a console game!)
Evil pirates (Score:4, Insightful)
The DS has also been cracked and it too can be used to play ripped commercial games.
The difference is that running cracked games is a software problem on the PSP were on the DS you need some special hardware that you can't buy just anywhere. Al you need to play a ripped PSP game is a big memory card, like say the ones sold by sony itself or even included with the PSP in the gigapack.
It seems pretty clear that Sony is slowly releasing updates each update giving you a goodie but it will also fix the security hole that allows you to play non-sony approved content on the PSP.
In itself it is nothing new, some games with frequent updates could possible be doing the same trick. You want our bug fix? Better have the original exe handy. How many crackers are willing to crack a game again and again? With the PSP it is even better. Each time you crack it you run a risk of bricking it.
So why doesn't Nintendo upgrade its hardware since they been cracked as well? Well they did. I think with the DS Lite they included a new firmware and if you got one of those the old passkeys (the bit of hardware that allows you to play unofficial games) don't work anymore. No problem you pirate. New ones are available.
Still they cost money, it is a physical product and that means somebody wants money for making it, perhaps this reduces the piracy. Most people do not have a huge library of games. If you only want handfull of games you are not going to spend 150 euro in a dodgy online store to run games that run almost perfectly when you can get the games you want for the same amount guarenteed to work from a regular store.
Second is market differences, perhaps the people who want to play nintendogz or brain age are less likely to pirate then say GTA Liberty City players?
What is odd is that because DS games are typically much smaller that piracy actually is easier. If you want you could easily store hundreds of GBA and DS games on a single memory card. Most PSP games are to big to fit in the 1gb memory sticks.
The DS is capable of downloading content from the net so it should be able to update. Maybe it does. Doubt it, someone would have found out by now but just because they haven't doesn't mean they can't.
The naive idea is that Nintendo doesn't do this to be nice to its customers. Yeah right, this could only be considered an option by the insane or those to young to remember the Nintendo before Sony kicked them in the nuts with the PS.
More likely is that Nintendo doesn't consider it a big enough threath.
This is probably combined with not having the possibility to offer goodies to get people to upgrade. Sony is running a risk that people who would buy legal games, like me, might not buy a game if it requires me to upgrade and not use my homebrew anymore. It also runs the risk that it might break one of its own games.
In short it is all about piracy and how companies attempt to deal with this. Sony is more aggressive in its attempts but Nintendo too changes its firmware when it sees an opportunity.
On Firmware Updates (Score:2)
Thus there is no real need for updating the firmware, as the game includes the libraries that work with it.
Re:Evil pirates (Score:3, Interesting)
The naive idea is that Nintendo doesn't do this to be nice to its customers. Yeah right, this could only be considered an option by the insane or those to young to remember the Nintendo before Sony kicked them in the nuts with the PS.
More likely is that Nintendo doesn't consider it a big enough threath.
Actual
Re:Evil pirates (Score:1)
And who designed the DS (Score:2)
Re:Evil pirates (Score:3, Informative)
Remember back in the 16-bit days, when there were a whopping 4 revisions of the SNES, mainly to update board designs for newer parts from different suppliers? And Sega had the Genesis with several dozen revisions, some of which completely broke compatibility with early games? Yeah, this all sounds familiar. And Sega was
Re:Evil pirates (Score:2)
Also the original psp didn't have a web browser feature - that was added as a firmware update.
Re:Whats with the updates? (Score:2)
If you have an older version of the PSP firmware, you will quickly see that the PSP is seriously lacking except in games. So, Sony provided a functional game console running on a wonderful hardware but almost nothing sweet that uses this hardware except for games. So now from time to time there is a new firmware with new fea
Full Res Video? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Full Res Video? (Score:2)
Re:Full Res Video? (Score:2)
I don't think that anyone is expecting a company that thinks there were Giant Crabs in Ancient Japan's history to do anything logically.
It's Ridge Racer! RIIIII-DGE RACER! [youtube.com]
Re:Full Res Video? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Full Res Video? (Score:2)
Re:Full Res Video? (Score:2)
Possibly why Memory Stick video can't be 480x272 (Score:2)
(talking out of my behind) Either the UMD Videos use a Sony proprietary codec that's faster for the 222 MHz MIPS CPU to decode than MPEG-4, or perhaps the MPEG-4 patent pool offers a royalty discount for devices with an effective resolution smaller than a given threshold.
Re:Possibly why Memory Stick video can't be 480x27 (Score:2)
Re:Possibly why Memory Stick video can't be 480x27 (Score:1)
DMCA prohibits ripping most DVDs (Score:2)
Ripping a DVD costs thousands of dollars, including the price to move your family to Canada, one of the only remaining developed countries which doesn't yet have a DMCA.
Am I the only one who isn't annoyed? (Score:4, Insightful)
Crazy idea huh? It had 3 games I really liked (Lumines, Wipeout, GTA). It plays all my audio files from iTunes, AAC and MP3. I could rip DVDs and videos to it fairly effortlessly with software like Handbrake or PSPWare.
So what's the big deal?
Well, the big deal as we all know, is that the potential for the device is much more than what Sony can throw at it. And I think this rankles a lot of users. Not the majority, mind you, not even close... but enough to create a homebrew scene.
However I look at that scene with a sort of detatched interest. I've never been tempted by any of the homebrew software enough to downgrade the firmware. I'm simply... happy with it. Crazy I know.
Since I received it, the thing has gained major abilities at a regular pace. Web browsing, RSS feeds, Flash lite, WMA support, better wireless security, etc. None of this stuff was really promised or advertised, but we get it all for free. Now I do cool stuff like stream from my G5 to the PSP (MyTunesRSS [macupdate.com] - kicks ass).
I dunno. Call me quaint. I am happy with the thing because I was satisfied with its capabilities as it was presented. So I can't really feel jilted. (Of course, it was free for me. But if I dropped mine in the lake tomorrow, I'd probably go get another.)
Re:Am I the only one who isn't annoyed? (Score:2)
Re:Am I the only one who isn't annoyed? (Score:1)
A longer battery life would be nice but I don't see it so bad as it being a detriment.
Re:Am I the only one who isn't annoyed? (Score:2)
That's a major feature? (Score:2)
Of Course If You Were Still Running 1.5 (Score:2)
Don't upgrade if you don't have to!
Other Subtle Details (Score:2)
As is often the case, the description Sony issues with the firmware updates doesn't usually tell the full story.
Yup, they added MUSIC, PHOTO, and VIDEO folders to the root directory, which is good. The VIDEO folder can contain subfolders, also good. You can dump that stupid naming format, goodgood.
Here's what's not so obvious... videos placed in this folder not only no longer make use of Sony's proprietary metadata atoms, they no longer require it. This means that you can use non-DRM iPod videos or many
Re:Other Subtle Details (Score:1)
They work for me. I've just downloaded http://geekbriefwp.podshow.com/ [podshow.com] (which is iPod AVC/H.x264) via RSS and they played flawlessly.
No more converting iPod formatted vodcasts
Re:Other Subtle Details (Score:2)
Re:Other Subtle Details (Score:1)
So I guess we have to keep the old folder around for our self converted AVC files, at least for now.
Re:downgrader for 2.5? (Score:1)
Re:downgrader for 2.5? (Score:1)