Possible v1.50 To v1.00 Downgrader?

- PSP Updates have posted this earlier:

"Rumors have been flying around of a Firmware v1.50 -> 1.00 downgrader for the PSP. For those of you who don't know, the original PSPs which were sold in Japan came with Firmware version 1.00 which doesn't require any digital signed Sony signature to run homebrew. If a downgrader to 1.00 is created successfully, this could open the doors to custom firmwares that could allow for both the features in the newer versions (2.00, 2.50), as well as running homebrew.

Please also know that there have been some reports of users bricking their PSPs while using this downgrade method. Hackers are speculating that only virgin 1.50 PSPs (PSPs that have never been upgraded/downgraded) will be able to successfully downgrade from 1.50 to 1.00. To put it another way; If your PSP was bought in the store as a 1.50 and has never been upgraded to 2.00 and then downgraded back to 1.50, the downgrader is reported to work. Of course all of this is still speculation, so please approach this with caution! We will keep you posted immediately as more information surfaces."

PSP Firmware v2.60 Plays 480x270 Video

- Engadget posted the following early this morning:

"It seemed as though Sony glossed over any sort of new video functionality with 2.60 firmware for the PSP, but it turns out that's not entirely true. In addition to the Podcast and Windows Media Audio support that was added, Sony threw in compatibility for "Copyright-protected video data provided by a content provider or other services." ...

Back when 2.00 firmware was announced, So-net (Sony Communication Networks) quietly launched a PSP-centric video distribution service in Japan called Portable TV. At launch, the service featured only free content, but gave the promise of rental-based content in the near future. It turns out that future is now: Sony held a press conference yesterday in Japan to unveil the "new" version of PortableTV, which is fully compatible with the PSP's browser, thus eliminating the need for a PC to get video from the service. Fire up your PSP's browser, navigate to the site, download videos directly to your Memory Stick Duo, and oogle at the sexiness that is the H.264 codec.

What's more? Some of the rental videos are available at a resolution of 480 x 270, dispelling the rumors floating around that such video resolution wasn't possible from a Memory Stick Duo. Don't expect to see video encoders capable of creating compatible video at this resolution anytime soon, though - not only are the videos distributed by Portable TV heavily encrypted with Sony's DRM technology (which itself requires firmware 2.60), they've made no announcements about updating their PSP Media Manager software to incorporate these new capabilities. Still, we'll keep our fingers crossed."

GTA:LCS Trainer Update

- Edison Carter, creator of the trainer for GTA:LCS has updated it to v0.1c which now works on PSPs with firmware v2.5!
- There are also more weather choices.
- Check out this site to download it, along with a save file with a helicopter in the garage, and a load of cheat codes, images and videos of the crazy stuff this guy does with his copy of GTA.

PSPAdvance Now Freeware

- PSP Updates have announced that PSPAdvance has now been released as freeware.
- PSPAdvance is a PSP Media Player with lots of functionality, way beyond just playing media.
- Download it here.

EBOOT Loader v0.8.5 By Fanjita

- Fanjita is still working on his EBOOT loader for v2.0 firmware PSPs.
- This app is great, and the only way to get homebrew working on a PSP with firmware v2.0 without downgrading back to v1.50.
- Some EBOOTS have stopped working in this release, but you can have multiple versions of the loader on your MS until this gets resolved.
- Fanjita's aim right now is to get as much compatability as possible, then go back and get all of the EBOOTS working with just one version of the loader.
- New Working applications in this release:

- SNES9xTYL 0.2c
- TCGS Car
- ASTC (Another Silly Tetris Clone)
- Moppi's Flower Demo
- Tail Tale
- Scrabble Assistant - loads but hangs?
- PSP Revolution
- Heretic PSP
- SMS plus 1.2
- Crystallise 1.0
- Binary Clock
- A-Blit demo

Talkman - Translate, Speak And Learn English / Japanese / Chinese / Korean

- Lik-Sang have a long review of Talkman, the language translation and speech recognition "game" for PSP.
- The finish up saying:

"In conclusion, it can be said that Talkman is a great, versatile piece of software that offers a lot. It comes absolutely recommended for those travel situations, where you are at a complete loss of words due to the language barrier. Talkman has the power to really help you out there, bridging the gap between people of different nations and tongue and sure is a fun way to meet new people and practise your skills as well. Do never let a cute girl walk away from you again in the streets of Tokyo, just because you couldn't say something nice about her charming smile in Japanese ;"

F1 Grand Prix Update Pack

- yourpsp have released an update pack for Sony Europe's F1 Racing game.
- Included is a stat update and a new classic car.

MPH Firmware Launcher v1.3.0

- MPH released a new version of MPH Firmware Launcher for the PSP a few days ago, v1.3.0.
- It allows you to launch any PSP firmware from the memory stick.
- The firmware must be extracted and not in eboot.pbp format, (use psardump01to convert.)
- Before you get too excited, (like I did) you should read the following from Claude, a PSP Updates reader:

"Okay, so I read mph forum and learned that I had to "restore system settings" before copying the flash1 files.

firmware 2.0 will boot, but it won't load GTA:LCS or ANY game for that mater(even 1.5 and below games). Of course the webbrowser doesn't work as stated in the readme.

Wallpaper function works but only if the image sits in the theme folder under vsh directory.

Nice to see that it actually runs 2.0, but just not full fledge to perform much.

CheatDevice v0.1 for GTA:LCS

- CheatDevice v0.1 is a trainer for GTA:LCS and it looks awesome.
- PSP Updates has it and quote the author:

"Here it is! The first and only cheat device for Liberty City Stories!

I implemented a few basic cheats to start with. There's much more to come!

Infinite Health and Armor
Set Wanted Level
Set Time
Set Weather
Spawn Anything

Yes, the Hunter is in the game! To fire the chain gun, press SQUARE+X. Be careful with the spawn choices, some of the silly stuff to spawn like Ferry, Train, and the later Dodo choices will crash your game. Dodo 164 is the one that works. I left the full list in so people can have their own go at trying it. Maybe the boat spawns only work near water, for instance.

I don't have a UK/Euro version yet. I have to wait for the UK copy I ordered from Lik-Sang.

It looks like this currently only works on FW 2.0. So far everyone trying it on 2.5 is reporting failure. Someone who has FW 2.01 needs to try it. I should be able to fix it for 2.5 in a future version.

Unzip the archive to your memory card so the files go in PSP/SAVEDATA/ULUS10041S0. This replaces the first save on the card.

To start CheatDevice, simply load it like a saved game. Do not load CheatDevice again when it's already running! Your game will probably crash!

You're supposed to be able to load another game save while CheatDevice is running, but it sometimes crashes. At least you can load the CheatDevice save and play around in there. For me at least, I can load another game save once after loading CheatDevice, then if I need to load again, I press L1+R1+UP to unload it, then load it again.

Disclaimer: THIS CAN CRASH YOUR GAME, SO USE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK. Don't use this for doing missions or when you're planning to save your game."

Firmware v2.60

- Sony has released another firmware update for the PSP, v2.60.
- Added in this release are WMA music support, RSS, and Chinese language support in the web browser.
- Note that there is no known way to run homebrew on (or downgrade from) any firmware above v2.00 so make sure you want this before downloading.

Xbox 360 Released

- The time has come. At midnight last night, the Xbox 360 was released, making its debut in the USA.
- We've got one and it is awesome, but if you didn't manage to get one after spending the night in line, why not get yourself upto 3 Xbox 360's for free!
- Visit the Xbox 360 Conga page to see details on how to get them.

OT: We Support Firefox

- A little off topic, but we just wanted to announce our support for Mozilla Firefox.
- On some of the pages of this site you will see a Firefox button as part of a banner across the top of the page, but only if you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer.
- If you haven't tried another browser other than IE, you might want to check this out.

Modchip Coming Soon?

- Rumour is that a Modchip is in the works for the PSP, but all we have to go on right now is a blurry image of a PCB being soldered.
- Read posts on PSP Updates, Joystiq and PS2NFO

TV Adaptors

- Looks like there is even more choice in the PSP-TV adapter world:
- Blaze PSP to TV Projector
- Also, Lik-Sang Reviews PSP2TV and Team Xtender Releases Intallation Video Of PSP2TV

Congas!

- With two weeks until the Xbox 360's release, we have just opened a third 360 conga line. Get yourself upto 3 Xbox 360's for free!
- Visit the Xbox 360 Conga page to see details on how to get them.

- Those of you working towards a Free iPod Nano should be happy too. The little black and white wonders are proving hugely popular and you should be getting excited about slipping one in your pocket soon.
- Same deal as the 360. Visit the iPod Nano Conga page for help.

- Don't forget we also have a Free Sony PSP Conga page too!

- With the iPod with Video Conga you have a choice of 30GB or 60GB models in black or white or a PayPal payment of $300!
- Enjoy your free stuff. Thanks!

Homebrew Update

- A whole host of interesting homebrew software has appeared recently, so here is a list for you to check out:
- PSP E-Mail Client v0.01 Download POP email onto your PSP.
- PSP GBA v1.1 Source code now released.
- File Assistant++ v1.0 Plays all kinds of media files and even launches things like LUA scripts.
- Fired Up Browser Web browser ripped out of the game Fired Up.
- LuaPlayer v0.12 Play homebrew games written in Lua.
- Scrabble Needs Lua Player from the link above!
- PSP Millionaire v1.02 Now no longer needs Lua Player!
- SMSPlus v1.2 Master System and Game Gear Emulator.
- UMD RIPPER v1.0 Tool to help shrink ISOs to fit on smaller Memory Sticks.
- PSP Starter Pack v1.0 Contains all of these PSP apps to make things easy:

-PSP Radio
-Doom PSP
-PSP PDA
-LuaPlayer
-DGEN (Genesis Emulator)
-Philips Remote
-Sony Remote
-SnesPSP (Super Nintendo Emulator)
-DualTetris
-NesterJ (NES Emulator)
-LUA Button Mashing Revolution
-PSP Media Centre
-PSPersonalize

Carry GTA Cheats With You

- PSP Updates have two post about convienient ways to keep cheats for GTA with you while you carry your PSP around.
- The first is a collection of PSP formatted images with the cheats on.
- The second is a collection of audio tracks, that you can use as custom music, reciting the cheats.

Game Delays

- Gran Turismo 4 Mobile was supposed to land during Spring 2005, but Sony now list the release during 2006 in Japan. Thats nice and vague.
- The Sims 2: Dr. Dominic’s Conspiracy has slipped from 22nd December to 12th January in Japan, while the USA date of 6th December still seems to be set.

Japan Gets Budget Range Of PSP Games

- Top PSP titles in Japan are to be repackaged and resold under the "PSP: The Best" label, according to GamesIndustry.biz

"Hit titles will be repackaged and resold at the lower price point of 2800 Yen (just under 20 Euro) - full price PSP games currently retail for around 5040 Yen (24 Euro). The first batch of games will be released on November 17, and will be comprised of Metal Gear Acid, Minna No Golf Portable, Vampire Chronicle, Mojipitan, Ridge Racer, Lumines and Armoured Core Formula Front.

The next wave of titles - Need for Speed Underground, Derby Time, Dokodemo Issho, Poporo Crois Monogatari, Tales of Eternia and Rengoku - will follow on December 1."

WipeOut Pure Downloads

- European players can download a new Omega Pack for Wipeout Pure right now.

"The eagerly anticipated Omega packs are finally here. Access to these European-exclusive downloads and you’ll get a Wipeout experience with a surreal twist. Some of Europe’s most respected visual artists - Jon Burgerman, Mark James, Neil McFarland and the Parisian collective Scien - here offer you their own intriguing takes on the future of racing. Each one has provided a signature circuit, race craft and designer skin - get ready to race through the freshest in contemporary art at 600-kph. A bizarre new league awaits you…"

- Players in the USA get a new Delta Pack too!
- This pack includes two new tracks, Iridia and Anulpha Pass, plus two new skins, Assegai and Harimau.
- Get the packs from the Official WipeOut Pure Website

GTA Update

- So GTA came out a few days ago, (sorry for this late post, still having connection issues,) and we got ourselves a copy on the day of release, (I tried to pick up a copy at midnight from Wal-Mart but they told me it would be on the morning shipment, so had to wait until later in the day.)
- It turns out this game came with the v2.0 update, which is not so bad since you can downgrade from it.
- Worse news is that the game actually does REQUIRE v2.0. You cannot fake your firmware version due to the game's use of some of it's features, which means ISOs of GTA cannot be booted either.
- PS2NFO says that The Hustle: Detroit Streets has the same problem.
- A patch has been released for the game by Rockstar allowing for custom soundtracks. The catch is that you have to rip tracks directly from a CD, (so you would have to burn MP3s first and re-rip them or at least fake an image of a music CD.)
- IGN has the files you need for that.
- If you want to use MP3s directly instead of ripping from a CD, PSP-Hacks were sent a nice method of doing so.
- PSPUpdates has you covered for cheats.
- GTA was delayed by a week from the original date of 28th October to 4th November, (today,) in the UK for unknown reasons.

PSPPOP Email Client

- curly on the PS2Dev forum has created PSPPOP, an email client that lets you download email from a POP3 server over your PSP's WiFi connection.
- Get it here.

Darkplanets Offer

- Darkplanets.com have just emailed me an offer of free delivery on your next order.

"We are offering FREE delivery on your next order!

Simply enter the voucher code: MLFREE when checking out and the website will offer you FREE postage.

It doesn't matter what you are buying, large or small, you will still get free postage!"

- Could be a good time for readers in the UK to pick up a Datel 4GB HDD and 2x Battery kit for your PSP!