Cheap Deals

- USA: Office Depot have a SanDisk 1GB MS Pro Duo for $30, (even though the 512MB version is $60!)
- UK: Virgin Megastores have Tekken Dark Resurrection at over 50% off for £17!

Gangs-of-London Video

- Check out some leaked in-game footage from Gangs-of-London:

GPS On PSP Hack

- deniska on the DC Emu Forums has hacked a GPS receiver together with a PSP.
- It costs about $120 though, so perhaps we should all just wait for the official Sony unit.

Firmware v2.80

- As mentioned previously, firmware v2.80 has been released by Sony and adds RSS video feed compatibility.
- It also fixes the file structure to be more user friendly, ("VIDEO" "MUSIC" and "PHOTO".) There is not a simple folder for downloading games though...
- Support for the iPod video format is another plus, giving users access to much more content available on the internet.

Gangs of London Demo

- Want a free UMD Demo? Try the Gangs of London website.
- You just need to sign up to the PlayStation Underground, if you are not a member already.

New Firmware This Thursday

- Sony have announced a new firmware is due out on Thursday, (July 27th, my birthday!) and will include a demo of World Tour Soccer 2.
- The main new feature is to include RSS Video feed support for the Web Browser.

Download And Play Sony Games For Free

- You should check out GameTap. It is pretty sweet.
- Right now they have a 2 week free trial which gives you unlimted downloads and playtime of their games, of which there are over 500 so far.
- And these are decent games too, such as:

Galaga
Sonic & Knuckles
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell series
Street Fighter Alpha 3
Virtua Fighter 2
Virtua Racing Deluxe
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six series
Tomb Raider series including The Angel of Darkness

- Even better, there is no commitment. So signup, play the games and quit if you don't like it!

v1.50 To v1.00 Downgrader Soon

- Mathieulh, Yoshihiro and Dark_Alex will be releasing yet another downgrader tomorrow, this time from firmware v1.50 to v1.00.
- This is big news because v1.00 was only released in Japan. Security flaws allowed unsigned code to run without any exploits whatsoever. This was of course fixed for the USA release of the PSP, leaving us with v1.50.
- After a little more testing, expect this great release tomorrow.

PSP Development Library Installer

- PSP Updates has heard from Dalejrrocks and Whazilla who have created a PSP Development Library Installer so developers can easily get the stuff they need to code for the PSP on their machine.

"It currently supports SDL, SDL_Mixer, PSPGL, LibBulletMl, LibTremor, Jpeg, libpsp2d, libpng, libmad, zlib, and libmikmod. It is based on the newest versions of the libraries available. This installer is mainly for precompiled toolchain/sdk, but hopefully we will be able to add cygwin support later in the next release. And more libs ;)"

UltraHLE: Mario 64, Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Goldeneye

- PSP Updates has news that UltraHLE, the famous Nintendo 64 emulator, is coming on leaps and bounds with the PSP port.
- In the alpha teaser it is revealed there will be full speed and sound versions of Mario 64, Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Goldeneye available soon.
- The emulator will be released as separate EBOOTs for each game so that settings can be easily tweaked to perfection for each game in future.
- Expect this great release to hit the scene soon.

DevHook v0.42

- For those just getting access to the v1.50 firmware, you may well want to get the newest version of DevHook.
- DevHook v0.42 allows users to emulate v2.50 firmware on their v1.50 PSPs. This means you can trick the update checker, play UMD's that require upto v2.50 and use the offical web browser!
- Need help installing it? Check out this thread.

More Downgrader News

- The final version of the v2.50/v2.60 downgrader has been released and while there is not much of a change, (since it already worked!) it is a little simpler and safer to use.
- More interestingly is this Easy Downgrader from Xtrusion, a Spanish coder from the PSP Updates forum. Apparantly simpler to use than the original downgrader which this is based on.

PlayStation Portable White Is Coming

- PlayStation Portable White Is Coming is the tag line on these Sony advertisements in the Netherlands.
- Racist imagery, or just another eye-popping campaign from Sony, ("Go On, Jump" anyone?)
- The Dutch PSP site has more images from the campaign.

Firmware v2.50 / v2.60 Downgrader

- Good news for those that upgraded their PSP a bit too far.
- This has been mostly developed by Dark_Alex, along with Mathieulh and Yoshihiro from SonyXTeam. They also want to give thanks to Hitchhikr for the exploit that made this all possible.
- Make sure you do not have a TA-082 PSP, since you could brick it. You'll need a mate with a v1.50 firmware PSP.

1.50 User Instructions

1. Copy the folders downhelper and downhelper% from the folder 1.50 HELPER folder to /PSP/GAME/ in your memstick.
2. Obtain the 1.50 update and put it in /PSP/GAME/UPDATE in your memstick. You may find the 1.50 update in our download site here.
3. Init the downhelper program.
4. It will dump your flash and some files from the updater eboot to the memstick. (These files are illegal under US copyright laws, so please do not distribute them in the comments or on our forums)
5. After that, the program will exit. You can now delete the updater from /PSP/GAME/UPDATE
6. You'll notice that you have a new folder in the root of your memstick called "DOWNDATER".
7. That's the folder you'll have to send to a 2.50/2.60 to let him test the downgrade.

2.50/2.60 User Instructions

1. Copy the folder the DOWNGRADER/2.50/DOWNDATERTEST if you have 2.50
2. or DOWNGRADER/2.60/DOWNDATERTEST if you have 2.60 to /PSP/GAME/ in your memstick
3. Wait for someone with 1.50 to pass you a folder called DOWNDATER and copy it to the root of your memstick.
4. Init GTA and the eLoader
5. In the eLoader menu, choose the downdater test. WARNING: the program won't output any display and any warnings, it will init the downgrader process immediately.
6. You'll see that your memstick flashing. That means that your psp is being flashed from the memstick.
7. You won't see any type of output in the screen (this is for safety). When the memstick finishes of flashing, WAIT at least a minute, and then reinit your psp by holding the power button.
8. That's all. If all went right, you'll have 1.50. If it went less good, you'll still have 2.50/2.60. If all went wrong, you'll have a bricked psp (except in the case you have the modchip) Remember that you have accepted that risk.
9. If your PSP is showing up as v2.01, this is fine. Just use Wab Version Changer and change it to v1.50

- If you see "Disc cannot be read" when you have a UMD in the drive, remove the battery from your PSP, (for up to 5 minutes.) That should fix it.