14th February 2007, 7:14 PM
Quote:There are so many things wrong with Sony's implementation of what would otherwise be a great idea. I think I should add the emulator they stuck on the PSP is actually pretty good quality stuff. That's at least partially due to the similar design between the PS2 and PSP.
Yes, it is. Everyone using hacked firmware seems to be very, very appreicative about the quality of Sony's PSX emulator... :)
Quote:The first and foremost is really publisher support. We're getting Sony's 1st party titles and that's about it! Now, a few of those games are actually pretty good, but we aren't getting Legend of Legaia here, we're getting THIS stuff, and Sony's really good games were few and far between. Where is Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy 7, and Castlevania Chronicles? Well, they belong to other companies that probably have a vested interest in remaking those games for a greater profit instead of selling them cheaper as a download.
... why would anyone want games like that when you could be getting 2Xtreme, though? Sony knows what gamers REALLY want!
Quote:This brings us to the other issue. You can't even play it so what do you do? Well you transfer it to your PSP. Well hey that's great, portable pleasure is better anyway right? Well, then why haven't they added online store access to the PSP through a firmware update? (They have added a LOT, like an ENTIRE web browser, they can easily add that to the system.) That's right, you can't download them from the PSP itself! So here's the entire process. If you have a PSP and you want to play PS1 games, you BUY A PS3, and then you buy the games from the store, then MOVE then to your PSP because you can't play them on the PS3, and there you go!
... doesn't everyone want to spend $800 so they can play portable 2Xtreme, though?
... yeah, it's absolutely senseless. Really, while the PSP does have some good looking games on the shelves, the rest of the functions of the system are so crippled unless you use the hacked firmware... and that doesn't help with THIS problem, of course.
Quote:You see, the homebrew community fixed ALL of these problems (except, as best I can tell, playing these games on the PS3, which I don't have anyway so that's no big deal to me). First, they hacked the firmware. When I say hacked I don't just mean downgrading to old ones with exploits, I mean they modified the very latest Sony update to get around every single exploit fix they might add. Having cake and eating it too. No matter WHAT fix Sony has tossed out, if you don't bother upgrading until the hacked version comes out, you are golden. The fun thing is, it's totally legal. You download these updates from Sony's own site and the hack is a program that simply alters the install file without using any copywrited code at all. Sony knows about it and has only succeeded in shutting down the sites that go any farther than this (any using hacks that do use Sony's keys). So, it's all great fun. Further, there are plenty of downgraders with existing exploits for those who accidently upgraded too far with the official updates.
It definitely was pretty hilarious how after Sony's most recent firmware update an improved, hacked version was available in what... a week? Eight days? Sony can't win... yet they keep trying... but every time, the turnaround between new firmware and new hacked firmware gets even shorter...
Quote:This means two things. One, latest firmware can run all the homebrew that's out without any exploits needed to be used. Two, while the emulator used to require a special key that was included, a liscense to play the game, that key is no longer even needed so there isn't even a need to "fake" it, which would be illegal. So, ANY game in the right format can be played in the emulator. Three, and this is the big one, there are a ton of special programs out there that do the trifecta of ripping PS1 games right off the disk into an ISO format, then compressing it, and then formatting it into a PSP executable using the built in emulator. I have FF7 ON MY PSP for FREE and it's frickin' LEGAL because I ripped the thing off my OWN PS1 disks. Since PS1 games (and I think this applies to all console games) never required weird liscense agreements, I just need to know existing copyright law, which basically just limits me to not playing both my disk copy and this backed up copy on my PSP at the same time, and I think I can manage that .
Most PS1 emulation on PC isn't legal because most PSX emulators require a PSX bios (Bleem and Virtual Game Station don't require bioses, but they also aren't legally available for sale anymore outside of used sources like ebay...), and unlike the discs it's pretty hard to dump a PSX bios... but yeah, this one's clearly legal. Sony defeated itsself, pretty much (why buy this junk if you can play your actual games? ... but the emulator only exists in order to sell these games... it'd be like the VC emulator being hacked out so you could run any SNES roms in the thing (less legal there, but a lot of people would do it anyway)...)