5th June 2009, 12:30 AM
http://kotaku.com/5279557/sony-is-workin...for-psp-go
Sony has apparently been thinking about the issue of people who already have UMD games and has an idea in mind, though I must admit it's not the best one.
Essentially, they'd require you to give them your UMD version and they'd grant you a liscene to download a copy to your PSP. Hmm... I'm not really digging that idea myself. Firstly, I actually own my copies of my console games (and my older PC games back before I had to agree to intentionally obfuscating documents to install them). Right now, I OWN Crisis Core. I don't own a liscense to their game, I own the game. I don't own the copyrights of course, but I do own the copy and can do whatever I want with it. It's hard to convince me to give that up.
Further, I can already rip all my UMD versions onto my memory card, an 8 GB card at the moment (you can get 8 gig cards for $15-$20 now if you know where to shop), which is plenty for the purposes of putting a couple games at a time on there, and is certainly a quicker process than downloading plus no need for internet access when I do it. Granted, this is unofficial tools, but that's part of the problem. I can do something better than what they are offering using free tools someone else put together online. In fact, I need to go through the trouble of hacking my firmware on my PSP to do this, and right now the newest PSP models have yet to be hacked so that won't be an option for new buyers.
As I see it, here's what Sony should do. They should put in official ripping software right in the next firmware update. It would only take up a few kilobytes (I know this because the tool that does this on my PSP takes up that amount and does a lot more on top of that, further their tool would make use of all the existing ipls they already made for reading from the drive instead of having to write new routines from scratch). Now the obvious issue is preventing piracy. However, there's a very simple solution and it's pretty much the same one they are already using for Playstation Store downloads. Lock that ripped game to the PSP in question using the MAC address and a special key file generated for it that only works there. If that keyfile is missing or doesn't match that PSP, the ripped game won't play, simple as that. Now, this does mean that among small circles of friends there are still going to be people ripping friend's games and saving those copies, but while a problem it's a pretty insignificant one and certainly a lot better than just saying "give us your permanent copy and we'll give you a sketchy version". For that matter, some of my friends own a LOT of UMDs, a lot more than will fit in 32GB of space. If they trade in all those games, it means deleting and redownloading as opposed to just popping in a game. When they get a Go, all those ripped games can be permanently transfered to the new system, liscense and all, in the same way when I upgraded to the XBox 360, all my digital content I bought on the original XBox could be transfered easily when I set up my new account.
Don't get me wrong, I much prefer having my games on my memory card. It's just much easier to rip it to the card each time than having to download every time. As of now, my UMD drive is used mainly just for ripping games and storing "just one more" that I couldn't fit on the card when I go on long trips. Sony really just needs to bite the bullet here and accept what the homebrew community has to offer. I don't mind their need to protect their copyrights, but there are better ways to do it. Oh, I should add that the ripped ISOs look identical to when you hover over them. They don't look like odd iconless nameless executables in the interface, they look like they are supposed to be there and are indistinguishable from hovering over the disk icon in the interface (except you find them in the Games folder with the downloaded games instead of the Disk icon). Oh, there's the issue of people with ONLY a PSP Go, but I figure they aren't going to have any UMDs anyway.
As a side note, this applies to PS1 games as well. Right now, I use a combination of programs to convert all sorts of games into games that run in Sony's official emulator software on the PSP. It works great, and my own versions look a lot nicer than their's because instead of using that generic recycled PS1 background art and barely anything else for when you run it, I deck it out with music from the game and special artwork and if it fits in the 500KB limit, a little movie sample. If something's worth doing, it's worth doing to an unhealthy level of inhuman perfection. Check popsdb.com for a huge list of what I'm talking about. Anyway, my point is I've had FF7 sitting on my PSP for over a year now, way ahead of their "stunning announcement" of it being sold on their online store, because, well, I own the PS1 original and just ripped the disks and stuck them in there. I also play the game on the PS3, but since my PS3 isn't hacked or anything (nor have I even bothered checking if it can be hacked, oh, I have a PS3 now, not sure I mentioned that, I got the very last "original model" version a store had some time ago so mine plays PS2 games just fine, they never should have removed that capability) I can't play the ripped files, so I just use the disks. That's just fine on my home version, since the PS3 is next to my CD rack anyway, though it'd be nice to have easier access I suppose.
This rambling was meant to get to a point about them enabling ripping of old PS1 games. Again, they can lock the ripped game to the system it was ripped to (and the PSP that's assigned to that PS3), and just allow people to rip as needed. Let users fill in all the info like name, pictures and disk number on their own and they won't even need to make a database for it (there's already plenty available for just that purpose online anyway). Again, locking the copies would allow only a very limited scope for abuse, among friends that have physical contact with each other, and more to the point, people are already doing this. By opening their gates they give people less reason to WANT to hack their firmware. I myself would not bother with this slow to update stuff if I could do what I wanted with my PSP out of the box. I currently have Brave Fencer Musashi (well, I'll likely delete that, the current emulation software doesn't cooperate with this game yet, plus I think my disk needs resurfacing as I had a lot of trouble ripping that one, those two issues may be related), Chrono Cross, Xenogears, Final Fantasy 7 & 8, Legend of Legaia, and Vagrant Story stuffed on my PSP. Not a one of those games is even IN their online store yet, save FF7 that just got put up a few days ago. Most of those work flawlessly. Heck, better than that, using Sony's little memory card adapter tool for the PS3 and their built in virtual memory card thing, I just copied over all my old save files straight into my PSP and that works perfectly too. Well, as perfectly as they can run without the use of analog sticks (the stick on the PSP is used as L2 and R2 (and up is both at once)). Sony could sell more systems if they allowed people to do this. Plenty of people still have a big collection of old PS1 games they'd love to play portably but can't justify buying the exact game twice on the online store. It's not much different than Apple selling the iPod as not JUST something to play only the songs you buy off their store, but giving the users the software to rip that music off their old CDs and stick it on their iPod. They're missing a selling point with this closed system of their's.
Sony has apparently been thinking about the issue of people who already have UMD games and has an idea in mind, though I must admit it's not the best one.
Essentially, they'd require you to give them your UMD version and they'd grant you a liscene to download a copy to your PSP. Hmm... I'm not really digging that idea myself. Firstly, I actually own my copies of my console games (and my older PC games back before I had to agree to intentionally obfuscating documents to install them). Right now, I OWN Crisis Core. I don't own a liscense to their game, I own the game. I don't own the copyrights of course, but I do own the copy and can do whatever I want with it. It's hard to convince me to give that up.
Further, I can already rip all my UMD versions onto my memory card, an 8 GB card at the moment (you can get 8 gig cards for $15-$20 now if you know where to shop), which is plenty for the purposes of putting a couple games at a time on there, and is certainly a quicker process than downloading plus no need for internet access when I do it. Granted, this is unofficial tools, but that's part of the problem. I can do something better than what they are offering using free tools someone else put together online. In fact, I need to go through the trouble of hacking my firmware on my PSP to do this, and right now the newest PSP models have yet to be hacked so that won't be an option for new buyers.
As I see it, here's what Sony should do. They should put in official ripping software right in the next firmware update. It would only take up a few kilobytes (I know this because the tool that does this on my PSP takes up that amount and does a lot more on top of that, further their tool would make use of all the existing ipls they already made for reading from the drive instead of having to write new routines from scratch). Now the obvious issue is preventing piracy. However, there's a very simple solution and it's pretty much the same one they are already using for Playstation Store downloads. Lock that ripped game to the PSP in question using the MAC address and a special key file generated for it that only works there. If that keyfile is missing or doesn't match that PSP, the ripped game won't play, simple as that. Now, this does mean that among small circles of friends there are still going to be people ripping friend's games and saving those copies, but while a problem it's a pretty insignificant one and certainly a lot better than just saying "give us your permanent copy and we'll give you a sketchy version". For that matter, some of my friends own a LOT of UMDs, a lot more than will fit in 32GB of space. If they trade in all those games, it means deleting and redownloading as opposed to just popping in a game. When they get a Go, all those ripped games can be permanently transfered to the new system, liscense and all, in the same way when I upgraded to the XBox 360, all my digital content I bought on the original XBox could be transfered easily when I set up my new account.
Don't get me wrong, I much prefer having my games on my memory card. It's just much easier to rip it to the card each time than having to download every time. As of now, my UMD drive is used mainly just for ripping games and storing "just one more" that I couldn't fit on the card when I go on long trips. Sony really just needs to bite the bullet here and accept what the homebrew community has to offer. I don't mind their need to protect their copyrights, but there are better ways to do it. Oh, I should add that the ripped ISOs look identical to when you hover over them. They don't look like odd iconless nameless executables in the interface, they look like they are supposed to be there and are indistinguishable from hovering over the disk icon in the interface (except you find them in the Games folder with the downloaded games instead of the Disk icon). Oh, there's the issue of people with ONLY a PSP Go, but I figure they aren't going to have any UMDs anyway.
As a side note, this applies to PS1 games as well. Right now, I use a combination of programs to convert all sorts of games into games that run in Sony's official emulator software on the PSP. It works great, and my own versions look a lot nicer than their's because instead of using that generic recycled PS1 background art and barely anything else for when you run it, I deck it out with music from the game and special artwork and if it fits in the 500KB limit, a little movie sample. If something's worth doing, it's worth doing to an unhealthy level of inhuman perfection. Check popsdb.com for a huge list of what I'm talking about. Anyway, my point is I've had FF7 sitting on my PSP for over a year now, way ahead of their "stunning announcement" of it being sold on their online store, because, well, I own the PS1 original and just ripped the disks and stuck them in there. I also play the game on the PS3, but since my PS3 isn't hacked or anything (nor have I even bothered checking if it can be hacked, oh, I have a PS3 now, not sure I mentioned that, I got the very last "original model" version a store had some time ago so mine plays PS2 games just fine, they never should have removed that capability) I can't play the ripped files, so I just use the disks. That's just fine on my home version, since the PS3 is next to my CD rack anyway, though it'd be nice to have easier access I suppose.
This rambling was meant to get to a point about them enabling ripping of old PS1 games. Again, they can lock the ripped game to the system it was ripped to (and the PSP that's assigned to that PS3), and just allow people to rip as needed. Let users fill in all the info like name, pictures and disk number on their own and they won't even need to make a database for it (there's already plenty available for just that purpose online anyway). Again, locking the copies would allow only a very limited scope for abuse, among friends that have physical contact with each other, and more to the point, people are already doing this. By opening their gates they give people less reason to WANT to hack their firmware. I myself would not bother with this slow to update stuff if I could do what I wanted with my PSP out of the box. I currently have Brave Fencer Musashi (well, I'll likely delete that, the current emulation software doesn't cooperate with this game yet, plus I think my disk needs resurfacing as I had a lot of trouble ripping that one, those two issues may be related), Chrono Cross, Xenogears, Final Fantasy 7 & 8, Legend of Legaia, and Vagrant Story stuffed on my PSP. Not a one of those games is even IN their online store yet, save FF7 that just got put up a few days ago. Most of those work flawlessly. Heck, better than that, using Sony's little memory card adapter tool for the PS3 and their built in virtual memory card thing, I just copied over all my old save files straight into my PSP and that works perfectly too. Well, as perfectly as they can run without the use of analog sticks (the stick on the PSP is used as L2 and R2 (and up is both at once)). Sony could sell more systems if they allowed people to do this. Plenty of people still have a big collection of old PS1 games they'd love to play portably but can't justify buying the exact game twice on the online store. It's not much different than Apple selling the iPod as not JUST something to play only the songs you buy off their store, but giving the users the software to rip that music off their old CDs and stick it on their iPod. They're missing a selling point with this closed system of their's.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)