Posted Mar 10, 2007 at 12:04PM by Kristine C. Listed in: Firmware, Interviews Tags: Sony, GDC, Custom Firmware, John Koller
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John Koller, Sony product manager - Image 1Despite the lack of PSP-related activities and updates at this year's Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2007, Sony is making sure to let everyone know that they are not neglecting their own handheld console.

PSP updates - hardware versus software. Though the possibility of any hardware update is still mostly vague, Sony's product manager John Koller promises that the evolution of the PSP will be done through its software, since it has, afterall, gone through 13 firmware updates since it was first released in 2005.

Sony: eye on homebrew community. Asked whether the PSP will ever have features which were first made available via homebrew, Koller admits that yes, Sony has been keeping an eye on what the homebrew community has been up to: "Future firmware revisions may incorporate some of the additions that custom firmware users have been able to enjoy."

In fact, Koller even points out that "RSS is actually from homebrew."

On the other hand though, the chances of getting other much-awaited functions such as full resolution AVC support and a PSP movie download service still remain bleak, and no new developments for these features have been mentioned.


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24 Comments


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   by Jeikae (Unregistered) - 2007-03-10
 » Homebrew community finaly recognized!!!

Saving you all from those gay "FIRST POSTS"...anyway this news sounds great.


   Re: Spartan1T804 - 2007-03-10
 » eh...

thats kool by me^
But anyway onto the subject.
Sony is taking too... way too freakin long to add what our homebrew developers have had for our PSPs. Besides with the homebrew community we have a choice on what we want when we want it if its available. Thnx Homebrew Devs!

   Re: DCJoeDog - 2007-03-11
 » Internet browser

they need to do 2 maybe 3 things to make this great

Get the browser off the firmware and make it a standalone app so we can get around the stupid 2MB limit and all those "Not enough memory" errors ugh

Make flash faster so we can go to places like youtube and google video for even more places to stream videos, like crunchyroll.com for anime freaks llike me LOL

3, integrate the fullscreen browser idea an d make it an official option, I want the websites to be viewed the same way as on my laptop or desktop, no need to move content at all when you have this option on

just my 2cents

   Re: Garfiun (Unregistered) - 2007-03-11
 » khool

it all sound s good but ny 1 know whem e+it might happen
   by HutzDani (Unregistered) - 2007-03-10
 » sony slacking

so basically sony have no new ideas or projects up their sleves for GDC, so they make this poor statment to the gaming public, while they nick code from hackerz edit it to run offically and add some of their ideas and make it run on a new firmware, thus cutting out homebrew again, tho all sony's new firmwares are goign to be in vain! as i bet 90% of the people conserned about this are running Custom firmwares anyway, and sooner or later we will decrypt their software and re-edit it.

now sony has go its self stuck in a loop !
sooner or later they will have to make a psp2 to weed out the psp hacking scene, but moving consols and possible format ( as UMD is dead before it got to the shelfs )means they cut out half their market, they should just release a SDK to developers and get people to submit homebrew to Sony to get varifyed and an offical sony approve Eboot.

like ***** the community is going to do this, basically sonys lost the battle and are whining like baby's and now just focousing on the ps3, which looks like is going to be dissopointinganyway with manufacturing problems and very expensive !

   by Dave (Unregistered) - 2007-03-10
 » History

lol

DA 3.11 OE-A
next day
Sony 3.12

lol


   Re: lol yea (Unregistered) - 2007-03-10
 » i can predict the future!

i predict that the next firmware update from sony will be exactly...1 day after DA releases a custom firmware!

   Re: muh (Unregistered) - 2007-03-10
 » nah

They release FW's when downgraders come out. No CFW will make sony upgrade cos anyone wanting it prob already has 3.03oe-c or 3.10oe-a
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   by Nobody (Unregistered) - 2007-03-10
 » Sony sucks.

I hate Sony.
They steal code from homebrew, but completly shut it out.
>_


   Re: PSPZorZ - 2007-03-10
 » f

They never stole any code from homebrew, dumb*****. And they don't exactly have a choice but shutting out homebrew with all this piracy, do they? Noob.
   by Vipre77 (Unregistered) - 2007-03-10
 » What I wish they'd do...

I wish they'd make more of these official firmware functions (the RSS reader, for example) as standalone EBOOTs that you could download and run from the memory stick instead of tying up space in the flash RAM occupied by the firmware. If they broke some of those functions out, it would leave them some room for more features to be included in the firmware itself. Another thing they could do, is use the memory stick for memory swap space for the browser. Could help cut down on some of those out of memory errors. These just seem like some really obvious things that I think they should look at doing.


   Re: Extinction (Unregistered) - 2007-03-10
 » Flash does not make good swap space

It will become read-only after so many writes.

   Re: vipre77 (Unregistered) - 2007-03-10
 » why not?

They're making flash-based hard disk drives now, so the number of writes can't be too horrible if the media is of any kind of good quality. The number of writes you can successively make to any particular sector of a decent flash card is high enough that it likely wouldn't be an issue by the time the card is outdated and likely not used any longer anyway. I bought a 1 GB mem stick when I bought my PSP. A year later, I replaced it with a 2 GB card and I never use the old one anymore. Even if I did, it's not uncommon to find those cards selling for $50 or less these days and it's way more than big enough for browser temp files, so replacing a worn-out card isn't likely to be a huge issue. You could get away with using a 128 MB card or even smaller to use as a dedicated temp drive for the browser. Those things are next to free these days and could easily be considered disposable.

   Re: Ultimax (Unregistered) - 2007-03-10
 » hold on

Just think about what you just said. Why free space on the flash so that you can fit more features on it if you're going to do it by taking out features that are PART of the firmware? :S

   Re: vipre77 (Unregistered) - 2007-03-11
 » Why free up the on-board flash?

I did think about what I said. Now it's your turn.

It's easy. It's about maximizing performance for programs that need all the horsepower they can get. It's most likely faster to run programs from the on-board flash than it is to run them from memory sticks. With flash on a memory stick, you're going to have varying degrees of quality with various read/write speeds, thus you can't guarantee how it's going to run on each system if maximum peformance is required. With the on-board flash, every system is running the exact same stuff, so performance should be consistent between systems. Surely, running a program that is integrated into the firmware is going to be faster than having to access it from removable memory card.

Programs such as the RSS Reader don't necessarily need to have fast access. Something like an enhanced media player for example might benefit more from enhanced response times. Moving less demanding applications out to a separate EBOOT means they have more room to include more intensive/robust applications at the firmware level.

This isn't rocket surgery... err.... brain science? No wait... Give me a minute. I'll get it sooner or later.
   by woot (Unregistered) - 2007-03-10
 » ummm

FIRST POST *****ES....oh.....wait......forget it


   Re: Dodo - 2007-03-10
 » ..

hahaha PWNT biatch
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   by Corey (Unregistered) - 2007-03-10
 » No online support

You know it's funny because PSP reps like to say, "well the reason we're not selling as many PSP's as Nintendo DS's is we have a device that is meant for more than gaming." Then they turn right around and abandon any notion of providing PSP owners content(outside of gaming)online. The retail situation is growing increasingly bleak and PSP owners are growing restless. How can you release such a powerfull handheld without a comprehesive onlin support strategy. Sony should be happy there is such a vibrant homebrew community tweaking the PSP. Let me re phrase that, PSP owners are thrilled we have such deticated coders out there pushing the PSP in directions no suit and tie, bean counting Sony rep would ever dream of. Sony is whack but the product rocks!!!!!! Dark Alex for mayor!

   by ZEUS (Unregistered) - 2007-03-10
 » Sony should give up.

I really do thing Sony should just give up on releasing FW's. Like 3.10 and 3.11 are almost clones really. I just think they should give up on the patching, and even most of the games now that are coming out are all 2.82 updates and 3.00. If sony comes out with all these patches, shouldn't the developers add this to there games to prevent homebrew also? But i guess it makes no sense, since you can emulate the newest FW anyway...

   by . (Unregistered) - 2007-03-10
 » .

the only way that i will ever update my firmware is
1. when sony decides to stop being babies
2. when a TV TUNER comes out for the system. sega did it with the game gear, and even though it was on a tiny screen, it was still badass. sony has such a nice screen on the psp, for what, so i can see how *****ty 75% of the games look? screw the camera idea cuz noone wants another camera sneaking into their stuff, cell phones are bad enough.

   by Snarg (Unregistered) - 2007-03-10
 » .

They definitely need to add some sort of recovery option into the offical firmware.
Some people like to stay on the official firmware, and there's just as much chance bricking while upgrading to an official firmware as there is upgrading to a custom firmware.
Imagine a world with no more bricked PSPs
I have a dream . . .
Ok, now I'm getting carried away.


   Re: PSPZorZ - 2007-03-11
 » f

That would be kinda cool, but even if a recovery was installed first off, there would be a couple of seconds right after it formats the flash0 before the recovery would be written, so it would still be possible to brick your PSP... Plus it would be too easy to use recovery to get a lower FW PSP so sony definitely wont want us to have recovery...
   by a fan (Unregistered) - 2007-03-11
 » www.freewebs.com/pspfreefiles

I hate it when psps get bricked




My Site www.freewebs.com/pspfreefiles

   by Act II - 2007-03-12
 » hey

they should put a umd slot in the ps3. just for like the video umds though



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