With Dark AleX not releasing any custom firmware versions for the official ones Sony has rolled out recently, other dev teams have come up with their own CFW releases. One of the most prolific is the team behind the GEN CFWs, who teased and promptly launched CFW 5.50GEN-B this week. We heard silence gaming-side this week, but hopefully that'll change in the next seven days. This week also heralded the end of the Sony-supported PSOne homebrew program, Net Yaroze. Read on for the rest of the PSP Homebrew Weekend Warrior.

You know all those complaints about the proprietary UMD format for the PSP? They don't really matter now because Sony wasn't planning on having it as a PSP game format for very long. In fact, the plan was to release a PSP that had no UMD drive all along. That's what Sony is saying anyway. Up to you whether you believe it or not, but one thing's clear: Sony is putting all its weight behind digital distribution. I just hope it doesn't become the standard before I get a better internet connection. All this and more in the PSP Weekend Warrior.

A couple of months ago, we had a report from CNET saying that Sony had been talking to some recording industry types about providing downloadable music for the PSP through the PlayStation Network. Now that rumors of PS Cloud being a social networking tool has been debunked, the latest from the mill alleges that it's actually for this music service.

Some documents from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are suggesting that the new PSP Go may be packing more power under its sliding exterior than what Sony has officially revealed. Details after the jump.

This is intriguing math. Gfk-ChartTrack of UK has released the data for console sales in the region up to June 27, 2009 and it shows that there is a stellar 24 million installed base in the UK to date, with 8.4 million contributing to that number in the past 12 months.

It would seem that Sony's had plans of coming out with a UMD-less PSP all along. According to Sony's product planning division head honcho, Naoya Matsui, "We'd planned to release a PSP model without a UMD drive since the very beginning."

You know what comes next after the European PS Store Update, yes? That's right, it's the US PS Store Update for the week of July 2, 2009. And it's a hefty one to serve you fine too, in time for the 4th of July weekend. So in case you're feeling a little lethargic to join in on the festivities, at least you'll have something else to do to keep you busy. Among those stashed in this week's goodie bag are add-on packs for MotorStorm Pacific Rift, Cross Edge, the Capcom Classics Collection Remixed for the PSP Store and more. Full list after the jump.

As promised, PSPGen together with GENyUS has released the much awaited Custom Firmware 5.50GEN-B. This is great news to all GEN users especially when news broke days ago that Sony has successfully implemented a security update that prevented Custom Firmware 5.00 M33 users from accessing the Playstation Store. Fortunately, Custom Firmware 5.50GEN users were safe.

Download: Custom Firmware 5.50GEN-B

Capcom is showering more love onto Sony's PlayStation consoles. Well, the PS3 and PSP anyway. They've announced that they'll be rolling out more downloadable classics on the PlayStation Store over the next few months.

Sony has announced that it is expanding its Official License Program (OLP) to peripheral manufacturers in Japan, Asia, North America and Europe/ PAL territories. Details after the jump.