(Editor's Note: From highs and lows, and everything in between, QuickPeek 37 is going to hit you hard - and it's going to hit you good.)

Time to grab your trusty QuickPeek walking stick, because there's lots and lots of catching up to do. The gaming industry's taken the high road, and that's our cue to help you guys out. Time for the weekly roll call of the hottest items that dropped in during the past seven days! It's one heck of a landslide, folks!

Here's a quick heads-up for those wondering what TyRaNiD's been up to lately. The developer was spotted over at the recently concluded 24th Chaos Communication Congress, where he gave a lecture on the matter of PSP Exploits. The video's available for viewing in the full article.

Frank Yu, former Casual Games Producer for Microsoft in China, recently gave a report on the state of piracy in China following the Hong Kong raid where authorities seized 10,000 mod chips for Nintendo consoles. The last major news of piracy in China was last year; at that time it was for the Xbox 360.

Remember our report about Xbox 360 and Wii piracy in the Philippines? Turns out piracy is popular for both the Xbox 360 and the Wii in China as well.

According to Yu though, there isn't much demand for the PlayStation 3 so there's no modding or any distribution of pirated games in China that he is aware of and he doesn't even mention the PSP, which is a popular victim in many other areas. The Nintendo DS isn't spared however, as the Supercard (R4 card) is being sold in China.

Yu states that the Japanese Wii is a more popular candidate for modding since the US Wii has more protection. Modded Wiis can still download firmware although some of the more recent games, like Metroid Prime 3: Corruption won't work (although Yu believes this won't be true for long).

As for the Xbox 360, piracy is still very much active and rampant in the country. While Xbox 360 consoles in China will still be shut out of Xbox Live when MS detects that the console is modded, Yu has heard of a rumor that talks of a mod chip you can switch on and off. One just has to turn it off to log on to Xbox Live.

Hacking and modding is rampant but also incredible efficient - so much that the "folks at MS are always impressed by the speed and workaround that hackers and modders do to the motherboard." Hacking in China is also popular with foreigners, who aren't strangers with hacking shops at all.

 

Speaking of Wildcards, here's something that's definitely going to make lots of heads roll. In rather long MTV interview with John Koller, Sony's marketing head for the PlayStation Portable, certain few details have cropped up that pose some interesting questions for the homebrew scene. While the length of the interview talks about the PSP 2000 (PSP Slim/Lite), PlayStation Home on the PSP, and a second analog stick for the handheld, it's only towards to end where they talk about homebrew development.

Now, because of all these projects and features lined up for the PSP, it'd seem as if it would benefit Sony to ask for help from skilled programmers who are quite adept with the ins and outs of the PSP. In other words, homebrew developers and hackers. They actually even mentioned the magic word: Dark AleX.

Besides, DAX was the one who continuously whittled down the security measures that Sony has imposed with its official firmware updates. So, after the homebrew hero announced his "retirement" from the PSP hacking scene, you can't help but ask (and as did MTV during the interview):

MTV: Did Sony shut him down? Or had Sony hired him?
Koller: Neither. I think he's taking a hiatus.
MTV: Does Sony hire any of the PSP hackers?
Koller: It's not even a hiring thing. They come in and actively talk to us.

Whoa. Hold up. If we're to take Mr. Koller for his word (and he is the marketing head of THE PlayStation brand after all), then we are presented three facts:

1. DAX wasn't given a cease-and-desist order from Sony
   
2. DAX wasn't hired either
   
3. homebrew developers and Sony are in active contact with each other

Of course, the last statement doesn't specifically point to Dark AleX per se. But "they" (PSP hackers in general) are the ones who come in and actively talk to Sony. So, what does that leave us with? Jamie M. and I were talking about this, casually throwing out our own ideas. And here's what we ended up asking ourselves (and it might do you good to ask yourselves the same thing):

• Is Dark AleX really, really, really 100% gone? Or is he working in the background... with Sony?
• Does Sony "hire" white hats black hats gray hats from the homebrew community?
• What reasons would Sony have to be actively in contact with those hacking their systems?

Man. After the 3.40 LE CFW was released, as well as the OE source code... Can this day ever get any intense for the homebrew community? The full interview is behind the Read link below.

IGN's Greg Miller, venerable reviewer, editor, PlayStation team member and all-around awesome guy - perhaps the guy of sorts you'd want to review your own PSP homebrew game - offered to send a few questions straight to the big three of Sony Computer Entertainment, getting the official and unflinching lowdown from the likes of CEO Jack Tretton, senior manager Patrick Seybold and senior director Dave Karraker on your deepest (and apparently heated) questions on anything and everything Sony-related.
 
And guess what? A question regarding official homebrew game support by a lucky lad named caterman was apparently selected by Miller and sent to Sony. Though many would have thought Sony would have worn its Gauntlets of Oppression +10 for this segment of the email Q&A, the games division of arguably the world's largest consumer electronics brand wasn't exactly the homebrew antagonist we possibly all felt they were.

In fact, they've expressed a lot of interest in homebrew, especially after witnessing a lot of output over the PSP scene. "We certainly see some of the stuff that has been done via homebrew, and it's incredibly creative. And I think we'd like to try and tap into that a little bit more," said Jack Tretton.

But wait, there's a catch. Get some insight on that right after the jump!

What we have below is a video clip from user name "victormartins" showing his PlayStation Portable running on CFW 3.51 M33-7. Aside from showing off the rather beautiful gameboot and wave on the XMB, this video should convince those who have yet see the custom firmware's features and stability.

Custom firmware is probably the hottest thing in the PSP homebrew scene right now. It's no wonder updates from this team of hackers is being closely followed by the community. Anyway, enough chit-chat from us. Here's the video clip and enjoy!

Some Russian coders going by the name Team M33 have released PSP firmware CFW v3.51 M33, to the delight of PSP owners everywhere. This pretty much means more homebrew for more people.

All of the functions the v3.51 firmware have been retained in this release including PS1 support, high video resolution, MP3 visualizer, and Internet navigation. You can also expect to be able to launch official UMDS which require v3.51 firmware which is pretty good considering the sizable libraries some people have collected. For those who want more, the firmware also allows direct launching of ISOs/CSOs, homebrews, and PS1 images.

Here are some of the other features you might want to know:

• Ability to alter the CPU speed of the PSP
• Recovery mode
• Multi-region
• Customize all your icons and more

The instructions for installation are in a file called readme.en which you can open using any text-file editor. If you're doing this for the first time, please be careful since custom firmware could possibly brick your PSP, so remember to read the instructions completely and follow it to the letter. That said, enjoy the PSP firmware CFW v3.51 M33.

Thanks to everyone in the QJ.NET community who sent in tips regarding this, we really appreciate it!

Download: PSP custom firmware: CFW v3.51 M33

We have to say that we are still stunned and unconvinced by this development. We're not saying that it isn't true. What we are just saying is that we couldn't believe it ourselves. On the official website of the great homebrew developer Dark AleX, we found this,

Bye, scene.

I've decided to cease OE development, and leave PSP scene. The reasons are various. One of them is the time it consumes, which I'm losing from other things. The other is related to my security. I didn't like Sony menaces to PS3 hackers. I think it is better to leave now rather than end paying the consequences.

The last time we heard, DAX was skipping FW 3.50 and is working on FW 3.51. We looked around the Internet and various sites mentioned that the news was confirmed to them personally by Dark AleX himself. We don't know what really happened with him and Sony but DAX added that he is avoiding future legal issues with the company.

Dark AleX will surely be missed because of his great contributions to the homebrew community. With all the things he did, maybe the least thing we can do is send our messages of good faith to him. From QJ.NET, good luck DAX on whatever future endeavor you wish to pursue. Thank you for the time you spent with the PSP community.

Thanks to everybody who sent in tips!

As you've probably heard, Sony released firmware 3.30 yesterday in the latest of their attempts to add new features to the PSP, and in turn keep up with the homebrew hackers.

One of these new features was the "Use Wireless Hotspot" option under the PSP Settings menu. In Sony's latest ploy to convert more people to the do the evil upgrade which prevents access to homebrew games and custom firmwares, it sat down with cellphone operator T-Mobile to get free Wi-Fi for 3.30 PSP users.

All you have to do is use the T-Mobile Hotspot locator and find the nearest Hotspot, go there, and select the "Use Wireless Hostpot" option in the settings menu. T-Mobile HotSpots can be found in quite a lot of places like Starbucks coffeehouses, Borders Books & Music stores, FedEx Kinko's Office and Print Centers, and more.

The free Wi-Fi promotion runs for six months, however as we said yesterday, be wary about upgrading your PSP's firmware. It is possible that you could go for a very long time without homebrew or custom firmware.

We've come up with a list several things that we feel would've helped the PSP along if Sony included these software/hardware features on the PSP right off the bat, when they first launched the handheld.

To the PSP fanboys out there, forgive us if this post is going to sound extra whiny, because that is, after all, the point of it. This post is here to voice some disappointments, hope that the sentiment pools, and hope to high heavens that Sony listens. Don't worry, we'll try to keep the ranting within reason.

We're putting our emo-whine, blog-drama hats on. Brace yourselves. Here we go.

Since this is a bit on the rant-y side, having to Jump will spare you from the drama.