It definitely wasn't planned, but the homebrew community is rocking this holiday season! Day after day, we have witnessed the release of one great application to another. Of course, headlining the pack is the Custom Firmware 3.02 OE-A released by Dark_AleX himself. Then there was PSOne Emulation and even one Customizer.

Equally interesting is the report about 0okm's successful access of the NAND Flash memory on Firmware 2.80 PSP units. This prompted and renewed discussions on downgrading the ever elusive 2.80. Kid101Skater of DeviantPSP announced today that he just came up with a 2.8 Dumper. This is what he exactly wrote:

Well, I just did something big... I just completely dumped everything on PSP: the flash0, flash1, flash_lower.bin, flash_upper.bin, and more... FULL KERNAL ACCESS... U HAVE TO PATCH SFO.

Well, this development is definitely big. In case there is is someone reading this and doesn't quite get it, this application decrypts everything. That means, homebrew developers can now see how things work on 2.80 and ultimately manipulate it.  This, without a doubt, takes the community one step closer into downgrading 2.80.

Download: [2.8 Dumper with full Kernel Access]

Yes you heard right! 0okm reports that he has successfully accessed the NAND Flash memory on Firmware 2.80 PSP's. This would leave PSP Gamers running 2.80 with a big question... Will there be a 2.80 downgrader? Well to quote 0okm, a "DG for FW2.80 is easy" thanks to Team C+D's kernel mode exploit.

Accessing the flash, now what does that mean for me? Well, not much... just yet anyways. For developers however, the ability to properly access the PSP's hardware on this level is the required base for developments such as a downgrader, and possibly a new custom firmware with handy modules.

It's been quite an exciting time here recently for our PSP fans. We've seen some incredible breakthroughs that were strongly debunked previously; emulating Sony's new barrage of Firmware Updates (right out of the box), new custom firmware such as Dark Alex's 3.02 OE-A, and the latest version of Devhook. From the looks of things, it would appear most current PSP Gamers will be sitting pretty for the holidays. While the awesome PSP Dev community gets another Xmas present which could be the first hack welcoming in the new "post-Xmas" PSP gamers.