Hackers Dupe Sony, Release Firmware 2.0 Downgrade Patch

ROT PSP ROT!!!
Its at times like this that I love hackers, and I don't even own/intend to buy a PSP!

I'm still perplexed as to why they're trying; the PS and PS2 were so popular because of how easy it was to find pirated games and get the console chipped. What makes them think the PSP couldn't have the same popularity for such a reason?

Lol, well Sony, hate to say I told not to bother with this 2.0 update. Looks like the hackers just put Sony in check mate.

This is a good example of the people having their cake over bread and rightly so, for if the individual chooses to use their PSP for emus then so be it, so long as they don't take that dark right turn down Piracy Avenue (even if such a clandestine practice is going on across the road from Emu Close).

Your move Sony. Think long and hard in how to act next move, since you really don't need hackers turning PSP into the new Windows OS in a treatment respect.

Hardly. In order to play emulated games, you have to give up playing new games. If that was the way you wanted to go, you wouldn't have bought a 2.0 PSP, would you? Everybody who wants to play emulated games on their PSP has already bought a 1.5 PSP.

As soon as new games come out requiring the 2.0 firmware, people have a choice to make. Keep upgrading/downgrading to play the games they want to play or buy two PSPs. The first way will eventually wear out the firmware chips and they'll have to buy a second PSP anyway.

Neither of those outcomes hurts Sony.


This is a good example of the "because it's there" attitude. You have to piss about with hacks to get your code running on the PSP. Sony block the holes, so you make a downgrader. Now you have made people face up to a choice. Emu/pirate games or "official" games or buy two PSPs.

Some people will choose to play only official games, some will buy two PSPs. Sony will like these people.

And remember it's not just the games, it's the additional features you're losing when you downgrade. Sure, the web browser isn't much of a loss, but the newer movie and music codecs and the expended image support will sway some people.


The fact that it's getting harder and harder for the homebrew people to get their code onto the PSP shows that Sony are doing better than Microsoft in securing their OS/firmware.

We've had four revisions (1.5, 1.51, 1.52 & 2.0) after the initial release and already you have to downgrade your firmware to run your homebrew code. In order to do that, you have to exploit a buffer overflow in the image decoder. Well that'll be a hard hole to plug!

From what I've gathered, you can downgrade and upgrade, both ways, as many times as you like.

E.g If you're currently on v1.5, and a new game requires you to upgrade to v2.0, then just upgrade to v2.0. If you want to go back to Chronos Trigger, then simply downgrade back to v1.5. Then just upgrade again to v2.0 to play new games etc. etc.

But...


Is this true? I'll bow to your technical master-brain, but can constant up/de-grading really bugger the flash EPROM (or whatever stores the FW)?

That's the problem. Most people won't bother, hence my emu/official/buy two list of options above.


It'll be a flash memory device, similar to those found in the memory stick, EPROMs use a UV light to erase data.

Most flash memory units have a limited number of erase operations. Admittedly it's a high number, usually about 10,000, but each time you write to a flash memory unit it takes one of those erase operations.

That 10,000 is an average for the sort of flash memory units in SD cards or MemorySticks. On-board BIOS-type chips won't be expected to be altered as often, so I bet lower-grade units will be used. That'll mean fewer upgrade/downgrade operations.

It's not as big a problem as the hassle factor, but it's still worth considering.

But switching firmware isn't £180 worth of hassle (at least to me).

Thanks for the heads-up on 10,000 flashes... though I doubt I'll even reach 100.

A friend of mine, now in possession of his PSP, is agonising over whether to do that 2.0 patch.

Is the only reason not to the emulation aspect, or is there more to gain? If not, I'll tell him to just patch it already. I believe his iPaq has the same sort of emulators anyhow...

Yeah, the only reason not to upgrade is to be able to run emulators or pirated games.

Thing is, if your friend bought an EU PSP, it had 1.52 installed anyway. He'd still have to downgrade to use the current loaders to get emu games running.

And now they have done so. Wanna bet 2.01 comes with Liberty City Stories?

Nah. Liberty City Stories is out in a couple of weeks, and must've "gone gold". I predict v2.0.

I was expecting v2.0 with Burnout Legends, but was actually only packaged with v1.52.