Much has happened recently in the PSP world so I thought I would bring you all up to speed in case you haven't been keeping tabs on the progress.
Many updates this year
Sony have been very busy with firmware updates so far this year. Some of these are to update existing features, adding such things as support for more music formats and higher resolution video files. But also the firmware updates have been to add more support for the PS3. Already the firmware releases have progressed from the 3.03 firmware at the beginning of the year to the current 3.51.
Revised PSP announced!
In addition the long running rumours about a revised PSP were finally confirmed at the E3 show. Sony has confirmed that it is to release a revised edition of the Sony PSP worldwide from September. It still have the same sized screen and accepts UMDs just the same, but it is 33% percent lighter and 19% slimmer. The battery is touted to be more efficient and games should load faster. But the biggest new feature is that the portable console will now have the ability to output high quality video as demonstrated on a Sony BRAVIA television set. It will also be available in a range of colours including ice silver!
Here is a picture of the revised PSP:
As you can see the revised PSP doesn't look that different from the original. The most noticeable difference is that the two audio holes have moved from being each side of the screen at the bottom, to towards the top of the screen just above the controls.
All of the other rumours about additional analogue sticks and other features seem to have just been fan made rumours and nothing more. Making the console thinner and lighter, and the battery usage more efficient is definitely a more logical revision for an existing console. Think of this in a similar way to Sony's previous PS1 and PS2 revisions, just redesigning the existing system to make it smaller, cheaper to make, and as up to date as possible. This is also similar to the update Nintendo made to their DS with the DS lite.
Custom Firmware
The famous PSP firmware hacker Dark AleX continued to work on development of his OE custom firmware for the PSP. The last release of his firmware was 3.40 OE-A, giving users the abilities of the newer firmware, while retaining all of the homebrew and ISO game image benefits of the famous 1.5 firmware.
Dark AleX leaves the PSP scene!
Dark AleX recently announced that he was leaving the PSP scene. This came as a huge shock to the PSP homebrew community as it meant an end to his great custom firmwares, and meant that the current Dark AleX firmware 3.40 OE-A is the last we will see from him.
This was a bigger shock because the official 3.51 PSP firmware was already released by Sony so the current Dark AleX 3.40 firmware was already out of date. meaning that some newer games would not work that required 3.50 or 3.51 firmware.
Russia save the day!
But all is not lost. In a big surprise a new Russian group suddenly appeared on the scene called the M33 Team. And what did they release? The Custom firmware called 3.51 M33
This firmware contains everything great that the Dark AleX OE firmwares contained and brings it up to the current 3.51 firmware release allowing compatibility with newer games and the additions this current firmware adds, plus they have added their own custom recovery menu and many other additions and improvements over the older DA firmwares.
I've just upgraded my PSP to this new 3.51 M33 custom firmware and can confirm it upgraded smoothly and works perfectly for homebrew emulation and ISO game images.
In addition the M33 team seem to be working hard on this firmware, possibly quicker than Dark AleX ever did. As soon as a bug is found in the firmware the M33 team release a patch to help fix this. These bugs have so far included an issue with WiFi which fixed it, compatibility with some games in NoUMD mode and a few other updates and fixes. They have already released 5 updates for the M33 firmware and they haven't required the complete update procedure common with DA updates. Instead they have just required the update copied to the PSP and then executed to patch and update the firmware. And best of all these patches are cumulative so using the latest one adds all of the patches released to date.
The current version is now 3.51 M33-5
And this custom firmware is very easy to setup and install. If you are running PSP FW 1.5 or any of the Dark AleX OE firmwares than you can easily update to the 3.51 M33 firmware without first needing to downgrade. If any of you would like a quick guide to upgrading your PSP to this custom 3.51 M33 firmware please let me know and I will post one. It is very easy.
New Downgrade exploits found
Until recently anyone with a PSP had limited options for downgrading their PSP back to FW 1.5 so they could then use homebrew software, emulation, or upgrade to a newer custom firmware. That has now changed.
Any PSP owner with an official Sony firmware of 2.80 or older have been able to use a selection of downgraders to revert their PSPs to FW1.5. But anyone with a PSP that has a 2.81 or newer version of the official Sony firmware have been limited to one option, the Grand Theft Auto downgrader exploit. This required finding the original unpatched release of the game, upgrading the PSP to firmware 3.03 and then using the game to downgrade to 1.5. The problem was that the original unpatched version of GTA is very hard to find, and as soon as this exploit was discovered the cost of the game shot up on ebay. Also it meant that any PSP with an official firmware newer than 3.03 could not use this and the owner was stuck.
Now the good news is that another exploit was found in the official firmware 3.50 using any version of the game Luminies. This makes it much easier for people to find a copy of this game to use to downgrade their PSP, and even the re-released platinum version of the game will work! You just need to upgrade your PSP to firmware 3.50, download the 3.50 hen downgrader and obtain a copy of the Luminies game that is then used to initiate the downgrader.