It’s been brought to people’s attention before, but I want to express my own thoughts on the subject of PSP homebrew. I don’t mean the idea of having them on there to begin with. I’m going to talk about the problem with Sony not giving homebrew designers a chance to flourish more.
Many people have stated before that, if Sony started a program where homebrew was accepted, that the PSP would flourish as a hand-held system. I would also think this to be true, but there’s one problem with this scenario, and it’s inherent within the homebrew scene to begin with.
Once Sony legalizes it, then you are going to see a flood of UMD-rippers and burners turning up, which has, in fact, happened. It’s not as prevalent due to the firmware versions that are needed to run homebrew, but it’s still there. It’s just unbelievable that people are continually lambasting Sony for not endorsing homebrew. Sorry guys, but the almighty dollar reigns supreme once again. You’re just going to have to get used to it.
What I’m trying to say is don’t blame Sony for not fully endorsing this program. It would be great if Sony used the system that they use to upload and play demos on the PSP for the homebrew scene, but it would ruin a big portion of their business. All you homebrewers out there that create those programs that illegally copy UMD movies and games are the very reason why Sony opts out of this rather powerful option on their hand-held almost entirely.
So if you want to blame someone, blame those punks writing UMD-cracker programs.
But I will say this: if Sony had a system where homebrew coders could submit a game into Sony themselves and then get it approved to run, kind of like what they do with normal games and the upcoming e-Distribution titles for the PS3, you can have the best of both worlds. Sony would stand to gain money instead of losing it, and homebrewers would have an official hardware to work on. And then there would be much rejoicing in the land.
Sorry for being so late on the subject, but all this talk about PS1 emulation on the PSP is making me hungry for this kind of stuff.
Come to think of it, I can’t remember any system that had serious support for homebrew out side of maybe the GP32. Its just not viable business for some companies. As for the PSP, I think its just the fact that its homebrew potential is so high, that people forget the fact that its not doing anything out of the ordinary. In regards to UMD cracking, that starts to get into rough territory. A lot of homebrewers probably wouldn’t need that kind of capability for their games; a flash drive should easily suffice for most of their software. People attempting those cracks most likely have pirates and other mischievous folk in their numbers, which is why Sony might be even extra wary.