QuickJump QuickPeek special edition: The 2007 PSP Homebrew Scene Year in Review

The PlayStation Portable homebrew scene has always been very active but the year 2007 was really something special for the community. Several milestones were achieved, a lot of walls were broken down so to speak, and a lot of interesting releases were made.

Having said that, we here at QJ.NET can’t really end the year without paying homage and respect to the movers and shakers of the year that was. The full article after the jump!

The PlayStation Portable homebrew scene has always been very active, but 2007 was really something special for the community. Several milestones were achieved, a lot of walls were broken down, so to speak, and a lot of interesting releases were made that kept all PSP owners happy and busy for the last 12 months.

Having said that, we here at QJ.NET can’t really end the year without paying homage and respect to the movers and shakers of the year that was. After all, the homebrew scene is oftentimes as exciting, if not more so, than its commercial counterpart.

So without any further ado, we give you yet another special edition of QuickJump QuickPeek dedicated to the stalwarts of the homebrew community and their most-loved creations.

On Cracking the PlayStation Portable Wide Open

Despite having a lot of talented developers, the homebrew scene would be nothing if official firmwares and hardware configurations for the PSP will not be made compatible first for user-created games and applications.

The year 2007 started with a downgrader release from 0okm, making Sony handheld units running on tough-to-crack motherboards join in on the homebrew fun. Then it was followed up by Dark AleX with yet another custom firmware launch.

From there, the war between Sony devs and homebrew devs went on with the former coming up with several firmware updates and the latter with custom firmwares. DAX wasn’t alone in this field, mind you, with several other homebrew devs trying their adept hands on the matter.

The war was even noticed by the media, with DAX and Fanjita being interviewed by big news conglomerates such as BBC. There was even a point when Sony announced that they will start going after these developers and take legal actions against them.

Of Homebrew Devs’ Personal Battles and Going Underground

Dark AleX announced his retirement from the scene several times this year. And as we all found out in the end, this move was done solely to protect himself and the community and not to leave it behind. However, his absence prompted a lot of more controversial issues involving the developers and even big Sony itself.

We saw the arrival of several new coders like Team M33 and Team Wilc*rd, with the more established ones like Mathieulh, Fanjita, and Noobz getting more active once again. Team Wildc*rd was responsible for reverse engineering the OE firmware source code which was eventually  leaked, much to the dismay of the team.

Team M33 was also quick to inform everyone that aside from violating the privacy and rights of the coders, the leak also allowed Sony to look into the code that made the company make some changes to the next firmware modules.

After these turbulent times, we learned in the event that high-profile homebrew coders are still very part much of the scene, hiding under aliases and homebrew coding teams so as to avoid a crackdown from Sony. It sounds really renegade and cool, and something like that can only be pulled off by the community.

Let the Sunshine In: Illuminati Exploit, Pandora Battery, and Despertar Cementerio

This year also became witness to three of the sharpest and deadly swords thrust by the scene at Sony’s heart: the Illuminati Exploit, Pandora Battery and Despertar Cementerio. The first one, amusingly, was created using the commercial game Lumines.

According to Fanjita and the rest of Noobz team, the Illuminati Exploit was really something special because it is capable of giving users all the commercial advantages of the latest official firmware as well as the whole chunk of homebrew heaven.

The arrival of the Pandora Battery, on the other hand, is not without any controversy. It all began when PSP users started having bricks after acquiring CFW 3.52 Update #3 from a certain “criminal website”.

Countless bricks later, the developers explained that the brick incidents were necessary because the criminal site had been stealing their work by changing source codes and removing credits. Affected users need not worry because a universal bricker was being created at that time.

True enough, Noobz and Team C+D suddenly released the Pandora Battery which carried the ability to fix not only the M33 bricks but all bricks as well. The trick is done by changing a normal PSP battery into jig kick one.

Lastly, the unbricking process was ultimately improved with the launch of Despertar Cementerio. The latest version of the program is highly important as it proves to be a step closer to having 1.5 kernel support on PSP Slim Slim & Lite.

Fun, Fun, Fun! Here Homebrew Comes!

In between custom firmware releases, other developers had been steadfast in coming up with different games and applications related to music and videos, not to mention the ever-reliable emulators that should bring back memories of glorious years long gone.

We noticed that 2007 was also the year of portals, those applications that provide users with several other programs and games using just one program. They are actually web pages, designed solely for use with the PSP.

Not to be outdone was the advent of themes, offering countless ways to make your PSP look exciting and brand new. There was even a point when the craze was all about changing the XMB theme.

The emulation project was also very active for the last year, thanks to the efforts of StrmnNrmn, Zx-81, NJ, and uberjack – not to mention those who are continuously making their own ports and creations for other platforms, adding variety to the emulation scene.

This year was also important because it saw the re-launch of Ahman’s legendary application simply called iR Shell. The program currently stands at v3.81 and is compatible with almost all CFW for both PSP Slim and Phat.

In terms of games, we really can’t point out one defining one for this year due to the sheer number of releases done. One also should not forget the different coding competitions that provided us with quality creations.

Goodbye 2007, Hello 2008!

The latest official software update for the PlayStation Portable is 3.80. It comes with a lot of features all right, but it also locks out homebrews. It was said that DAX was making a new custom firmware in relation to this but it still hasn’t been released as of this writing.

Just a couple of days before the year ends, the mysterious coder _HellDashX_ has released a Psardumper for the said official firmware complete with a KL4E/KL3E decompressor bringing all of us closer to a new custom firmware.

All in all, the homebrew scene has been both turbulent and productive for the last 12 months and only time can tell what new things the year 2008 will bring with it. Whatever those changes might be, we are sure about one thing: both the community and QJ.NET will be there to continue to support the scene and its avid followers.