Ashram Media

This just in guys, one of the greatest PSP homebrew legends of all time has announced his retirement from the PSP scene after the leaking of the Pandora’s Battery system into the commercial market (see the new product listed on QJ). Fanjita officially announced his retirement on his website, stating that the scene is no longer a noble cause, riddled with false pretense and mistrust.

Fanjita will join the ranks of Dark_Alex and Booster and other great pioneers in the unofficial PSP Homebrew Hall of Fame

Fanjita will focus on his family and his other non homebrew endeavors, we salute you dude, we thank you for the hard work you have done, with your breakthrough with eloader, ending with the greatest achievement of all time, the Pandora’s Battery aka the Prometheus Project. Fanjita is succeeded by the teams he long worked with, Team C+D and the Noobz team.

You left us a long legacy to continue, you will not be forgotten.

As such, another pillar falls. Will the scene ever see such great PSP genius’s like Dark_Alex, Fanjita, and Booster? The scene seems to be condemned to fall because of the commercial market starting to infect the homebrew scene (again, same product listed on QJ) and the on going effort of Sony to crush the homebrew scene.

However, when one pillar falls, the scene tries to build several new ones to take the weight. We now have team M33, the Wildcard team (3.40 LE edition). Hopefully the new coming teams will be able to continue the developments of the scene into the next quarter and hopefully through the next year, 2008 and through the PSP Slim. Though right now i fear that with the new release of a commercial homebrew product, more commercial products will be released by other companies, hoping to get a piece of the homebrew action that we define as the revolution against the grip of Sony.

The revolution it seems is now at a fork in the road. Continue on with new developments, or be swallowed whole by big business and Sony.

in case you can’t find said commercial product, i took the liberty to post the link.
http://pspupdates.qj.net/KickStart-product-features-similar-to-Pandora-s-Battery-/pg/49/aid/100832

ok, this article may be 1 part rant article, but i see it fit since Fanjita is (or was, w/e) a firm believer in freedom to develop what the mind sees fit in a respectable fashion.

I just checked out Dark_Alex’s site and found this shocking letter to the public

“I’ve decided to cease OE development, and leave PSP scene.
The reasons are various.
One of them is the time it consumes, which i’m losing from other things.
The other is related to my security. I didn’t like Sony menaces to PS3 hackers.
I think it is better to leave now rather than end paying the consequences.”

Could this be true this time? Anybody can recall him saying these words long ago….but then he returned about 2 months afterwards. That was last year. Is this really DAX’s final farewell to the community that loves him so for his hard work and dedication? He brought us the OE firmware and pioneered the concepts that Sony could never think of in a hundred years.

Or could this be a cover so Sony thinks that one of the spearheads of the PSP Homebrew Scene is gone for good? He might start a new name and rename his firmware. If this is so…would Sony take serious action against the community? And what of Fanjita, the Noobz team, Team C+D, Booster, and the numerous other talented developers for the PSP Homebrew Scene?

In any case, DAX is and will be remembered as one of the greatest PSP developers of all time.

My bad, forgot to update the blog with the latest news (been lazy and used the forum as my news board)

Anyway, lets begin the excessively long post with all the news that might be of some interest to all of you people who actually read this blog as well as post in the forum.

Making a huge crash on the PSP Homebrew Scene, the Noobz Team and Fanjita break the 3.50 barriers wide open with their shiny new Illuminati exploit. Using the classic PSP game Lumines, any psp owner using 3.50 firmware can now downgrade said psp to 1.50. And of course, Fanjita, being the practical guy he is, makes sure that every little good boy and girl can downgrade with almost any version of Lumines (Jap not confirmed yet i think because he doesn’t physically have a copy of the Jap versions). And of course Sony, always being owned at their own firmware game, makes a patch for the firmware and released 3.51 about a week after the downgrade commotion. I’m sure Q! Entertainment is pleased that gamers are buying copies of the game left and right from every single store that they can, similar to Rockstar enjoying the limelight of the GTA:LCS sell outs all over the US because of the resurfaced exploit some 4 months ago (or something like that).
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i have no idea why, but the forums are mysteriously down due to database problems

i have no way of accessing the database on my end, i have to talk to thh or ashram about the causes of the problem. More likely than anything else, the forum host is down, which would be weird cuz the front page blog is still up.

edit, nvm, the error seems to have cleared up, Host maintenance.

I don’t know how many times the tug of war of No new PSP vs. Yes new PSP can go on, but i guess this is where the battle ends and the discrepancies are lifted.

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Well, I still need to play part 3, and catch up on about 35 episodes of the anime, but here’s the trailer for the next PSP Bleach game. Enjoy
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Now i know everyone is tired of all of these rumors about a new PSP and the possibility of a PSP Phone. Well, too bad, your going to have to read about another one.

QJ.net

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve run this scenario through my head.

Sony releases a new handheld (codename PSP2 for example) and its either a phone or a integrated camera or even both if your really adventurous. Anyway, Sony releases it to the public 3-4 years after releasing the original PSP or a PSP slim if one were to come out next year. 3-4 years because thats the periodic release period for a game system usually (give or take 2 years). Now would it be a smash hit or a flop? That is a question to answered another day

Back to the rumor. More rumors are flying around that Sony might make a Sony Erickson PSP Phone (SEPS for short?). This rumor has come up several times before. Though with the IPhone coming out soon, i wouldn’t be surprised if Sony were to make a new phone to combat. Honestly at the rate consumers are buying up all of these new phones (the Razr, the Chocolate, the Krazr, the Blackjack, etc), a phone like that to combat the IPhone wouldn’t be a bad idea (provided the price tag doesn’t go through the roofs like the IPhone).

As computing, interactive, graphic, sound, and display technologies evolve and advance, we all must wonder when the next merger of media and gaming will occur.  We must also look at what direction gaming and general entertainment will take in the next 10 years

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Thats right. The anime torrent giant known as Baka-Updates is changing its domain name from Baka-Updates.com to Fansub-Updates.com for a recorded price of 500,000 dollars USD.

It seems somebody or some group was eager to get the domain. Though i suspect this is a april fools joke, it very well may be true. If this announcement is in fact true, then it will be interesting to see how the general public will react to this immense change. It will also be interesting to see what the new alleged owners of the domain will do with the Baka Updates name

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With the somewhat secret release of the 3.30 firmware (skipping 3.2 entirely, moving on to 3.3). Though it is unclear why 3.2 was skipped (though this isn’t the first time a huge skip has been made), what is clear, is that Sony is putting in a wee bit of effort with each release to improve the software features.

the 3.0 and 3.1 series of firmwares introduced the somewhat enticing visualizations for the music player, as well as game compatibility fixes for the PS1 emulator. Though i think everybody is wondering why the LocationFree player is still being enhanced and fixed when almost nobody uses the function. But at least they are trying to make the official firmware ALMOST worth getting over homebrew, but everyone knows that homebrew is better until sony brings support for homebrew in a possible limited way.

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i guess thats one of the questions on many PSP owners, will there be a PSP2 or not in the near future?  Sony’s (as well as nintendo’s) marketing strategy is to release the base system then make a slim/”enhanced” model about a year after the release of the base system.  Sony is a little overdue in terms of that basic marketing model. Continue Reading »

Hey, just wishing all of the Chinese like myself a Happy New Year/Lunar New Year (depends on how you see it)

According to Joystiq, Ikaruga will be making it’s way to the Xbox 360 via Live Arcade.
For those of you that don’t know, Ikaruga is one of the best shmups out there. Originally for the Dreamcast and then getting a US release via the Gamecube, Ikaruga has one of the most original “shield” system in any shmup. I already own a copy on the Dreamcast, but if you have an XBOX 360 and don’t own this game… GET IT!!! It’s worth it.

Forgot to mention this earlier, but until Friday the 16th (2/16/07) ADV is running a sale on some older and some current anime with prices drops up to 70% off…. It’s worth a look.

http://www.advfilms.com/sale.asp

Forgive me for not writing any PSP articles in the past month, i have been busy with my real life so to speak.  Anyway, this article will pretty much get people up to speed with the recent developments in the PSP Homebrew scene. Continue Reading »