For those of you who have bought a new PSP-3000, there is some great news on the homebrew front. Thanks to PSP developer MaTiAz, a new savegame exploit has been found in the PSP game Gripshift £79.24 (US version) (US version only.) In a similar fashion to the GTA savegame exploit, this ‘bug’ has allowed the devloper to run unsigned code. It does not allow access to flash(0), so there is no hint of a downgrader becoming available, but it does mean that with some development work it should be possible to start playing homebrew games and applications on the PSP-3000 (PSP Brite.)
Copy the contents of MS_ROOT into the root of your memory stick (this will overwrite the first GripShift savegame slot).
Launch the US version of GripShift.
Load up the game (if it doesn’t autoload).
See your PSP run unsigned code.
It’ll autoexit after some time. You can use the home button to exit too if you’ve seen enough.
FAQ
—
Q: Will this allow downgrading?
A: No, because this is an usermode exploit and functions required to downgrade are
only available in kernel mode.
Q: Why the name?
A: Because the original exploit was found by overwriting the player name with “this is spartaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”.
Q: Can/Will Sony block this?
A: Yes.
Q: I wanna make homebrew using the exploit. How?
A: Get FreePlay’s GS SDK: http://f6y.ath.cx/pspdev/sparta_sdk.zip
It has some constraints though, check the readme.
The Hello World was written with it.
Credits
——-
Exploit and binary loader: MaTiAz
SDK: FreePlay
Greets go to Dark_AleX, Mathieulh, jas0nuk, Hellcat, etc. etc. etc, you know.
There are a couple of sites reporting sales figures for the top 5 best selling PSP games for the USA in the period March 2005 to Fall (I assume October) 2008.
The list is as follows -
Top 5 Selling PSP Games (March 2005 - Fall 2008)
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (2,000,000)
Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition (1,100,000)
Need for Speed: Most Wanted (1,100,000)
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (950,000)
Star Wars: Battlefront II (809,000)
There are a few interesting things to note about the list, firstly that it only includes US sales, so there are no big hitting titles like Monster Hunter Freedom or Crisis Core, both of which have proved big sellers in Japan. Secondly, the game at number one is responsible for the majority of hacked PSP consoles in existance, thanks to the Save-Game exploit that was discovered way back in 2006.
John Koller, SCEA hardware marketing head, has stated that piracy of PSP games is in decline, at least in the last couple of months.
Piracy of PSP games, as we know, has always been an issue on the PSP, and one that has followed Sony’s every step on the way to the current 5.03 firmware, as each successive firmware release has swiftly been followed by a custom firmware version that has allowed pirated (ISO) games to be played.
Sony is hoping that by offering content via the PSN store as direct downloads will help combat the overall issue of piracy, by making games more easily available for instant gratification. If Sony offer content cheap enough, it may well convince people to move away from illegal game sharing sites and actually buy some games.
My name is Dave Adams and I'm the person behind PSPculture.co.uk. I'm a full time software developer, with a passion for handheld gaming, photography, design and new media.
I've seen a lot of change and excitement in the PSP scene in the 3 years I've been running this site, including numerous firmware releases, the discovery of save game exploits, the Pandora battery bombshell and the release of two subsequent PSP models, the PSP-2000 and PSP-3000.
