2006 is quickly coming to a close, which means its time to look back and review everything thats happened within the PSP scene.

One thing you have to say about 2006 for the PSP is that its been busy, with numerous firmware updates from Sony, countless homebrew developments, some pretty good game releases, and the near death of the movie UMD format.

Twelve months ago, I was the proud owner of a standard PSP running firmware 2.6. Now, as the year end approaches, my PSP is running firmware 3.02OE-B and is sporting a matt black face plate.

Heres a quick recap of the years events, as experienced by this PSP owner.

January 2006

The big news in January was that Maria Sharapova was brought in to promote the Tennis game Power Smash – New Generation. Not sure what happened to Power Smash, it seemed to fall off my radar completely. Did anyone play it?

The PSP also made the Yahoo top 10 search terms back in January, showing the device had started to take hold with the public, eager to find out more about Sony’s handheld competitor to the Gameboy Advance and DS.

Back in early January, downgrading your PSP firmware was not possible, so I was advising owners of PSP’s running firmware 1.5 / 2.0 to consider carefully their options before upgrading. Of course, come July of 2006, this all changed.

Come mid-January, Fanjita managed to get Tetris running on a PSP with firmware 2.5, using the Grand Theft Auto exploit. This was followed by the exploit being run on Firmware 2.6. This then led to the creation of the GTA eLoader, and a world of homebrew opened up to thousands of PSP owners who were stuck on firmware 2.5 and 2.6.

Even back in January, Sony were causing much controvesy with their advertising campaign, this time using Street Art to publicise the PSP.

February 2006

February saw Sony release their 2GB Memory Stick Pro Duo, which was big news back then, butwe have since seen the launch of the 4GB and 8GB cards, and Sony have announced the 32GB card is in pre-production.

We were also predicting what the next PSP firmware version would contain, with most rumours circulating around a supposed email client, something which has yet to materialise.

Back in the early part of 2006, there was a concern over the lack of great games for the PSP, with many titles being ports of games already seen on the PS2. PSP Updates was looking ahead though, at some of the games that were sure to set the PSP gaming world alight.

March 2006

March really saw the world of homebrew games and applications explode, as PSP owners who had been unable to use this underground software suddenly had full access via the eLoader. I got seriously hooked on playing one or two games and the whole homebrew culture took off.

Even way back in March, there were rumours of the next generation PSP, and what features it might include. There were predictions of a camera and built in Flash Memory. By the end of 2006, we will have seen the camera released as an add-on to the current PSP model. Some sites even went as far as predicting that PSP2 would be out by Christmas. Maybe next year.

One of my favourite homebrew applications that I got up and running back in March was the SCUMMVM (Script Creation Utility for Manic Mansion Virtual Machine), a handy piece of software that allows you to play your favourite Lucasarts point-and-click games.

Apart from March being a very busy month for homebrew releases, it was also the first month that the rumour of the UMD format being killed off hit the internet. Although the format at the time was not selling well, there was still hope of Sony managing to keep the format alive. As we approach January 2007, its one of next years big predictions that the format will finally die off, at least for the movie industry.

April 2006

April kicked off with an announcement about Splinter Cell Essentials, a game which I’ve only just got hold of. Most people were talking about Splinter Cell Essentials being a rehash of old PS2 Splinter Cell games, not something I’m bothered about at all.

One of the largest selling games outside of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, Monster Hunter Freedom managed to sell half a million copies in Japan alone when it was released. Yet another game I’ve got sitting here waiting to be played, one of my New Year resolutions is to actually load it up and get cracking on it. Tales of 200+ hours of play are putting me off slightly though.

In April I replaced the faceplate on my PSP with a Matt Black Faceplate after the original got cracked. I’m still using the same Matt Black Faceplate today, and have no trouble with its quality or fitment.

During April I stater putting together some PSP wallpapers for the World Cup, which proved very popular and were downloaded a number of times during the World Cup period.

April saw the release of firmware 2.70, which added the Flash Player to the PSP’s capabilities, along with some information about the PSP Camera and PSP GPS device that was hidden within the firmware upgrade.

May 2006

May was the month when Fanjita (Fanjita.org) and Ditlew (Ditlew.dk), setup their own website called Noobz from which their work on the eLoader could be announced, along with any other homebrew announcments.

One of the biggest films of the year, and one of my all time favourites, Casino Royale, got its first film trailer released on the PSP.

May also saw some quite bizarre PSP mods, in the case of Llamma and its L.E.D mod. There haven’t been that many hardcore mods to the PSP that I’ve come across, this was one of the most complete however.

As with most things, the PSP has plenty of rumours that do the rounds, and in May the story was of a possible downgrader being available for 2.6 / 2.7 firmware PSP’s. At that time, the story was very much false, although eventually a downgrader for firmware 2.6 was to become available.

Just before the 2.6 firmware downgrader became available, there was much written about the Modchip Undiluted Platinum, that enabled PSP owners the luxury of being able to select the firmware they wished their PSP to run. At the time, Undiluted Platinum was the only way for PSP’s running later firmware versions to run homebrew and earlier firmware versions.

June 2006

In June, Sony released another firmware upgrade for the PSP, this time to 2.71. This upgrade added the ability to download game demos to the PSP’s Memory Stick Pro Duo, amongst other things.

The homebrew community were beavering away, producing some great pieces of software for the PSP throughout June, but the standout production has to be DevHook which saw its first release on the PSP. The first release allowed PSP owners who had remained on firmware 1.5 to emulate firmware 2.5.

One of the years biggest PSP games got its very own website in June, and LocoRoco went on to be one of the most original games for the PSP. LocoRoco was one of the first PSP games to have a downloadable demo made available, but did require owners to upgrade their firmware.

Towards the end of June, the exploit that made a firmware 2.6 downgrader possible was first discovered, making a number of 2.6 owners very happy indeed.

We also got the first glimpse of the PSP camera add-on, which had been part of the PSP rumour mill for a while. Photos of the PSP camera did confirm its existance, although early details of the device were still sketchy.

July 2006

July was probably the biggest month of the year for owners of the PSP, with the first release of a downgrader for PSP owners stuck on firmware 2.6. This downgrader release was refined quite quickly and did not take long to become a stable release with a very high success rate.

Three days after that first downgrader release, I downgraded my own PSP to firmware 1.5 with no trouble at all. OF course, I am fortunate enough not to have a TA-082 motherboard PSP, meaning that I could take advantage of the downgrader. It would be December before PSP owners with TA-082 boards would have the opportunity to downgrade.

Mid July saw Sony release their 4GB Memory Stick Pro Duo’s, something I was keen to get hold of given the volume of homebrew I’d managed to aquire since the eLoader arrived. It wasn’t until September however, when the price started to drop, that I got hold of a Sandisk 4GB card.

We then quickly saw the release of a DevHook that would emulate the latest PSP firmware (2.71), so those owners who had patiently waited for the downgrader and then performed the delicate operation of reverting their PSP back to firmware 1.5 could still have the benefit of the newer firmware while still being able to use homebrew software.

In July, I was fortunate enough to recieve a review copy of the Rough Guide to the PSP, a nice little book for anyone thinking of buying a PSP, although of course with the ever changing nature of the PSP homebrew scene, one that will need constantly updating. This site even gets listed in the PSP related websites section.

August 2006

It wasn’t really unexpected when news of a Cease and Desist order being served on a Japanese website that was hosting the DevHook software for the PSP. The DevHook software could be used to not only emulate PSP firmware versions, but also allows PSP owners to play illegal pirated software.

There was some good news for PSP owners stuck with a TA-082 motherboard and firmware 2.5, a downgrader was being worked on. This was still a very early development however, and not a downgrade path for those slightly unsure of what they were doing.

There was also news of a new GPS device for the PSP, which was another device that had been rumoured for a while.

September 2006

September saw the release a downgrader for PSP’s running firmware 2.71, which would revert the PSP firmware back to 1.5.

News also came out that Gran Turismo 4 Mobile, a game I had been waiting for since April, was again going to be delayed. And I’m still waiting…

One of the big rumours for firmware 3, before it came out, was that it was going to contain a PSone emulator. So news of an unofficial PSone emulator must have annoyed Sony somewhat. While still in development, news of a PSone emulator was well recieved by most of the PSP community, although some still refused to belive it wasn’t a fake.

October 2006

In October I stopped writing on PSPCulture to concentrate on some other interests, but it didn’t stop it being a big news month for PSP owners, including the release of firmware versions 2.80, 2.81 and 2.82, and special custom firmware versions of 2.71 by Dark Alex.

November 2006

The end of November came and proved it was the month of the big firmware release, version 3.0. Swiftly followed by 3.01, 3.02, 3.03. It didn’t take more than a matter of minutes for firmware 3.01 and 3.02 to be decrypted, and a DevHook version to be released to emulate them.

PSPCulture had been through a quiet spell through October, and then came back with a new look by the end of November.

December 2006

I wrote a big tutorial on creating PSP wallpapers in December, which you can read here. Its proved to be one of the most read pieces on the site, so there should be plenty of people out there making PSP wallpapers.

DevHook 0.51 was released, which allows PSP owners running firmware 1.5 or 2.71SE to emulate the 3.01 firmware version. This was then quickly followed by another DevHook release which emulated firmware 3.02.

December also saw the first release of PSone games for the official PSone emulator on the PSP, although you need a PS3 to be able to download them.

This was all about to change however as a custom firmware (3.02OE) by Dark Alex became available, emulating the 3.02 firmware and opening up the PSone emulator to anyone who wished to play their PSone games, even those who hadn’t opted for Sony’s expensive option of buying a PS3.

I also managed to get the Atari ST emulator (CaSTaway) working on my PSP, something I’d wanted to do since I first heard about it at the start of the year.

And having said I would hold off installing the custom firmware from Dark Alex, I still ended up applying the upgrade to my PSP just to see how it worked. And I’ve not looked back since.

Overall, 2006 has been a hectic yet enjoyable year for the PSP owner. I only hope 2007 brings as much good news as this year has.