Team M33, the creators of the latest custom firmware versions for the Sony PSP have been hard at it once more, and have now created a custom firmware version based on the latest Official Sony firmware, 3.52.

This release sees a few tweaks here and there, but nothing substantial (after all, the Sony release of 3.52 contained very little).

Again there has been a round of bug fixes applied to this firmware. One of the reasons I’ve held off moving my PSP over to the M33 custom firmware version is the number of bug fixes that they have issued already. Having got used to Dark_AleX only releasing custom firmware when he was happy that 99% of the bugs had been ironed out, its a slight shock to see almost daily releases of patches to fix problems in the latest custom firmware versions.

I’d prefer that a custom firmware release was held back and fully tested to ensure as many of the problems are removed prior to it being made public – this cuts down on the amount of flashing need to keep the firmware upto date, and also removes part of the risk of using untested software.

Regardless of my personal opinion on this, for those of you lapping up the M33 firmware releases, and installing them as soon as they come out, the following bug fixes have been made to the latest version:

- Document.dat of psx games were broken due to some important changes in popsman.prx and now is fixed. Plus, now document.dat does not need the same gameid as game which is played.

- The compatibility issue with irshell loading psx games in usbhost/nethost has been solved.

- Changes in recovery:

1. Removed the advanced config option “use isofs on UMD inserted”, as it is not useful now.
2. Added “Format flash1 and restore settings” in Advanced.
3. Added speeds 20 and 100.
4. When in usb mode inside recovery, it is impossible to turn PSP off.

- The chineses and korean languages did not work in XMB, because they crashed homebrew and recovery. The issue has been fixed, but korean font is not there, so you need to take it with psardumper from official updater, and put it in flash0:/font/kr0.pgf.

- M33 driver: fixed SBK07, now it work.

If you’ve upgraded to this version already, I’d love to hear your views on how well the firmware is working, and whether you think the upgrade away from the Dark_Alex 3.40OE version is worth the time and effort.

Download via : DCEmu

An official Sony announcement rattled its way into my inbox this morning, outlining plans for SKY to provide video content for the PSP. SKY has recently launched its ‘Anytime’ service, available both via the SKY+ digital receiver, and over a broadband connection (assuming you are paying for a SKY subscription package). A move into providing digital content for the PSP has got to be seen as a hugely positive step for the Sony handheld device.

SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT EUROPE AND SKY JOIN FORCES TO DELIVER VIDEO ON DEMAND SERVICE TO PSP OWNERS

London, 27 July 2007. SKY and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) today announced the formation of a Joint Venture company to deliver on-demand entertainment content to owners of the PSP™(PlayStation®Portable) in the UK and Ireland.

The Joint Venture company, with equal Board level representation from SKY and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe will draw on the unrivalled entertainment aggregation expertise and technical leadership of SKY, and the handheld entertainment knowledge and brand power of PlayStation®. The company will establish PSP and the new ground breaking video download service as the natural partners for those seeking the ultimate choice of portable entertainment content.

Focusing exclusively on delivering video content to the PSP, the Joint Venture will initially provide a wealth of video and film content to the more than 2.3 million PSP owners in the UK and Ireland. The two companies are already in discussions with entertainment content providers across Europe to facilitate future introduction of the service to European PSP owners.

More information on the service will be announced by SCEE at Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany on Wednesday 22nd August.

At the moment details are a little thin on the ground, but as stated above, more will be known at the Games Convention on the 22nd August. I would assume that you will require a SKY subscription of some form or another to take advantage of this new service. Hopefully, if the ‘Anytime’ service is anything to go by, SKY will look to expanding the available content beyond the relatively small volume of shows and movies currently available.

Just a quick note to say Sony have released a new PSP firmware, 3.52. This is released alongside a PS3 firmware release (1.90).

Apparently the only improvement with this firmware is added compatability with the PS3, so no need for anyone to install this firmware unless you are already on 3.51 (and therefore cannot downgrade your PSP to be homebrew enabled) and own a PS3 (running firmware 1.90).