Sony to "Open Up" the PSP?

[bapenguin]

Gamasutra (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=6307) talks with Sony Computer Entertainment platform development chief Izumi Kawanishi about the Sony PSP and it's possible expansions coming up. One of those "expansions" is a GPS addon. Another is the possiblity of opening it up to user downloads, something they've been working hard to stop lately.However, in discussing the idea of downloadable PSP games, Kawanishi commented that the idea is under consideration, and suggested equivocally that it would be interesting if users could develop their own simple games and distribute them online.

So far, although many unofficial 'homebrew' PSP games and emulators have been created, the only Sony-sanctioned support for this concept is via From Software's Adventure Player PSP game, which allows construction of RPG games using PC software which can then be replayed on the PSP.

Make it so Sony. You'll sell a hell of a lot more systems.

[doyama]

It makes sense for them to open the market for peripherals. You sell more dev kits, licensing, and generally more accessories for your product the better. A thumb keyboard at the bottom might help. Though I think the most you will see is a number pad. I've seen people burn out words faster on their mobile phones than on a typewriter.

They'll never allow homebrew stuff. Simply doesn't make sense for them to allow this. I'm sure he's referring more to expansion or more content for a paticular game to be made available via dowload to the PSP like Wipeout. This provides added benefit to already paying customers without opening gaping holes in their firmware.

[51|RandoM]

They'll open it up once they're done implementing their DRM model.

[Xaerin]

Keyboard (http://shop.gameplay.co.uk/webstore/productpage.asp?ProductCode=PP0051&title=logic_3_-_psp_keyboard) has been done.

GPS could be handy though, if you had it displaying on a seperate screen or in a little box in the corner of your game you could walk down the street playing lumines and know which way you were headed without looking up and screwing up your game.

[hideouslywrinkled]

They'll never allow homebrew stuff. Simply doesn't make sense for them to allow this. I'm sure he's referring more to expansion or more content for a paticular game to be made available via dowload to the PSP like Wipeout. This provides added benefit to already paying customers without opening gaping holes in their firmware.

I completely agree. Homebrew would be a legal nightmare for them. If they allow homebrew, they're implicitly supporting piracy. Which would be a serious legal headache for them after the Grokster ruling. (Although it would be interesting to see the Nintendo and Sega lawsuit against Sony over homebrew. :) )

[Vandenh]

The PSP is dead... long live the (opened up) PSP!

[TrackZero]

"simple games"

Yeah, they'd have to give the homebrew scene some kind of very basic scripting/coding language to use, because as hideous pointed out, they simply can't make it so they're supporting piracy. It's still a nice gesture, but quite late in the game to really make a big difference for anyone who hadn't already bought one.

[Chandler]

Just open the damn thing up to homebrew, its not like there isnt emulators for it already.

edit: ok now that I've read it, it really does feel like he meant super duper simple games, like BASIC or RPG MAKER or something.

[AlmostSente]

I will never upgrade my PSP and never buy another game for it unless they open up the newer versions to homebrew. Simple as that.

Maaaaaaybe I might buy another PSP if a must-have game is released. :P

[DevDict]

Funny.
PSP eventually becomes a powered-up Palm PDA with the picture viewer, video viewer, mp3 player and now GPS. Despite that, the PSP still lacks the touch-screen of the 'real' PDAs.
The games selection for the PSP is eye-watering. On GameRankings.com Untold Legends, Coded Arms, MediEvil ressurection, Dynasty Warriors and Death Jr. all scored a little higher than 60%. I wanted a PSP when I saw it coming out but now all I can think to say is "Thank god I didn't buy it".

[Derwin]

If I buy a PSP, I'm making sure it has the 1.5 firmware on it so I'm going to head into Chinatown or Manhattan in some underground gaming shop where they sell all the weird stuff, they'll most likely have 1.5 PSPs there. And then after that, I'd only upgrade once 2.0 is cracked open.

[askheaves]

The ONLY reason I'm not kicking myself for this PSP purchase is the homebrew side. I love playing emulators on it, and I'm having a blast compiling my own little apps for it. I haven't bought a game in over 3 months because I don't think there were any of note released. I made a mouse cursor the other day and it felt great. I don't want them taking this from me and leaving me with nothing but a racing game with 70 second load times.

[51|RandoM]

I get people talking about psp vs ds at work all the time. Most of them go on and on about how the PSP is better. I usually ask them this:

Name one game you really want to play on psp.

...and they usually give me a blank look. This is a critical question imho, if you're in the market for a game machine. Everything else it would do for me, I've got a better version of in other gear, unfortunately.

It is a cool piece of hardware in dire need of a must-have game.

[PacerDawn]

The problem with allowing home-brew software on the PSP is that Sony will LOSE money due to it. Unless things have changed recently, it's not the hardware that makes money, but the games. That is why consoles have always been so cheap and why the companies are willing to take losses on them. If Sony allows homebrew software, they then start to lose revenue on software as well.

I cannot believe they would do that.

[bapenguin]

The problem with allowing home-brew software on the PSP is that Sony will LOSE money due to it. Unless things have changed recently, it's not the hardware that makes money, but the games. That is why consoles have always been so cheap and why the companies are willing to take losses on them. If Sony allows homebrew software, they then start to lose revenue on software as well.

I cannot believe they would do that.

It would work if they would if they create a "homebrew" licnese that you could get from them. There would be requirments for this, things like you can't charge for your software, and maybe other kinds of restrictions. But it COULD work. It was something that was even rumored to be being considered for the PS3.

[Phades]

I get people talking about psp vs ds at work all the time. Most of them go on and on about how the PSP is better. I usually ask them this:

Name one game you really want to play on psp.

...and they usually give me a blank look. This is a critical question imho, if you're in the market for a game machine. Everything else it would do for me, I've got a better version of in other gear, unfortunately.

It is a cool piece of hardware in dire need of a must-have game.

The problem is those same people probably couldn't tell you a must-have game on any system other than maybe Halo which just about everyone knows about. I personally have much more use for my PSP than DS. I'm a Lumines and Wipeout junkie though. I'm curious what Must-Have game, if any, you think there is for the DS? Nintendogs being their big app is kinda sad in my opinion. The closest I can think of is Advance Wars and that's just one game that JUST came out.

[Dracula-X]

Sony have allowed homebrew in the past through Yaroze and PS2Linux, there is no reason to believe they couldn't put together a package for the PSP if they wanted to. Neither the Yaroze or PS2Linux contributed directly to piracy - this is something that happens regardless, and it happened on these systems before the introduction of their respective consumer dev kits. However, these systems took a while to reach market and the PSP is still in its infancy so I wouldn't expect something so soon.

Secondly, Sony has nothing to fear about losing money on homebrew. There is rarely ever a commercial grade homebrew game, and there is almost never one that goes commercial. The exception being in the yaroze era, one yaroze developed title went to become commercial (I forget the name, some puzzle game I believe), and a couple of other yaroze developers landed jobs in prominent studios in japan. There were a couple yaroze dudes in the UK that went on to work in studios there too. The point is homebrew titles are typically *very* lacking, and publishers are loathe to bother with titles without popular licenses to begin with.

[Rangoth]

>sniff sniff< Whats that I smell? Ah yes, thats the smell of desperation! :)

[holysin]

sony should do:

1. Fight piracy on the psp (people playing PSP games from their memory sticks).
2. Allow (ignore) the emulators (it's not their consoles that are being emulated anyway, lol)
3. Obviously, try to create some extra protection to prevent a psone emulator (though I wouldn't want that hehe)

[Metal Jesus]

The selection of PSP games hasn't been great. But here's my answer to your question:

Burnout Legends
Frantix
SSX On Tour
Star Wars: Battlefront II
SOCOM
King Kong
Pursuit Force
Need For Speed: Most Wanted

All of these are scheduled to ship before the end of the year.

[MasterKwan]

The comment that Sony would have legal problems if they opened up the PSP to homebrew is just completely wrong. Do PC manufacturers get in trouble because people can hack and run warezed software on them? No. Why not? Because there are plenty of non-infringing uses for the PC just as there are for the PSP (Betamax case). As for the Grokster thing, the court basically found that if you were advertising copyright infringements, that you couldn't hide behind the betamax case. Most people seem to have over-reacted to that decision.

[Rangoth]

The PC example has one huge flaw: its not made by a single company. Since Sony is the only company who makes the PSP it is resonable that someone could argue they are responsible for the software on the handheld. This includes emulators. Its a situation that they will likely avoid by never allowing it. Your arguement would of been much more solid had you used something like the Dreamcast instead of the PC.

[MasterKwan]

What's reasonable is that there are huge number of general purpose computers out there, PC's or PDA's and so forth and I don't remember a single manufacturer that has been sued because they can be used for Warez, Emulators or ripping DVD's/CD's. These machines are the primary source of all warez, and rips. Why hasn't someone sued them? Because it's hard? You start with a small manufacturer and get some case's behind you before you attack the big boys. The reason it hasn't happened is that all the non-infringing uses outweigh the people who use it wrong.

If Sony were to release a personal developer kit for the PSP, they'd be no different than Microsoft who has developer tools for PC's, PDA's and Cell phones. Is Microsoft liable because people use their tools to create "DVDDecryptor", "Virtual Dub" or "Mame"? I think not.

If a lawyer wanted to go after Sony because Emulators run on the PSP, they'de be in untested territory. Sure some lawyer might try it. That's what they do but, I'm doubtful they'd win.

Lets be concrete, what law would Sony be violating if they permitted people to write and run their own software on the PSP?

[anclunn]

They would not be violating any law. even the people behind Znes and SNes9X are not liable because their emulators can run homebrew Snes games. However, this may be because the Snes in unsupported as of now. The law might drastically change when Nintendo's backwards compadible Revolution comes out. I think this would be a very dangerous case. And further speculation is jsut that, speculation.

[mister_slim]

Flash and a nice Java sandbox would be enough, really. I'm sure they'll do that eventually.

[Rangoth]

Emulator's are only legal if they do *not* use any of the original software. Thats why Bleem was such a big deal, they reverse enginered the PS1 and it was legal. Most emulator's require the user to find the boot ROM from the original system, thus making it illegal.

What law would Sony break? Well, the parent company of whatever games were being emulated could sue Sony for lost money due to emulation. Remeber, the ROM's *are* totally illegal unless you own the game it came from.

[Meshyf]

It simply wont happen. Not to any extent that we already have with our 1.5 firmwares.

Long live homebrew its ages better then any game I could buy from sony minus Lumines

[Dracula-X]

Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, etc could never be held liable for emulators on their platform unless they sanction the emulator but allow roms to be played for which they do not have the consent of the copyright holders, or do not have license of the designers/copyright holders/patent holders of the system in question.

Emulators, despite requiring copyrighted bios roms, are legal and are never (typically, except by those warez types who flout the law) distributed with the bios roms that would put that legality in question. It is the user who bears the burden of the law by seeking the illicit roms out and using them, not the manufacturers (there is no legal precedent I'm aware of).

Bleem was only legal by virtue of the profound ineptitude of Sony's lawyers.

[Rangoth]

It was not inept lawyers that made Bleem legal you retard! It was a group of VERY talented programmers. WTF?

[Dracula-X]

It was not inept lawyers that made Bleem legal you retard! It was a group of VERY talented programmers. WTF?
Randy Linden was responsible for pretty much most of the emulator. His email was subpoena'd at the time and he was found to be in contact with people who illegally had the PS1 developer toolkit and libraries (and asking about details which are only privy to licensed developers, and these folks were subpoena'd in turn, forced to turn over their illegal material and testify), and there is a whole lot more I don't care to get into that is a matter of public record in transcripts that clearly demonstrates the ineptitude of Sony's team of lawyers. The Bleem boys got off lucky. Don't call me a retard, because you either have not one clue about what went on back then, or your tongue is permanently affixed to someone on the Bleem team's testicles.

[Rangoth]

Small people, small minds. :)

[Dracula-X]

How clever... you sure told me off. I'll run along now.