I haven't run the update to 3.03oe-C yet (or whatever it's called), but I am really enjoying messing around with all of this stuff.

I used various tools to rip the background music out of some PS1 games, and managed to shrink "Castlevania SOTN" down to about 30MB! Why? I'm still using a 128MB memory stick!

I actually somewhat feel bad for Sony... the PSP is an awesome piece of hardware that they're selling at a loss... and now no one is buying the official UMDs! it's all being used for media or homebrew or PS1 emulation. Sigh.

I will agree that reqauiring a PS3 to run PS1 games on the PSP was a ridiculous idea. Still, it's not as if the firmware updates haven't done ANYTHING but cripple homebrew. Compared to the way this thing shipped, it certainly has MANY more features now under 3.03.

No console in history has ever openly encouraged homebrew/iso loading/emu software for the masses... even the precious "consumer friendly" xbox line basically marks your breast with a scarlet P if you try and link to LIVE with a box modified in any fashion.

I'm enjoying the extra homebrew features of my PSP, but like I said, I DO somewhat feel bad. If you don't think the ISO scene is doing any damage, I've got a usenet group and several dozen torrent sites I can point you to. They made this thing open enough to have all these extra features, and now it's coming back to bite them in the ass with such low software sales.

Why do I feel bad? Mostly because I don't want this thing to go under.

I have both a PS3 and a PSP. If they actually had more than five PS1 games available in their Playstation store, I probably wouldn't be looking for 'an unpatched copy of GTA: LCS' right now.

I have never bothered modding my PSP; I still own all of the PS1 games I really want to play, and most of the other advantages are covered by other devices I own.

I'm absolutely with Fedaykin98; I would gladly pay full price for UMDs if they ever released any games I actually wanted to play. The last PSP game I got was in September, when my wife bought me LocoRoco as a birthday present. The thinking was "Wow, a fairly original concept on the PSP!"

Shooters, racing games, football games...all of these come out in bucketloads on home consoles, and the PSP versions of big franchises like GTA and MGS are only ever stripped down shadows of the what they could be. Syphon Filter is a case in point; I really enjoyed the PSP game, but in the back of my mind, I just kept thinking "This could be so much better if they had made it on the bigger machine". Same for Daxter, and so on. Even my Lumines addiction is now sated by the Xbox Arcade version. Portability is all well and good, but we need more original games, which is exactly where the DS wins.

When I opened my nice shiny new PSP on launch day, I though that the ugly sister DS would never see the light of day again, but she had scrubbed up surprisingly well, and continues to enthrall me.

I'm not a huge fan of Sony as it goes, but I would quite gladly give them my money if they would just do something to deserve it!

And I agree, btw, that the biggest problem is the software. From what I can see. I don't think piracy is happening because people just hate buying games. I think it's happening because Sony is selling a large number of ports for as much or sometimes more than their PS2 counterparts. That's ridiculous.

And for the record, now that I've owned both systems, I much prefer the library of the PSP. Even the 4 games I own are more fun than most games I had on the DS. Only the first Castlevania and Ouendan even came close. But between the load times and the overall lack of original software, I can see why people turn to "homebrew". I'm personally content. But I'd be even more content if I could go on the Internet with my PC, buy a copy of SoTN and drop it onto my PSP.

Yeah. That's definitely interesting to me. I have 4 games now and I'd love to not have to actually pack around the UMDs. But the bigger draw was when someone mentioned Symphony.

See. Thing is I'd happily pay for all of this. FFT is coming out. I plan on buying that. Symphony of the Night isn't on its way as far as I know.

So people bitch about all the PSP "ports," yet demand FFT, Castlevania SOTN, etc.

Just kidding. I'm not going to get into this whole debate again about how the library has no games worth buying... tastes vary, obviously.

I DO want to pimp an original PSP game that I've been enjoying a lot lately--

EXIT

I thought the game looked interesting before it came out, yet the seemingly mediocre review scores kept me away (77% at metacritic). I recently picked it up, though, and I think it's a very original game that's a lot of fun in short bursts.

it's only $20 at most places, too. Good stuff.

Sorry to double post, but I want to point out that I'm actually ASKING for more ports for the PSP, and have been the whole time - portable Disgaea and FF Tactics have been my holy grails. I'm holding off on FFT PS1 in order to buy the spiffed-up UMD version.

I actually really dig ports of GOOD games on portable systems - Super Mario 3 and the SNES Zelda on GBA are fantastic, imho.

The PSP needs more ports!!!!

CASTLEVANIA: SOTN is the only C-Vania game I have EVER played all the way through. I played it on the PS1 when it first came out, and I am having fun playing it now on my PSP... GREAT stuff. So much better than the GBA or DS games.

I really gotta buy a 2-4GB memory stick one of these days so I don't have to keep ripping the music out

That's what Blockbuster is for, m'man.

have you been using compression at all with that ISO and the other EBOOTS?

I agree with Fedaykin98 bring on the ports, as long as they are well done. I think the main problem with a lot of the games which are ports is that they aren't really tuned for the machine (long load times and akward controls are typical).
Other than that I'm still enjoying the system immensely....course psx emulation and gba emulation are helping that a lot.
The only other thing I could really want for it, is an easier way to get tv shows onto the system. Maybe its easier now that I'm using the current firmware. I should investigate that.

Depends on the game. I've seen them as little as 30 megs to a little over a gig.

re: updates

depends on how BIG an update it is. Major updates require a copy of the 1.50 firmware, and the current one (3.03 or whatever)... and they come with very comprehensive read-me files that explain it all. For smaller updates, you just have to transfer a simple file to the PSP and run it. It's really not a huge deal.

Fedaykin98-- you can compress the PSP ISOs using a program like YACC to compress the ISO down into a "CSO." The custom firmware can run those just fine (put them in the same ISO folder).