PSP as a platform for unofficial software
By Osma on Wednesday 1 February 2006, 11:43 - Permalink
Yesterday saw the news of yet another hack for running homebrew software on the PSP, this time exploiting a bug in GTA: Liberty City Stories, and demonstrating once again (this is the fourth time with PSP, I think) how pointless it really is to pursue the possibility of denying consumers from being able to use these and similar devices for unplanned purposes. Furthermore, I just do not buy in to the official argument of controlling piracy in this case - with the cost of the original UMD being lower than a MemoryStick large enough to contain a copy, and the huge inconveniences related to running anything but UMD content, I think piracy is controlled well enough by the physical media.
What I think really lies behind all these efforts by Sony to deny access to the device from hobbyists is the fear that the unlicensed content (NOT pirated) they might be able to create would dig into the sales of licensed games. Ie, DRM on the PSP exists as a barrier to entry to independent developers. And we've seen time and time again how open platforms create more interesting innovations in the long run.
Personally, now that I finally received my PSP back from warranty repair, I'm going to be experimenting with turning it into a home theater remote control. For that, I don't even need to hack it to run homebrew software - the built in web browser will serve just fine.
In the meantime, I'm also looking forward to getting to play with GTA how it was intended, not as a platform for launching other stuff.