Microsoft cuts Xbox 360 price in Europe

Posted by signup

Microsoft has cut the price of the Xbox 360 in Europe to coincide with the release of the new Xbox 360 Elite.

The Core Xbox 360 will retail for £179.99 from 24 August, and the Premium edition, which includes a 20GB hard drive, wireless controller, headset and HD cables, will sell for £249.99.

The price cut follows a similar reduction earlier this month across the US and Canada.

“We are pleased to offer Xbox 360 at a new, lower estimated retail price,” said Stephen McGill, head of gaming at Xbox UK.

The jet black Xbox 360 Elite, which will retail for £299.99, packs a 120GB hard drive and HDMI support.

Source

Team M33 releases Custom Firmware 3.52’s fourth update

Posted by signup

Like a lightning bolt out of the blue, Team M33 strikes unexpectedly with their fourth update to their very own Custom Firmware 3.52. It’s not as major as the previous one, as it’s mainly a bugfix that takes care of a few nagging issues the team must have missed after they rolled out their highly-anticipated third update. In any case, let’s get to the changelog and see what’s new!

Changes in M33-4 (mainly bugfix)

* Fixed the bug that caused CRC error when writing to flash usb in the XMB. Now writing is OK.
* Added the new speeds to vshmenu and core, because we forgot in recovery.

Also, a few notes from Team M33:

* As we didn’t want to release a new update without something new, we worked in making 3.10/3.11 to work with popsloader, and that’s it, the new popsloader plugins supports them.
* Instruction for 3.10 and 3.11 are same as 3.30: you need pops.prx, popsman.prx and pafmini.prx with the correct names in popsloader directory. And remember that savedata of 3.10-3.30 are incompatiblewith those of 3.40+. We’ll research if a solution for this is possible.

Not a very long list of changes, but very considerate of Team M33 to put out an update so that PSP homebrew enthusiasts would have a better time with their CFW. As usual, please, please, read the relevant readme files included in the zip archive before you do anything. Installing something that tinkers with your PSP’s firmware without the required knowledge and information could result in a bricked handheld, and loss of portable gaming joy. It will not be pretty.

And as always, if you have some cash to spare, why not make a donation to Team M33’s Paypal account? It’d certainly help.

Source

Nintendo DS emulation on PSP

Posted by multippt

Rumor has it that there is a working prototype on a Nintendo DS emulator for the PSP. While it isn’t working 100% on all games, it is nonetheless an achievement. However, this emulator is not available, and is also “illegal” because it utilizes the BIOS from the Nintendo DS. Now, the biggest question is - how is the emulator going to emulate the most touted feature on the DS - the touchscreen, on the PSP?

Via PSPupdates [QJ]

PSP may officially support homebrew in the future

Posted by multippt

Homebrew has pretty much unlocked the PSP and enabled it to be utilized beyond what Sony has ever done. In fact, it is not too surprising that Sony themselves actually got inspired by some things homebrew managed to do, say the RSS feature in firmware 2.60. This time, word has come from the top “wise men” (i.e. the heads) of Sony, that they may allow for homebrew in the future. Quoted from Jack Tretton (top of the top Sony management): “I think it is something that is in the works; We will certainly see some of the stuff that has been done via homebrew, and it’s incredibly creative. I think we’d like to try and tap into that a little bit more.”.

Sony, normally seen as a large antagonist to the homebrew scene, isn’t all that anti-homebrew after all. While they have been releasing patch after patch to stop homebrew in its tracks, they did it to protect the consumer’s precious gadget. Dave Karraker (Senior director of corporate communications with Sony) stated that there is one big problem to overcome before they can enable homebrew - figuring out how to support the new content yet not putting the PSP at risk. After all, “some hacker wants to brick your baby for fun”.

Via IGN, QJ

PSP official firmware 3.52

Posted by multippt

Looks like Sony is still keeping up with its firmware updates. With its release of the PS3’s new firmware - 1.90, a PSP update usually follows, and this time its 3.52. This firmware changelog (compared to 3.51) is as followed:
-Increase in performance of PlayStation Network titles (probably)

This update is available from the official Sony Japan site.
*The update, just like the previous firmware 3.51, does not support homebrew.

PSP 2000 - Some intriguing details

Posted by multippt

Sony has decided to reveal a prototype of a possible successor to the current PSP, dubbed as PSP 2000. A rough look at the specifications can tell that this new PSP would boast several nicer features over the older one.

Here are some of the more significant changes:
-Increase in internal memory: from 32mb to 64mb
-Brighter screen
-Faster load time
-Improved battery life
-Video-out port
-Change in location of Wifi switch
-Removal of the IR port (since its not officially used by the original PSP at all)
-Change in design: The new model is lighter and slimer
-Change in motherboard: TA-85

Some things that remained the same:
-Overall design [looks almost the same, except for some slight differences]
-CPU

Another thing to note is that the PSP 2000 model in E3 might be using firmware 3.60 (which is not even out yet).

Older versions of the PSP are no longer manufactured, in favor of the newer models. The older versions would eventually be sold out, before Sony starts selling the newer PSP.

The new PSPs are expected to be priced at a higher cost, with the core edition (game console only) being roughly the same price compared to that of the earlier PSP normal pack (the core pack is cheaper).

Via Engadget

Lumines patched - Forces update to 3.51

Posted by multippt

In a swift move by Sony and Ubisoft, copies of Lumines now appear to require an update to 3.51, the only firmware where homebrew cannot run. While this is in effect in Japan, such copies may soon arrive in Europe and USA as well.

If you want to run homebrew on firmwares 3.11-3.50, you would need the unpatched copy of Lumines (Launch Title, no firmware update required). Its not known if the exploit may still work if the update restriction is bypassed (say with the help of 2.71 OE-B”).

The patched version of Lumines have the following serial no. found on the UMD:
-ULS19005

What’s interesting is that while it took RockStar and Sony 6 months to patch the GTA: LCS game, it took only Ubisoft and Sony a few days to do the same (though maybe through an indirect approach by forcing users to update to the latest firmware).

Firmware 3.51 does not offer anything new in terms of features compared to 3.50 (aside from an icon that said “Coming Soon” when accessed, and a security fix on the Illuminati Exploit). The new copy of Lumines still function the same as the original, except with the inability to run homebrew.