MGS4 is on the Xbox 360. NOT.

I’m sorry to say this to you Xbox fans about hearing MGS4 being on the Xbox 360. Well that is just a rumor people and nothing more. Here is the statement from Konami.

Konami issued the following statement: “For the record, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is a PS3 exclusive and there are no plans to develop an Xbox 360 version of the game.”
So if you guys got your hopes up too bad because the only way to play one of the greatest video game series is to purchase a PS3 and get it that is the only way for now.

PSP mod: internal USB mass storage up to 30GB

Here’s a rather tricky question for all PlayStation Portable owners: Are you willing to sacrifice access to the UMD drive of your Sony handheld in exchange for more internal storage amounting up to 30GB?

Well, if you answered yes, then this mod is for you  —-> http://pspupdates.qj.net/Latest-F00-f00-PSP-mod-USB-charging-dual-nub-etc-/pg/49/aid/108896. Tony Hoang (aka PvP) of popular console modification website AcidMods has just created exactly that. He explained that he initially went for an internal wiring but the circuit gets messed up when he connects it to the PC.

3.80 M33 CFW Works But is yet to be released

More good news about the highly-anticipated Sony PlayStation Portable 3.80 M33 custom firmware, and this bit comes directly from none other than Mathieulh himself. It seems that as of this writing, the unreleased custom firmware is already in proper working order and boots perfectly. It runs all existing homebrew program in User Mode as well. This in itself should already be great news, as we’re pretty much guaranteed a safe, non-bricking and still awesome CFW to play with. Why, then, isn’t it released yet?

Mathieulh reports that there are still something that Dark AleX needs to iron out before declaring 3.80 M33 a finished product – namely, the NIDs Resolver that allows the launch of homebrew programs in Kernel mode. It will also help in making sure that all the plug-ins present will be usable without any extensive modifications. It’s safe to say that while this doesn’t sound like much, it’s still a very important (and very time-exhaustive) thing to work on, so we’ll just have to be patient until DAX ties up all the loose ends.

WARNING !!! Unrecoverable bricks signaled on 3.71 M33 !!!

From the sounds of it, it is now possible to cause a FULL UNRECOVERABLE brick on your 3.71 M33-2 PSP.

Symptoms:

You used USB flash access to write something to flash0/1/2/3, either in recovery or in VSH after re-routing USB. Although Dark_AleX fixed the bug that was present in 3.60 M33 and 3.71 M33-1 (which caused files larger than approx. 60kb to be corrupted), flash writing is still unreliable. It seems the nand partitioning is messed up after a USB flash write.

After flash access through USB, you either get an infinite BSOD or a PSP that doesn’t boot at all. The PSP can’t be recovered by Pandora or any of the Cemetery sticks!

Precautions:
Don’t use USB flash write access when on 3.71 M33-2 until further notice! If you did and you get a BSOD, don’t press O! It will cause an infinite BSOD loop that can’t be fixed. According to some reports in other threads, when you hard power off your PSP at the BSOD (power switch or battery out) you have a small chance to get the PSP booting again, but some things will not function since flash1 is not correctly initialized. Probably a “restore default settings” may fix this, otherwise, try the flash1 format from recovery.

Solutions:
When you have a working full nand dump safely stored somewhere, use the Cemetery V3 stick to restore it to your PSP. On the fat, you can also use Cory’s upNandTool or a similar tool, on the slim you can also use Cemetery V1 or V2. Don’t try to use Pandora, because it does a logical restore and for this problem, you need a physical restore. Remember that it’s impossible to restore any other PSP’s nand dump, because you will screw up IDStorage beyond any repair!!!

When you don’t have a nand backup but your PSP is a fat, get a nand backup from another PSP. It may be of any fw version, although only 1.50 will boot instantly. The important part is the partitioning, not the nand contents. Before doing anything to your bricked PSP, use Pandora or any Cemetery stick to create a full backup of your nand! Store it safely on your PC, and maybe a copy on another media. After making sure your nand backup is safe, use Cemetery V3 to restore the other nand dump. Pandora will not work because you need a physical restore, not a logical. When you restored a 1.50 dump, your PSP should now boot again. With any other firmware, it will still be a brick. You should now be able to use Pandora or Cemetery to unbrick it. All that remains is to restore your own IDStorage, or your PSP will be homebrew only. Use the dump you created from your own bricked PSP and Cory’s upNandTool to restore IDStorage only without overwriting the other nand contents. Now your PSP should be fully functional again.

When you don’t have a nand backup and your PSP is a slim, you’re screwed. Restoring another PSP’s nand dump won’t work because of the protections Sony added to the slim on nand level, including signing and encryption. If you still want to give it a go, you can try the procedure described above for the fat. But use the 64M version of upNandTool instead. And only use another slim’s nand dump, a fat’s dump will definitely not work.

FINAL WARNING !!!
Especially on the Slim, before doing anything that writes to your nand (including regular updates), create a nand dump! Store it on your PC and on another media and make sure it’s safe! Currently it’s your only chance of unbricking a full brick!

Unofficial gpsp Multiplayer Not Far Away

It appears that developer Takka has something big in store for the Unofficial gpSP Kai Gameboy Advance Emulator for the Sony PSP. The coder updated his dev site with some of his upcoming plans for gpSP Kai, including the implementation of a multiplayer function. Here are the author’s notes (Via Google translate):

Communication functions implemented on the situation, because there was a comment a few points of the report and the current situation.

Now,

* Other menu from the search connection PSP (two.)
* WLAN, send and receive data

So far end, and now

* GBA cable for multi-mode communications using the two communications functions

To implement.

The turn of the year, some of the games in two of communications capabilities to be able to use it to the public as possible.

From what we gather from these translations, Takka appears to be planning to implement the function into two GBA games by next year. Do keep in mind that this appears to be an initial announcement – we’ll let you know if the developer follows through with these plan in the form of a new Unofficial gpSP Kai release.

there are rumors on the net that pokemon ruby has been successful with 2 play trading!

Sony considering PSN subscriptions

It looks like Sony may be investigating a subscription service for the Playstation Store. In a recent survey (http://asia.playstation.com/playstationstore_pc_ques/index.php) , they asked which offers that you, the consumer, would be more interested in, and one of the options was a “Monthly subscription plan”, meaning a set price and then unlimited downloads for that period. The survey does mention the PC Store specifically, so it appears we’re talking about PSP and PSOne games.

Siliconera (http://www.siliconera.com/2008/01/02/sony-considering-a-subscription-service-for-the-playstation-store/) via Kotaku (http://kotaku.com/339850/sony-considers-offering-psn-subscriptions)

DMC4’s huge HDD install.

We have learned a couple of exciting things. It seems like the long awaited DMC4 needs alot of memory. For a HDD install it is a whopping 4900MBs which is practically 4.9GBs. Save files are a whopping 3392KBs which is practically around 3MBs. Some PSN support and 5.1 LPCM audio. Who really cares about the save files and the audio. PSN support we can care about,but the HDD install is something we really have to care about. So if this info is right then make sure you don’t start stocking up on every demo that comes out. Leave a little space for this installation.

For you MGS fans.

Gamestop is taking preorders so that you can reserve MGS4 for the PS3.They said that it will come out June 17 and if they are right then all we have to do is wait around 5 more months and it is here.Just hope it dossn’t get delayed so that we can play the long awaited MGS4.

Unit sales in the Last week

System Sales for the Week

1. Nintendo DS Lite – 222,132
2. PSP – 184,610
3. Wii – 170,558
4. PlayStation 3 – 63,720
5. PlayStation 2 – 18,025
6. Xbox 360 – 8,561

Nintendo software is ruling Japan at the moment owning nine of the top ten spots.

System Sales Week

1. Mario Party DS – Nintendo DS – 180,000
2. Wii Fit – Wii – 124,000
3. Gran Turismo 5 Prologue – PS3 – 116,000
4. Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box – Nintendo DS – 74,000
5. Super Mario Galaxy – Wii – 74,000
6. Dragon Quest IV – Nintendo DS – 73,000
7. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games – Wii – 64,000
8. Wii Sports – Wii – 55,000
9. Wii Play – Wii – 54,696
10. Chocobo’s Mysterious Dungeon – Nintendo DS – 40,580

Cmon PSP!!!

Sony Bringing Skype to PSP

According to Sony’s CES (Consumer Electronics Show) website, they will be bringing Skype to the PSP. Under the PSP’s feature set, Sony has listed:
Call friends, talk trash to fellow gamers or catch up with acquaintances via Skype for PSP system.
Skype on the PSP would be super hot, since it’s an internet phone service that can make free internet to internet calls, or inexpensive internet to phone calls (and it’s video enabled on PCs). With sexy enough integration into the PSP, it could sway people to make a call on the PSP rather than their cellphone when around Wi-Fi hotspots…if only the PSP handled Wi-Fi as well as a PC. CES kicks off next week and we’ll surely have some more details on the venture then.