Interview with a homebrewer

by Andrew Yoon { Jul 14th 2006 at 1:10PM }

Homebrew is a huge part of the hardcore PSP scene. But, it's pretty obvious why Sony's trying to battle it as hard as they can. Sony would be in an even greater world of legal hurt if it allowed easy access to pirated material. Also, what kind of confidence would publishers have in the PSP platform if people don't actually buy games for it? While many can see the reasoning behind Sony's efforts, what's the inspiration behind the incredible dedication of the PSP homebrew community? DCEmu recently interviewed a coder that goes by the name of ZX-81, who is considered one of the most prolific coders of PSP homebrew. Some of the interesting points in the interview:

ZX-81 started coding for the PSP when his friend showed him other homebrew applications running on the system.
He believes the PSP scene is "fantastic," with an active, helpful international community.
He has only bought one PSP game: Grand Theft Auto, in order to run homebrew.

While the interview is interesting, it's also distressing to a gamer like myself. I didn't buy a PSP to illegally emulate games... I bought it for some high-quality portable gaming. If PSP gamers like ZX-81 don't buy games, do you think homebrew is helping... or hurting the PSP?

Tags: emulation, homebrew, piracy, pspvba, zx-81

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

UrbanBroccoli @ Jul 14th 2006 3:05PM

Hmmmmmm... I'm yet to dive into the Homebrew scene, despite it's attractive zeal, so I may not have the best perspective, but I think that this could cause problems and be a little more of downer for the PSP. Here's how I think of it, you have a handful of 'Homebrewers' working to create ports and rip game files and such. Cool, inexpensive, and a way to use your PSP in more ways than Sony offers. BUT, wouldn't you rather have big game companies with millions of dollars in their budget puting their time and effort into creating a stand out game that will help get PSP's off the shelves? What if these companies are turned off because of the lack of game sales? I choose these large developers to create the next biggest thing for our portable over the handful of Homebrewers. I believe these companies are the future of the PSP. And I think we need to support them by buying their products. Maybe I'm a tool, but I think its these companies, and not the homebrew scene, that will create the standout game for our system.

bluetrane @ Jul 14th 2006 3:19PM

I just bought a PSP to run homebrew (read snes) i think hardware wise the system is fantastic but lack in gaming content in a big way.

I also own a DS lite and phat. I bought those to play DS games. the games sell the system.

I think emulating PS1 games on the PSP(legally) is a smart move for Sony because that game library is worth playing.

i think the only PSP game i'd even conider trying are the megaman remakes and street fighter. pretty weaksauce

porter01 @ Jul 14th 2006 3:24PM

Homebrew is definately not a neccesity for the PSP. Like you said, it's for games.. and I think that the already equipped "homebrew functionality" of playing videos, mp3 and surfing the web is more than enough for a video game system.

apoch @ Jul 14th 2006 4:16PM

I think that the main thing that is hurting the PSP is the lack of quality games that have been released. There aren't nearly as many Nintendo DS homebrew resources available, and I think that is because the DS has better legitimate games available. If there were more quality games available for PSP, that really made use of the PSP's rich set of features, I think that less people would homebrew in order to get real value out of their PSP purchase.

Matt @ Jul 14th 2006 5:34PM

I'd have to argue that 50% of the PSP 'homebrew' is homebrew for the sake of homebrew (read hacks like devhook, mph loader, blah blah) or ports of emulators to play illegal games.

Besides a few true homebrew apps like psp ir, squarez, smash gpsp, and mario war...the PSP homebrew scene has much less actual 'homebrew' than the DS scene.

Just a bunch of pirates.

Jared @ Jul 14th 2006 6:59PM

The PSP doesn't need homebrew? The overall library is pretty much despised by most gamers.
ZX-81 seems a pretty nice guy. I don't think he promotes illegally downloading PSP games. (Which is a pretty lame thing to do, download games directly available.) He just ports emulators, as far as I know. People at QJ were giving him alot of shit for porting older consoles, but he's a great coder easy to respect.

Tiago @ Jul 14th 2006 9:01PM

Homebrew... bunch a pirates >.<

I'd really turn to homebrew if there was something actually worth going for. Right now it's just pirate crap for run illegal software (and I'm not even talking about emulators...)

I wonder why Sony doesn't dig up a kind of net yaroze thingie for the psp...
That would saciate homebrew needs and shut up a lot of pirates disguising as homebrewers.

David @ Jul 14th 2006 11:13PM

Your nieve if you think all homebrewers are pirates. Yes there are some but most aren't. I think it's great that you can play snes portable and other classic consoles. I paid 250 dollars for a console that was supposto be ps2 quality games portable. And few games have delivered, we had another GTA.. best thing about it is to be able to use homebrew and the multiplayer was descent. The only 2 games that delivered ps2 quality were daxter and syphoon filter which would have been amazing had sony included 2 analog sticks. And I think that the homebrew scene is hurting the sales of games because people dont wana upgrade to play a game. So they decide to stick with emulators. On the flipside the DS which is roughly 100 dollars cheaper. And the games are cheaper, and the games are great. In closing I paid 250 for ps2 quality portable and it has yet to deliver so I decided to play all the retro stuff.

Extinction @ Jul 15th 2006 2:21PM

"The PSP doesn't need homebrew? The overall library is pretty much despised by most gamers."

You're full of crap. PSP has tons of great games. I for one feel the DS's library is full of crap

Jared @ Jul 16th 2006 9:38AM

And I'd agree. I love the PSP. I like the media features and the homebrew. But I don't think either systems deliver on games.

SuicideNinja @ Jul 16th 2006 2:09PM

Yet again, Sony has done it to themselves with the PSP. The UMD format was a mistake, and a serious lack of content left people's 1/4 of a grand purchase collecting dust.

Once you find homebrew, you don't want to get rid of it. Emulators are great. But the desire for homebrew leaves a bunch of owners not willing to dump their v1.5 PSP firmware, so they have no motivation to buy games that won't work for the system.

Once v2.71 emulation came along I'm happy (for now). Now I can actually play games without updating my firmware. My room mate's have a few I can finally try out, and I can buy some games that have dropped in price.

JacKal @ Jul 16th 2006 6:35PM

I'm part of the homebrew dev scene... for one thing, it's just fun to hack things out and figure things out on the psp platform, software-wise. PSP is a very viable system compared to the nintendo DS. Basically how homebrew goes is strictly runtime/software is mostly what people do for the PSP... It already does nifty things like webbrowsing and whatnot... there's not so much that the system doesn't already do, so people come up with other things like media players and emulators. The DS on the other hand already runs GBA games, so no need for a 'gba' emulator... and most early DS games are N64-like ports, so not much need for N64 emulator. The DS is mostly for the hardware/software homebrew scene, since it's real power is it's cheapness and flexible hardware and ARM components. You don't see people making a camera for the PSP, sony is already making one. Nintendo isn't/wouldn't/shouldn't make a camera for the DS, hence people are making a camera for their DS Lites by just hacking out electrical stuff together. I've seen homebrew with people haveing their DS built into a robotic hardware body configuration, and they control it via the wifi connection as remote. Again, DS is a nice toy for hardware, like legos. And again, it has many of it's gaming purposes already decided by Nintendo and supported as such. The PSP is a very powerful piece of hardware, with Sony backing up all the 'feature' sets, so hence not so much need for other people to be making useful feature-wise in homebrew. Yet, a lot of PSP users aren't feeling the direct value of their extensive purchase. Hence? Homebrew games, emulation, pirated isos.

It's really not about what's better or not, but what they are supported for. Nintendo is JUST coming out with a web browser, whereas PSP had one almost from the get-go. Movies are readily supported in UMD for PSP whereas media players for the DS are really almost useless as they are GBA quality crystal engine compression. Nintendo has implemented lots of good ports as well as unique games and fun multiplayer over wifi, whereas PSP still struggles to come up with some kind of true dedicated infrastructure, mostly relying on ad-hoc multiplayer options, and fewer good multiplayer games.

To sum it up, PSP is backed up entirely by powerful hardware and feature sets, and hence people are instead making and ripping games. DS is backed up entirely by fun and unique games, and hence people are trying to exploit its hardware capabilities beyond what Nintendo had intended. It's really about what the company is trying to support the system for. All the complaining about games is really moot. Get your system for what it's intended, and homebrew will always be there to fill the other gaps, because we all like to make things do the unintended.