Could non-downgradable PSPs be coming to retail stores?

According to Nadclovek from PSP-Spot, new shipments of Playstation Portables will be coming to stores with a higher firmware (4.xx) They will be sold at the retail price of 169.99 CAD or around US$ 153.67. Although its a good price to par for the unit this could mean no homebrew, that brings me to the question; is it worth it?

Nadclovek says:

"Sony was sending out Emails to its Commercial Retailers that all new PSPs to be sent out will have 'Downgradable Prevention' built right into them. All new PSPs to be shipped out as of next week Friday, May 18th, will be a higher firmware, 4.xx (specifics were not released), but they were promised to include new security features to prevent hacks and downgrades. Apparently this is one of their first steps to start focusing on the PSP again, instead of diverting all attention to the PS3."

Keep in mind that this is only a rumor for now, but this would not be good if it was true because it could end any homebrew chances on new psps.

Now now, before everyone gets all teary-eyed and loses all hope for the future of psp homebrew, it's important to understand that he has a very good reason for slowing down for the time being. Fanjita has a child on the way! Fanjita is famed for the creation of the eloader and his assistance in the creation of downgraders has been exceptional. Fanjita has brought thousands of people the joy of homebrew compatibility, but for now, we will have to sit back and expect less out of him.

Do you think this is the last we will hear of Fanjita? Do you think his limited attendence is going to hurt the homebrew community? Let us know what you think!

A while back there was a discussion that took place in our forum. The issue at hand was that someone was wanting to make a request for a (user friendly) way to be able to easily change your XMB customization(s)/ themes.

Your wishes have been granted.

Using this new handy bit of homebrew is sure to be able to make a few lives a little bit easier. With XMB Theme Cycler, you are able to cycle between 3 different themes (perhaps more supported in later versions) and apparently turning off and on the psp will also automatically change your XMB theme! Good? – Bad? – well, that is for YOU to decide!

For more details, please check out the readme.txt included with the download.

Download XMB Theme Cycler

Ok… perhaps 15 hours is over the top for most of the mainstream public, but how many of you have had the psp die out on you before? For most people, the power/ battery light gets covered up by their thumb as they are playing the psp and don't ever realize that it is running out of power before it is too late. Well those days are long gone! Check out this new battery from Blue Raven. This battery, while being a bit on the large side, offers a very boastful 15 hours of battery life. Now you can feel free to take the psp on a long road trip without the need of multiple batteries. It's priced quite well too at about $100 US. That may seem steep, but keep in mind that a new battery along with a battery charger can cost $80+. Anyways, below are some statistics.

• offers 7x more battery life
• charges in roughly 5 hours
• connects to the psp easily and smoothly
• has 4500 mAh capacity as opposed to 1800 mAh

The really large downside is that this battery is a little on the large/ bulky side. However, it can be argued that this battery is setting a new standard in terms of battery life. Now you could use wifi and not worry about the psp running out of life, or perhaps this feels more comfortable in peoples' hands than normal. The one thing to make note of is that this battery is large, so fitting it in the soft stock psp case is probably not an option.

The amazing psp developer StrmnNrmn has hopes for releasing the latest and greatest Nintendo 64 emulator, Daedalus R11 next weekend. He has been working hard the past few weeks and has results to show for it:

* Streamlining the N64-format-to-PSP-format texture conversion process has halved the memory resources required for each texture, StrmnNrmn reports. Slightly faster than the previous approach, too.

* A "very simple one-line change" to the texture cache code makes the cache "100% leak-free" and a surprising 4-5% speedup.

* Last significant change is that he set a hard limit to how much memory the texture cache used. "This change means that if the limit is ever reached, I just display white textures until some texture memory is freed up a little later. Previously Daedalus would just keep allocating RAM until it ran out of memory and crashed, so the new solution is much nicer."

With the changes that he has done, StrmnNrmn says that he "can can permanently allocate 8MB for the Expansion Pak, and not worry about running out of memory(which caused crashes). A welcome side-effect to all the texture changes I've made is an approximate 5-10% speedup over R11." Strmn Nrmn has a bit of work left to do but hopes to release R11 by next weekend.

Yes, it is true. The 20GB HDD model for the PS3 has discontinued. Meaning that SONY has stopped making them. On the plus side though, SONY is now working on the 80GB HDD. Hoping that it will be more successful than the 20GB HDD was.

SONY is thinking of making the 80GB HDD a silver colour console, making it more noticeable between the 60GB and the 80GB. Looks like we are getting more than what was expected from SONY.

It's rumored that Metal Gear Solid will no longer be a PlayStation exclusive and that the fourth edition of the game MGS will make its debut on both the Xbox 360 and PC.

Sources at Konami says that they are working on putting Metal Gear Solid 4 on the Xbox 360 and PC. However, Konami has been working with Microsoft so the 360 and PC versions will both take advantage of Xbox Live and Games for Windows Live, with such features as achievements and the ability for 360 and PC owners to play against each other in multiplayer. However, they do not have an exact release date for this game.

That is all that I have read, but if you want to know more, tune in on July 11th for the next E3 show.
Then again, keep in mind that this is only rumors.