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tiberius · Joined: 24 Nov 2006 Posts: 6

A couple of friends and I were making this for a publisher (seriously) until a new (to us) producer/v.p. decided to kick us to the curb and bring in someone new.

Anyway, it was made using mostly homebrew tools for the PSP, and very well may get dumped into the wild as a free homebrew game (it was developed with homebrew tools), though lacking many of the features we had originally planned.

tiberius · Joined: 24 Nov 2006 Posts: 6

dot_blank · Joined: 28 Sep 2005 Posts: 498 Location: Brasil

sorry for your turn of events

now release source to get back at your ex-boss :)
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jas0nuk · Joined: 27 Apr 2006 Posts: 137

Very nice :)

J.F. · Joined: 22 Feb 2004 Posts: 2906

Holy CR@P! That's really great! I love bowling games, and that looks like one of the finest I've seen.

Art · Joined: 09 Nov 2005 Posts: 647

Yeah, if it plays as good as it looks we're in for a treat.
Perhaps you could suggest and accept donations for it.

tiberius · Joined: 24 Nov 2006 Posts: 6

Thanks for the compliments, everyone.

There are some issues with getting the game out to the homebrew community that are holding things up.

First, there is some proprietary code in there that we aren't really at liberty to just hand out, so making the whole thing open source is unlikely, at least for now.

Second, it was all done under firmware 1.0, so other firmware revisions will almost certainly be unable to run the game. That could be fixed, but would require a TON of effort, and we are cash and time poor at the moment. If Sony wanted to let us release it as a free gift to all PSP owners, homebrew and otherwise, that would be one thing, but knowing Sony, I don't see that happening.

However, if you do have firmware 1.0, email me at jmlongworth@earthlink.net and I'll look into hooking you up with th current build.

tabularasa · Joined: 22 Nov 2006 Posts: 13

Why not releasing this game for firmware 1.5? I guess more people would be interested then. What programming language do you guys use? And what kind of sdk?

tiberius · Joined: 24 Nov 2006 Posts: 6

A number of important dev tools only run under 1.0, but to be honest, we haven't even tried to run it under any other revision. It might work, but our lead is very doubtful and tells me that changes would be a huge hassle. It's mainly a no time/money problem now.

cools · Joined: 04 Mar 2006 Posts: 46

This looks so cool! It's got to be kinda large, how many meg is it? (I'm thinking its a lot, maybe not)

Tinnus · Joined: 29 Jul 2006 Posts: 67

Did you just try to run it in a 1.5 PSP for instance? Mine is free for testing, I'd love a bowling game too :P

I can't see why something wouldn't work on 1.5 but work on 1.0.

In any case, why not just TRY?
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Let's see what the PSP reserves... well, I'd say anything is better than Palm OS.

Art · Joined: 09 Nov 2005 Posts: 647

1.00 fw might be able to be emulated, but since there is no eboot available,
sharing the dumped flash0 & flash1 folders would also be a legal issue.

tiberius · Joined: 24 Nov 2006 Posts: 6

Our crackerjack legal adviser is giving the release a thumbs down thanks to an old agreement we signed with Sony back when we were doing PS2 stuff that prohibits our sharing technical info or distributing software for Sony platforms without Sony's express permission. Now, while this seems to almost certainly kill any hope for making the whole thing open source, it doesn't quite mean we can't give it out. The agreement may only apply to software "for sale" and, even if it is broader than that, may not restrict the number of testers (a sort of open beta).

Of course, we could approach Sony about making this a freebie, but I can almost 100% guarantee they would shoot it down, no matter how much we assured them we had the code locked up tight. You see, someone might crack our protection and use that code to start writing their own stuff, call it homebrew, if you will. They might even find ways to crack firmware 1.0. That might lead to piracy and the loss of market share, giving competitors like Nintendo a chance to regain their footing and get the DS back on track.

Oh, wait...forget that.

Art · Joined: 09 Nov 2005 Posts: 647

Were you evolution corporation by any chance?
Another PS2 dev team I know of that got ripped.

Crack firmware 1.00? lol. Someone might even write an ISO loader one day.

Are they really that concerned about homebrew?
I really thought they might have respected the good ones,
since they have sometimes copied ideas from homebrew.
or seemingly been inspired by homebrew (no coldboot intro startup option for 3.00 & custom theme for 2.00 and above for example.)

Art · Joined: 09 Nov 2005 Posts: 647

Were you evolution corporation by any chance?
Crack firmware 1.00? lol. Someone might even write an ISO loader one day.

Are they really that concerned about homebrew?
I really thought they might have respected the good ones,
since they have sometimes copied ideas from homebrew.
or seemingly been inspired by homebrew (no coldboot intro startup option for 3.00 & custom theme for 2.00 and above for example.)

There is a 1.00 downdater that can dump 1.00 firmware with it's
'helper' program. I'll bet that can be run under a firmware launcher,
and the extra 16Mb or so wouldn't be an issue considering the size of a commercial game.

tiberius · Joined: 24 Nov 2006 Posts: 6

No, we're not Evolution Corp.

Sony, and believe me, Nintendo and Microsoft aren't all that different, wants to maintain a high level of control over their product and the content that gets distributed on it.

For one thing, there is the obvious profit motive. They get a piece of everything sold, and if homebrew started to really get out there with superior, free alternatives, it might hurt sales (ludicrous, I know, given the size of the homebrew community, but Linux is probably the model for this line of thought).

Second there is the issue of legal responsibility. If Sony openly endorses or encourages homebrew on the PSP, they may make themselves vulnerable to lawsuits if UMD movie ripping software starts going around or viruses start to pop up and brick people's hardware. As long as they disavow all of it, they can maintain a "use at your own risk" policy.

Finally there is simply the Sony classic corporate mentality that looks upon homebrew as a loss of control, power, and prestige. Every time a firmware revision gets cracked Sony looks stupid (not that they need help lately...cough...rootkit...cough...cough).

So while at some levels of the Sony monolith you may find people willing to tolerate homebrew off the record, the higher you go the more likely it is you will find disdain and outright hostility.

zshadow · Joined: 26 Dec 2005 Posts: 42

If you'd like, I can test it under 1.5. Chances are it'd work.. everything that was on a previous firmware is generally available on the next. The official games that required 1.0 still work on 2.8 and so on.. of course, you didn't use the official SDK so that might not be the case.. worth a try though.

pspwill · Joined: 17 Nov 2005 Posts: 51

I have a 1.0 and am more than willing to test it :)

Debug · Joined: 06 Oct 2005 Posts: 16

If it was made using homebrew tools then why would sony have a say on your releasing it?
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Art · Joined: 09 Nov 2005 Posts: 647

Tinnus · Joined: 29 Jul 2006 Posts: 67

What's the problem with just releasing the binary part though?
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Let's see what the PSP reserves... well, I'd say anything is better than Palm OS.