While at PAX East yesterday I had the opportunity to interview Erik Wolpaw, a writer for Portal 2. Sadly I had left my recorder at home so I was unable to record the conversation. One of my first questions pertained to the game’s length, something which was hinted at during the PAX demo. While the original Portal was thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish, the game itself was relatively short. For the sequel Wolpaw gave me a rough estimate of about 5 times longer, including the new co-operative mode.

You can catch more information, including the difficulty of the game and how PC users will be rewarded with the game following their PS3 purchase.

One of my main concerns about Portal 2 after seeing the various trailers is how complex the game will be with the new game elements. Some of these new elements include repulsion gel, propulsion gel, excursion funnel, aerial faith plates, etc. So with all these new elements being introduced the puzzles will undoubtedly become more complex and confusing, or that’s what one would think.

Wolpaw assured me however that throughout development they had this in mind constantly. Just like the first game, the players will be eased into the game and if you’ve played through the game since the beginning you shouldn’t have any problems with the puzzles. It was one of my biggest concerns about the game and I was glad to hear it wouldn’t be as difficult or complex as expected.

Finally I inquired about the deal involving a free version of Portal 2 for the PC when you purchase the PS3 version and how you’ll be rewarded the PC version. It’s a relatively simple process, just log into your Steam account with Portal 2 on the PS3 and you’re account will be automatically be gifted with the PC version. So of course that means you’ll have to have a PS3 in order to unlock the PC version.

Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime isn’t breaking a sweat over the immient release of Modern Warfare 2 on competing platforms. In fact, he feels Nintendo has an answer, which is none other than New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

Speaking in a GTTV interview, Reggie noted his belief that the retro styled gameplay will make it a bit hit among the Wii crowd this holiday season. While admitting it will be close, he feels confident that our favorite Italian plumber will edge past MW2 sales, at least on a singe platform.

We’re sure Activision is quaking in its boots. Watch for yourself in the clip above.

All credit goes to jx for conducting the interview and of course thanks to Hellcat for sharing his valuable time.

See the full interview after the break. Check out previous eXophase.com interviews with well-known sceners like Chilly Willy and Mathieulh by hitting up our interview section.

jx233: Tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from and what are your interests / hobbies?
Hellcat: Well, as quite some already gathered I’m from the land with the horrible TV program…. Germany.
Which already has us at my interests, I enjoy quite a lot of TV shows like Stargate, NCIS, House MD, Doctor Who…. well the list could go on to infinity and beyond but as one can see I’m a big SciFi fan I usually try to get my hand on those shows in their original language (=english) as I can’t stand the german syncs and can enjoy them way better this way.
Apart from that I enjoy hanging out with my friends, going to the cinema and – quite obviously – computers and video games

jx233: Who are you in the real world? Student, worker, retired? (retired is stupid question but that for laughs)
Hellcat: I’m a simple worker with a simple job, nothing special.
There really isn’t much to tell about that, it happens quite often that I have to work some more hours till getting home, which leaves less free time which again means less time for making stuff (for the PSP for example).
But the money for all the hobbies has to come from somewhere Maybe one day I’ll get my foot into professional game development…. would be great

jx233: Explain to us about your username, why did you use that one?
Hellcat: That started ages ago…. back on the Amiga computer we had a little “two man group” (a buddy and me). We didn’t do much stuff, just a few intros and such. But also for that we needed some cool nicknames. After 315 ideas of names that were already taken I suddenly had the idea for “Hellcat” and as we couldn’t really find someone already active with that name I took it…. and kept it

jx233: Changing the topic a little.
How and why did you join the PSP Scene?
Hellcat: It all started with the PS1 Great console, great games, lot of fun. So I got stuck on the PlayStation brand (also got a PS2) and when a portable version of the PlayStation was announced, I just *had* to get that, so I preordered my PSP and got it on german release day.
Since I always had an interest in what else one could do with various devices beyond what their creators thought of for it (“unleashing the full potential” as it’s sometimes phrased), I had already read a lot about the PSP and the homebrewed things people made run on FW 1.00 and 1.50 – even more a shocker when german PSPs came with 1.52.
But some lucky day the very first downgrader came and after looking at other people’s awesome programs and achievements with wide open mouth I finally ended up on ps2dev.org and eventually installing their PSPSDK for the first time.
I was so impressed of what some people did (all these hacks and other tricky things are so interesting) that I wanted to find out how all of it works (always want to know how stuff works ), so I kept reading, asking questions, more reading, more asking questions…. fortunately there are many devs around who do answer those questions.

jx233: If you could contribute something that would be a major breakthrough to the Scene, what would it be?
Hellcat: There’s only one breakthrough that everyone’s thinking about, isn’t it? Finally bringing full CFW to the newer PSPs
I’d really like to find a good hack or exploit myself, my very own CFW is also on my wishlist.
Or simply convincing Sony to open up the platform a bit more….

jx233: What motivated you choose the PSP for devlopment?
Hellcat: That’s an easy one Because it’s a (very) great platform, I have one and the HB PSPSDK is quite easy to work with.
Also, the people I meet in the PSP community are quite great. Of course not all of them, but most of them

jx233: How long were you devloping for the PSP?
Hellcat: I think the first time I touched the SDK is now something like three years ago….

jx233: What is your favorite thing from the PSP world of homebrew?
Hellcat: I used PSP-PDA for quite some time and FileAssistant++ and PSPFiler made it quite high in my faves list along zx81′s PSP-FTPd (FTP-server).
But all time favorite is Arts X-Flash from the 1.50 days! That thing was just pure awesomeness!

jx233: What are your views / opinions on the TA-088 V3 and PSP-3000?
Hellcat: Funbreaker. On the bottom line the 3k is just like Sonys FW updates: some security fixes, no real benefit for the customer beside some alibi features no one needs or wants.
Of course they needed to counter Pandora, but they shouldn’t have hidden the backdor THAT good

jx233: Are you developing in other major homebrew consoles? Saying like Wii or iPhone for example.
Hellcat: I already took a look at the iPhone and I’m also going to check out the NDS – as time permits something nice will come out…. maybe…. one day….

jx233: Speaking of other consoles, which is your favorite?
Hellcat: Oh, that’s a tough one, now. Hardware wise it’s PSP and PS3, those two are way ahead of their time IMO, Sony did a great job on them. Unfortunately there’s no good games for them, or at least not that much. So the trophy for the most enjoyable games has to go to the NDS for the time beeing…. as sad as that is

jx233: And what is your favorite game for it?
Hellcat: Oh, there isn’t really “one above all” game for me, depending on my days mood I prefer a game from the one or the other genere.
At the moment I really enjoy “GTA:Chinatown-Wars”, “Prof. Layton and the mysterious Village” and “Nanostray”.

To learn more about his involvement in the PSP homebrew scene and his thoughts on recent developments, such as the release of ChickHEN, a homebrew enabler for firmware 5.03, hit the jump.

All credit goes out to mortalinstincts for conducting the interview! Check out previous eXophase.com interviews with well-known sceners like Chilly Willy and Mathieulh by hitting up our interview section.

mortalinstincts: What’s your name/nickname and how old are you? Currently residing?
Alek: My actual nickname is Alek, even though my real name is Alex, and I’m almost 24, residing in Spain.

mortalinstincts: Currently a student or do you have a job? (If you’re a student, what course have you chosen?)
Alek: I’m currently a student, but I help some friends on their enterprises and I do some jobs here from time to time to earn some money and be able to get my own caprices :P Therefore, answering your question, I’m studying journalism.

mortalinstincts: How did you join the PSP scene and what eventually led to the making of http://www.dark-alex.org?
Alek: Whoa, that was years ago. It was the time of the OE’s (Open Edition) in where i had one PS3 and Dark_AleX was looking for betatesters for decrypting the downloaded games from PSN. I was at some IRC chatting with his close relatives (Mathieulh, harleyg and others), and was harleyg who allowed me to contact with him. At that moment, Dark_AleX had his web-page at some sub-domain I don’t remember at the moment; but with the time dark-alex.org was created with some friends and colleagues and I ended up web mastering it in order to help him the best I could.

mortalinstincts: Apart from being the admin of http://www.dark-alex.org, what else do you do in the scene? Have you coded any homebrew?
Alek: I usually keep on doing tutorials and courses about different terms, but talking about the scene, yeah, I’ve coded many homebrews, but all (or almost all of them) are private, as they were created just for testing purposes, and to get a better knowledge of the PSPSDK and the relative stuff.

mortalinstincts: There have been a few overhauls of http://www.dark-alex.org. What compels you to make these changes?
Alek: Without any doubt, the wish of making dark-alex.org a better webpage. There have been many (many!) changes since the webpage was created, (as for example the RSS, the Wiki’s, the Forum), and all of them walk on a single direction: To make it better, stronger (as we changed our server recently to gave a better service) and more user-friendly.

mortalinstincts: Aside from being one of the golden-era sceners in the PSP scenes, are you involved in the scenes of other consoles?
Alek: Yes, I’ve been involved in other consoles’ scenes, and on other things apart from consoles with other nicks, but well, that’s other story.

mortalinstincts: What are your favorite homebrews on the PSP?
Alek: Oh man, there are so much… But iRShell gets the prize. AhMan made an excellent job with it.

mortalinstincts: If there was one thing you could do to change the psp scene, what would it be?
Alek: Drama, fakes, lammers, and the list would continue. I’d delete them all from the internetz, as a well-known colleague would say.

mortalinstincts: Does anyone from your university recognize you from online?
Alek: I hope not! Haha I like that “privacy” that internet gives you, it allows me to be “Alek” here, and to be other (very, very different!) person out of the Net.

mortalinstincts: The Xbox 360 or the PS3 or the Nintendo Wii? and why…
Alek: Well, to be honest I have both the 360 and the PS3. I like the variety of games from the 360, even though the PS3 rocks better ’cause of the Cell system and the great job Sony and IBM made on it (even though again we have to stand up with poor games that are ported from 360 with it’s DVD hardware that is often seen as a delay) But, I do NOT have a Wii, mainly because I don’t like the system it works on neither the games that I’ve seen and played.

mortalinstincts: The PSP or the DS?
Alek: Well, thats an easy answer: D..  I mean, PSP :P Sony made his handheld as the best one in the market till now, even though that new DS model, DSi will get most probably more market share on this following months; unless Sony comes up with some of those long-awaited features that every single user wants.

mortalinstincts: Will you or Dark Alex give a conference in the future about the inner workings of the PSP or the scene like Tyranid did?
Alek: I would be really pleased to do one of those, and I bet Dark_AleX will be also interested on it. We had an opportunity, some months ago, for one University here on Spain, but we couldn’t for personal reasons. Anyway, it will be quite a nice experience

mortalinstincts: With the rumors of a PSP-4000 all around right now, what do you think the future console has in store in terms of new hardware and software capabilities? How do you think the PSP scene will proceed from there?
Alek: Well, that PSP-4000 rumor has more than 1 year or so of life, and we’ve just seen denials from Sony, so who knows what will take the future. But, it’s obvious that the Sony’ handheld can be very improved, on both sides, hardware (CPU, integrated features, increased RAM just like happened with 3k), and software (Oh, lovely DivX, where are you?) Once a new model is on the market (if it’s released someday), all will start over like on 3k, like on 2k, like on 1k

mortalinstincts: For fun, what are your comments on Alek = Alex ?
Alek: That’s something that always makes me laugh. My nick has been always Alek (talking about PSP, when I started on this world on an Spanish forum), even though sometime I attached “MrTuto” when i was on an IRC to it as I love making tutorials and sharing what I know; and I came back to Alek some years ago. Many people do mistake me with AleX, and well, that’s nothing I’ve looked for or whatever, even though with those mistakes I leave him with less problems and more time to spare meanwhile I spend hours checking e-mails and with the proper affairs of a webmaster. But well, I don’t think it will work, but here it comes: We are different persons, and no, he is not a robot. :P

mortalinstincts: As you currently studying Journalism, what books have you written?
Alek: Well, that’s sorta different from PSP, uh? As you have said, I’m studying Journalism, but my books differ from what I study, on almost all the terms. I’ve written a couple of poetry books, one philosophical book (arguing about the significance of nihilism on the actual concept of society), one novel, and I’m currently working on other one (plus the poetry that I do eventually)

mortalinstincts: Your favorite game on any console?
Alek: About the favorite games, I will place my unique bet on Starcraft. I’m roaming around till the second part comes to my hands!

mortalinstincts: Finally, What are your comments on the Chick-HEN R2 and any comments for Davee?
Alek: That fresh new released ChickHEN R2 from Davee is indeed what the scene needed since sometime, like a prod for saying that the PSP Scene is far from being death, and that we are far from being obsolete or old-fashioned.
Therefore, I will always support homebrew and the ways to make it possible, (more than backups capability) so Davee has all my cheers.
So, if I was talking to Davee, I would recognize his job till now and encourage him to continue with it, offering our help if he needs to.

Before jumping straight into the interview, we’d like to give you a brief backstory. Age 17 and currently residing in the United Kingdom, jas0nuk’s roots strech back to what is now commonly called the golden-era of the PSP scene, a time when software-based firmware downgraders were all the rage, and when a number of homebrew developers were pumping out major releases for the PSP on an almost weekly basis.

His homebrew efforts include a number of widely used applications, including PRXdecrypter, PSPident, and the Pandora ELF/PBP Menu. Read on for the full interview!

jas0nuk Interview

eXophase.com forum staffer and moderator Acerthief recently had the chance to talk to the man himself about his views on the homebrew scene as a whole, as well as his gaming interests and extensive background in software development. Check out the two-part interview by hitting up the links below.

Interview with Chilly Willy part 1 of 2
Interview with Chilly Willy part 2 of 2

As promised, here is the second chapter to our interview with the PSP homebrew crew of Team Wildc*rd.

For this feature we interviewed three of the main contributors to the Wildc*rd project — AtrumDonum, BallsOfSteel, and Bride.

On with the interview then!

AtrumDonum

How old are you?
AtrumDonum: I’m the grand old age of 20.

Where do you live?
AtrumDonum: I live in the United Kingdom, in this merry old place called England.

Do you work somewhere? Or are you a student?
AtrumDonum: I’m currently between jobs, but until recently I was a student.

When did you buy your first PSP?
AtrumDonum: I bought my first (and only) PSP in September of 2006

Was it bought keeping the homebrew scene in mind, or did you buy it for the games?
AtrumDonum: to be honest – I only bought it because of homebrew. If it wasn’t for there being a homebrew scene, I doubt I would have got one.

When did you start developing for the PSP?
AtrumDonum: Well, I’m really not much of a developer myself, but I’ve been experimenting with developing for a few months.

What is your role in Wildc*rd?
AtrumDonum: I am one of the testers and general idea man. I’ve generally got things to say about anything!

What pushed you, personally, towards joining / forming a group with other hackers and creating a new custom firmware?
AtrumDonum: Well, I really respect the people involved in the firmware and know them quite well and I wanted to do whatever I could to help them and the scene in general. One thing that is bad about the scene, is that it is all too negative – too many kids who seem to think that the devs OWE them something – when clearly that isn’t the case.

I guess I just want to give something positive to the community that I love.

Did you decide to join a team to fill the void because of AleX’s retirement, or was it something else which pushed you towards making a custom firmware?
AtrumDonum: I guess what really keeps me going is knowing that I’m doing some good – I dislike how Sony stamps down on homebrew. Sure, it’s a necessary evil to prevent piracy so that developers keep developing for the PSP, however I think they can do it in a better manner – perhaps with something like the XDK of Microsoft.

How difficult is it to keep pushing the boundaries of what’s possible on the PSP? (Things like defeating DRM, working with very little space, enabling NO-UMD, etc)
AtrumDonum: Each and other new feature and boundary is completely different – however, space is always a reoccurring problem in whatever we pursue, so I’d have to say that that boundary is particularly difficult. We are constantly fighting to try and get two firmware’s to coexist peacefully with all their features and yet still add our own features. As you can expect, it’s not an easy job.

Any other hobbies apart from the PSP?
AtrumDonum: Well, my only other hobbies are listening to music and using the computer, and occasionally reading. However – I do have a social life and I also enjoy going out with my friends :)

Is this the first platform you’ve developed homebrew for?
AtrumDonum: Yes it is. I guess the pull of the PSP is that it is portable and powerful – so you can make good homebrew that can fit in your pocket!

How long do you plan on staying with the team and developing custom firmwares?
AtrumDonum: As long as WildC*rd exists and is still coding, I will be there.

Which is your favorite next-gen console considering the games on each platform?
AtrumDonum: To be quite honest, I’ve not actually researched the next gen consoles – not having much money tends to make you not want to look at things you can’t afford. However, I have had the pleasure of playing all three next gen consoles and in my opinion, PS3 is my favorite, followed closely by the XBox 360. I must admit, I do admire the Wii for it’s innovation though… Many people I know sing it’s praises.

How do you feel about the games on the PSP? Disappointed? Any games you’d like to see?
AtrumDonum: I think the games on the PSP are generally ok – although I must admit I am more a homebrew fan. I think the true “Diamond’s in the rough” are the Grand Theft Auto games and those game collection UMD’s, like the “Sega Genesis Collection”. Admittedly, they can already be emulated by homebrew, however the commercial games often have more features not found in homebrew emulators, due to it being commercial.

I guess the games I want to see at the moment, are “Final Fantasy” games – I just can’t get enough of that franchise!

Where do you see yourself 1 year from now in the PSP scene?
AtrumDonum: Hopefully I want to have developed applications/firmware mod’s for the PSP. I also want to develop my coding and reverse engineering skills, so that I can have a greater role in the development of WildC*rd.

Where do you see the PSP 1 year from now with regards to homebrew?
AtrumDonum: Well, if the PSP Slim gets downgraded/hacked (and I’ve no doubt it will), then I think we’ll see more complex homebrew due to the extra 32 MB of main memory it has.

However, we are blessed with great people such as StrmnNrmn (Daedalus creator) and Exophase (gpSP coder) – and of course all of those people at PSPDEV who generally work behind the scenes of the PSP scene – with all these great people and more people getting better at homebrew each day, I predict great things will be released.

Look what people have said couldn’t be done and which have happened – there is surprisingly many things. People have said Linux can’t happen on the PSP, however I have great expectations on it being a reality, due to it already being successfully ported to the PSP.

Thank you,
exophase.com

AtrumDonum: You’re welcome, thank you for giving me an interview!

BallsOfSteel

How old are you?
BallsOfSteel: 16

Where do you live?
BallsOfSteel: Manchester, England

Do you work somewhere? Or are you a student?
BallsOfSteel: I am a student, in between high school and college :)

When did you buy your first PSP?
BallsOfSteel: I bought my PSP in December 2005. It was a white 2.00 PSP, I downgraded it the moment I got home, of course ;)

Was it bought keeping the homebrew scene in mind, or did you buy it for the games?
BallsOfSteel: Both. I knew the PSP had some decent games, such as Wipeout, GTA:LCS and so on, but I probably wouldn’t have bought it if homebrew wasn’t possible.

When did you start developing for the PSP?
BallsOfSteel: To be honest, I can’t remember. I know I developed a few Devhook 0.4 mods in the summer of last year, then I started developing prxdecrypter. I have worked on some projects of my own and in teams that were never released.

What is your role in Wildc*rd?
BallsOfSteel: Generally, looking over code, helping with code reversal, advice, ideas, that sort of thing.

What pushed you, personally, towards joining/forming a group with other hackers and creating a new custom firmware?
BallsOfSteel: When Dark_AleX left, I could see that all the sceners were worried about the future of OE. A few people were considered to be the future of OE but they are certainly not capable. A topic on MaxConsole started in which some of the people who were involved in firmware modding got together and started to discuss the possibility of reversing OE, and it all snowballed from there.

Did you decide to join a team to fill the void because of AleX’s retirement, or was it something else which pushed you towards making a custom firmware?
BallsOfSteel: Really, it was both. As I just said, the void left by Alex’s departure was going to be difficult to fill, and I knew I had at least something to contribute in creating a new (or at least reversing) custom firmware. I am also fascinated with the inner workings of the PSP, all the little glitches that Sony leaves, and the huge possibilities created just by modifying system functions.

How difficult is it to keep pushing the boundaries of what’s possible on the PSP? (Things like defeating DRM, working with very little space, enabling NO-UMD, etc)
BallsOfSteel: Difficult, but not impossible. The DRM in POPs is pretty insecure which is what made it relatively simple to defeat (though WildC*rd didn’t obviously write the code, we have it in reversed form), and np9660 is similar.
With regard to the space we have on flash0, I am sure we will eventually have to drop the sections of the 1.50 kernel which enable old EBOOTs to be used – leaving just enough to bootstrap the firmware – and encouraging the development of 3.XX usermode homebrew, or look for methods of downsizing flash1 – which has something like 3.5mb wasted.

Any other hobbies apart from the PSP?
BallsOfSteel: At the moment, nothing really :P I have a 360 which is great fun, especially with games such as Gears of War (which I completed in Insane mode :D !) and Halo 3 is going to be amazing. I also love watching TV and chatting on IRC when I have the time :p

Is this the first platform you’ve developed homebrew for?
BallsOfSteel: Yes, I never bothered to learn C until I bought a PSP.

How long do you plan on staying with the team and developing custom firmwares?
BallsOfSteel: As long as the scene wants custom firmware, which I imagine will be for a while.

Which is your favorite next-gen console considering the games on each platform?
BallsOfSteel: Definitely Xbox 360. The exclusives on the PS3 just don’t attract me, and a few of them are timed anyway (Unreal Tournament for example). As for the Wii, I think it’s just a stupid gimmick, and very soon people are going to get very bored of it.

How do you feel about the games on the PSP? Disappointed? Any games you’d like to see?
BallsOfSteel: Yes, I’m disappointed at the quality of some games, such GTA: VCS which was hugely hyped but ended up full of bugs (garages that don’t work in a game where you steal cars?!) and had a disastrous framerate. However there are a few games which are really decent such as Daxter, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Lego Star Wars and so on. Being a huge GTA fan, I’d love to see San Andreas ported to the PSP, maybe set a few years earlier or later :)

Where do you see yourself 1 year from now in the PSP scene, where do you see the PSP 1 year from now with regards to homebrew?
BallsOfSteel: Hopefully, developing 4.XX* WildC*rd Edition ;) As for homebrew, there isn’t so much stuff going on these days, but occasionally you see a great release such as a new Daedalus (StrmnNrmn is REALLY innovative with his optimizations), MapThis!, and that Vertex Racing game looks promising. Unfortunately the scene is not as active as it was last year, but hopefully it will at least continue at this rate.

Thank you,
exophase.com

BallsOfSteel: Thank you, and sorry for the huge answers ;)

Bride

How old are you?
Bride: 16

Where do you live?
Bride: Colorado, US

Do you work somewhere? Or are you a student?
Bride: I’m both a high school student and a decently-successful professional network security consultant. I also do a bit of contract coding.

When did you buy your first PSP?
Bride: US launch night.

Was it bought keeping the homebrew scene in mind, or did you buy it for the games?
Bride: Mostly for the media playback, actually, with games as a bonus. I definitely had homebrew in mind, but I didn’t expect it to take off as quickly as it did.

When did you start developing for the PSP?
Bride: The day swaploit was released.

What is your role in Wildc*rd?
Bride: I help with improving WildC*rd security, and occasionally provide ideas and bother/advise the main firmware programmers.

What pushed you, personally, towards joining/forming a group with other hackers and creating a new custom firmware?
Bride: I was invited due to my past reputation and friendships with other Wildc*rd members; it honestly wasn’t something I had in mind.

Did you decide to join a team to fill the void because of AleX’s retirement, or was it something else which pushed you towards making a custom firmware?
Bride: I’m always glad to help with new and exciting projects, and I was asked to join.

How difficult is it to keep pushing the boundaries of what’s possible on the PSP? (Things like defeating DRM, working with very little space, enabling NO-UMD, etc)
Bride: It’s occasionally difficult; the worst part is when something should work and doesn’t or when you think you’ve nailed something only to have a confusing bug appear.

Any other hobbies apart from the PSP?
Bride: I do all the usual high school things, hang out with my friends, see movies, etc. I’m also an avid downhill mountain biker and since I’m in Colorado, winter skiing and snowboarding are a must.

Is this the first platform you’ve developed homebrew for?
Bride: I developed an Xbox dashboard using the open-source Xbox SDK late in the Xbox’s “life”; it was never released since it was useless compared to XBMC/EvoX/Avalaunch/etc, it was just written to prove to a friend that not all Xbox dashboards had to be illegal/shady (Microsoft XDK).

How long do you plan on staying with the team and developing custom firmwares?
Bride: As long as the team’s around, I’m not going anywhere.

Which is your favorite next-gen console considering the games on each platform?
Bride: They all have their strengths; I believe the PS3 has the strongest hardware but right now the 360 is the winner due to its games. The Wii is a fun distraction but is more of an exciting toy than a game console. (not to say it’s bad; I just don’t put it in the same category).

How do you feel about the games on the PSP? Disappointed? Any games you’d like to see?
Bride: Very disappointed; Lumines is still the best PSP game and it was a launch title. Where are the exciting, new games? The PSP is a terrible platform for the next rehashed FPS/third-person shooter but that’s apparently all anyone wants to do with it (that and release 10000 racing games which are exactly the same).

Where do you see yourself 1 year from now in the PSP scene?
Bride: If it’s still active, I’ll be where I am now, giving advice and chilling in the ‘hood as it were.

Where do you see the PSP 1 year from now with regards to homebrew?
Bride: I see an increase in 3D, professional-quality homebrew games. Now that the reverse-engineering phase of PSP development is almost over (the pspsdk is *very* complete and useful), the career developers/designers who aren’t really “hackers” can brew things together in their off time.

Thank you,

bride

If you’d like to discuss this interview, you can join our IRC channel #exophase.com at irc.dark-alex.org.

Weeks following Alex’s leave, a Russian team of developers known as “M33″ blasted onto the scene, with their first release being a 3.51 custom firmware. Of course, this was a surprise to many, but little did we know that another team with a similar goal would soon be emerging alongside M33.

This team became known as Team Wildc*rd. Their first release, although released to the public eariler than the team wished, was a custom firmware known as 3.40 WildC*rd.

We recently had a chat with Team WildC*rd, to find out more about what’s in store for the next WildC*rd release, as well as their personal views on the homebrew scene.

Read on for the first exclusive interview with Team WildC*rd.

eXophase.com: When was the team formed?
WildC*rd: July 2007

eXophase.com: Was the team created to pick up where AleX left off, or was the timing of AleX’s retirement a co-incidence?
WildC*rd: Not a coincidence. After Dark_AleX announced he was leaving the scene, a thread started on MaxConsole in which a few hackers started talking about how OE works and considered reversing it. People in there spoke on IRC and gathered some experienced developers, and we started to reverse 3.40 OE a short time later.

eXophase.com: Once AleX left, did your team receive any help from him?
WildC*rd: Not from him directly. As Mathieulh has clarified on PSPGen, he got word of our project, and asked for a sample of our code. He realised we were serious, and after we had reversed around 90% of 3.40 OE, he gave us the 3.10 OE source code (with AleX’s agreement) when we had reversed around 90% of 3.40 OE and used it to check our work, verify it, add comments to it, and so on. Unfortunately we kept it on our SVN which was later compromised and it ended up being leaked, which we apologise to AleX for.

eXophase.com: How many members actively contribute to every new custom firmware release that comes from your team?
WildC*rd: Around half of the team contribute to the code, which means about 7 people.

eXophase.com: Perhaps a few words about the different members, and the role each one plays in the creation of a new custom firmware?
WildC*rd: I would prefer not to mention names as everyone makes their own contributions which the team would struggle without. There are people who reverse code and write code, people who think of new features, people who write our statements and readmes, and importantly the testers who we’d be screwed, shooting in the dark, without.

eXophase.com: Is there any sort of an informal rivalry between you and the Russian team M33? Maybe not officially, but will you be trying to beat them to a new feature?
WildC*rd: We pride ourselves on working alongside M33 rather than against them, and are extremely grateful for their recent support after the source code leak. We reversed some of the features they added to 3.5X M33, such as 99.9% NO-UMD compatibility (the np9660.prx patcher), because no custom firmware can be without them, but we write other features by ourself.

eXophase.com: How difficult or easy is it to bring together a whole custom firmware, considering the number of people contributing to it simultaneously?
WildC*rd: Quite difficult; it presents interesting security issues as we have seen. There is also a problem when two people who start reversing a module without being aware of the other person doing it, and end up wasting their time, but sometimes it’s useful to compare code and it helps because it makes it easier to find mistakes.

eXophase.com: What motivates the team? Is it a “damn the man” attitude, or do you see it as just a hobby improving what Sony has released and perhaps giving Sony some ideas on what the people want?
WildC*rd: Our primary aim is to keep providing custom firmware for the PSP scene. The official firmware locks out any attempts at homebrew which we feel is entirely wrong, and we’ll continue unlocking the true potential of the PSP until Sony do it themselves.

eXophase.com: How difficult was it when a certain website got into your group’s secret forums and decided to steal all your code and release it into the open?
WildC*rd: The first few days were very difficult, we felt our privacy and security had been completely violated, and considered ending the project. But then we realised, it’d be pointless to let that site benefit and profit from our hard work, so we released the source ourself, and the 3.40* binaries a few days later. We have re-organized ourselves and are now working towards 3.52*.

eXophase.com: After the said incident, you decided to release all the source code officially. Personally, I feel it was best to simply lay low for a while and let the incident pass without giving it any popularity. Now that you have released the code into the wild officially, there’s the bigger problem of telling people not to use it to create cheap knock-offs, giving people the impression that your team is “arrogant”. How do you defend your team’s recent statement after releasing the source code yourself, and where do you draw the line and define any custom firmware as a cheap knock-off?
WildC*rd: Looking back, we *could* have dealt with it differently, but things haven’t turned out too badly. A short time after the source was released, Ketchup from PSPGen updated the recovery source code for 3.52 M33 and our initial reaction is that it was theft. However, we grew to respect his work, and eventually gave him permission to release an update for it, which will surely appear soon. That is an exception, and for good reason. He gave credit where credit was due and did not disrespect our wishes when told to stop. We are, however, against the “theft” of our source code for stupid cloned custom firmwares, which noobs like Test30 seem to be good at producing.

eXophase.com: How do you protect your project today, after having the benefit of hindsight?
WildC*rd: For obvious reasons we cannot go into detail about our security arrangements, but we have learnt from our mistakes and will definitely ensure such a thing does not happen again.

eXophase.com: When Dark AleX left, a huge void was created. How difficult was it for the team to change the public belief that only AleX could write stable custom firmwares? (Obviously, M33 was just starting too)
WildC*rd: That was not a matter that we had to deal with. When M33 started releasing their firmware, everyone was extremely pleased, but by the time they released their 6th update in a matter of days, people began to doubt the stability of M33′s work. However, we admire M33′s work which is always of a high quality and hope to see more of their releases in the coming months. When we released 3.40*, it had a number of bugs due to it being prepared a few hours after our work was unexpectedly leaked, and we patched those bugs in 2 following updates. For some reason, some people have remained on 3.40 OE-A despite both our and M33′s work – we hope to change that with the release of 3.52*.

eXophase.com: If Sony were to call the custom firmware developers/teams at their offices and were to ask them to suggest one feature to be integrated into the official firmwares, what would your group recommend?
WildC*rd: An ISO loader, of course. Just kidding! :D Really, they should release a homebrew SDK and allow usermode homebrew to be loaded. That would allow homebrew to be developed without risk of loading pirated games. However, even if Sony allowed that, some people wouldn’t be satisfied and would look for kernel mode exploits in order to load ISOs, modify the firmware, and so on.

eXophase.com: Perhaps a few words for your fans?
WildC*rd: We would like to thank everyone who has installed 3.40* for their support, and everyone who is waiting patiently for 3.52*. And finally, thanks for a great interview.

We hope you enjoyed this interview! Check back later next week for individual interviews with the team members.

Another week, another interview. And this time, I’ve had the honour of interviewing one of the most prolific developers of the homebrew scene, zx-81. It’s impossible to not notice his contributions in the homebrew scene.

His major work has been in the emulation scene where he has released emulators for almost all retro platforms. It’s great to enjoy those old games which we used to play with our siblings or our friends, brings back a lot of great memories. He has also successfully created/ported several immensely useful networking-related applications like a VNC client, an SSH client, an FTP server/client and the newly released IRC client. His blog has information on all of his work.

Anyways, I had the pleasure of doing an email interview with him a couple of days ago, and without further ado, here is the interview in its entirety!

exophase.com: What is your real name and how old are you?
zx-81: My real name is Ludovic Jacomme and i’m 36.

exophase.com: Where do you work presently?
zx-81: I’m working for an EDA (Electronic Design Automation) company in France, close to Paris.

exophase.com: I’ve read about your extensive education from a previous interview with QJ.NET. Have you added any more accolades to that big list?
zx-81: I’ve left my university for 8 years ago now :), and as a consequence I have not any new diploma to add to that list :)

exophase.com: You have been probably the most prolific homebrew developer since a long time now. What motivates you everyday to write/port such a large variety of homebrew in your spare time?
zx-81: First of all, I like to develop and to port applications to the PSP. In my real job for many reasons, I don’t take a real pleasure to code, and that might explain why I’m coding so much in my spare time. Then because the PSP is a very good portable hardware, and unfortunately Sony uses only 50% the real PSP capabilities. It is then really pleasant to exploit this hardware at 100% with wifi / network stuff, IR keyboards, microphones, web cams etc … And finally because the PSP scene is a pleasant place with nice people.

exophase.com: Since your interview a little over a year ago, has your motivation for creating homebrew for the PSP increased/decreased?
zx-81: It is always the same, it is stable. I have left the PSP scene during few weeks for the GP2X scene, and then I came back (mainly because GP2X hardware is less powerfull than PSP). I have to say that I am a bit bored with emulators, but there are so many remaining projects in network, office and games domain.

exophase.com: While working on homebrew, what’s your time-table like?
zx-81: I’m working on homebrew development 2 or 3 hours a day, and a bit more during weekend. I don’t watch TV, so it let me a lot of spare time. But it happens sometimes, during a week or two, i don’t touch a keyboard to edit a source code file ;)

exophase.com: While the homebrew applications that you’ve created are immensely useful in everyday life (I simply love PSPSSH and PSPVNC and expect great things in PSPIRC), do you still play games on all the emulators you’ve created/ported?
zx-81: I don’t play often with my emulators, I haven’t too much time for that.

exophase.com: Since I’m personally very interested in PSPIRC, could you tell us a bit about what you plan to do with PSPIRC in the future?
zx-81: A new release should come very soon, with multiple channel support, private discussion, and many other useful features.

exophase.com: What is your favorite homebrew on the PSP?
zx-81: There are too many in fact, I would say gpsp, pspradio, bookr, pikey for IR keyboard, ir-shell … but there are many others.

exophase.com: You’ve said before that you bought your PSP for homebrew only and had GTA:LCS because you needed it to run/check your WIP homebrew. Have you found any other games which you think redeem the PSP as a gaming handheld?
zx-81: Burnout series, the best games on PSP, in multiplayer mode it is really fun! I would say also Ace combat and Tekken (in multiplayer it’s cool as well).

exophase.com: After the PSP having been out for over 2 years now, do you feel that Sony and other developers/publishers have failed their audience by releasing very few blockbusters and mostly low-quality ports of PS2 games?
zx-81: Yes, I think sony failed to provide really NEW and good games for the PSP. Compared to DS the PSP is a market failure …

exophase.com: Where do you see the PSP 1 year from now with respect to official games and homebrew?
zx-81: I really don’t know, may be Sony will provide good and really new games ? They will open their firmware and let people developing homebrew? I’m just kidding … I think they will do all the contrary… For the homebrew scene, many things have been done already, but many left to be… I hope the scene won’t die.

exophase.com: And do you see yourself still as a part of the homebrew scene then?
zx-81: I really don’t know, I will change my job soon and I will have less spare time :(

exophase.com: Do you own any other next-gen console?
zx-81: Only a PS1, a PS2 and a GP2X that can’t be considered as next-gen consoles :D

exophase.com: Which console, in your opinion, has the best gaming library?
zx-81: I prefer to play games on a PC, so i know very few about console gaming library… Xbox and Wii seem to have a huge panel of games.

exophase.com: Consequently, would you like to own any of them in the future?
zx-81: If I had to buy a new console, I would buy a wii (xbox seems to have big hardware issue ;) )

exophase.com: Apart from homebrew, what else do you like to do in your free time?
zx-81: To play multiplayer video games with my son on PSP or PC.

exophase.com: Any parting words for fans of your homebrew?
zx-81: I thanks them all for their support, constructive comments and feedback. Without them I am sure I would have given up from a long time.

—–

All of us at exophase.com like to thank Ludovic ‘zx-81′ Jacomme for this great interview, and for his huge contribution to the homebrew scene. You can visit his blog here.

I’ll also take this opportunity to plug our IRC network which has been running fine since some time now, and I’d like to invite all of you to visit it (using a dedicated IRC client like mIRC) at irc.exophase.com / irc.espeon.org , or you can access it through your browser with our web gateway at http://www.exophase.com/irc. I will be on the server regularly to ask for opinions on whom to interview next, so if you’d like someone interviewed, just join the #psp channel and give us your opinion!

Mathieulh is one of the pillars of the big foundations that is our PSP scene. His journey in the PSP scene spotlight started with his now-defunct team, SonyXTeam. He then went on to work with other scene greats like Dark AleX and the N00bz team, giving us great things in the form of downgraders, custom firmwares and many other things that you and I might not know about.

I caught up with him a couple of days ago and he agreed to this interview. Note that the interview was taken before the recent custom firmware release by Team M33. On with the interview then!

exophase.com: What is your real name and how old are you?
Mathieulh: My real name is Mathieu Hervais, I am 22

exophase.com: Are you still a student or working?
Mathieulh: I am still a student :)

exophase.com: Ah, and what field are you studying in?
Mathieulh: I am currently studying Japanese at University, however I will be attending a computering degree starting next year as well.

exophase.com: Apart from researching and breaking security in consoles which has made you so famous, do you have any other interests/hobbies?
Mathieulh: I like computering in general, I like animes and mangas and pretty much everything related to the Japanese culture. (food, history, people….)

exophase.com: Have you developed homebrew for any other console?
Mathieulh: Yes I have developped homebrews for Dreamcast and for gamecube as well.

exophase.com: When did you start hobbyist development (homebrewing)?
Mathieulh: I started development at 9, coding on delphi 3 at first (turbo pascal), I then moved on to other languages such as visual basic and C, C++. I started console development on the dreamcast using another nickname than the one I am currently using ( Mathieulh that is :) )

exophase.com: So what would be your favorite console for homebrew?
Mathieulh: My favourite console for homebrew, hum.. I cannot say that I have a favorite. I like the PSP because it is portable, I missed the xbox1 scene though :/ I guess that the psp is not and wont be the last console ever created so there will always be a better one able to run homebrews more efficiently. Also I think that it is too bad that the gp2x did not have the success it should have had. The console was a pretty good initiative from gamepark.

exophase.com: When did you buy your first PSP?
Mathieulh: I bought my PSP about 2 years ago in Akihabara (Tokyo, Japan)

exophase.com: And when did you start poking around the system?
Mathieulh: I started only a few months after I purchased it (maybe 2 or 3 months) in fact, right after I came back from my summer holidays (I bought the PSP in July and I had no access to a proper computer until September)

exophase.com: What is your development time-table? Do you spend a few hours each day (regularly) or work in short bursts every few days/weeks?
Mathieulh: I do not really have a time-table, I tend to code when I can but I am pretty busy these days, particularly because of my studies. I tend to get on my computer during weekends when I have free time and at night during weekdays.

exophase.com: While you have been in the spotlight for a long time now, you’ve never really talked about yourself. Any particular reasons for that?
Mathieulh: Well, to be honest, the less people know about me, the better. Still, I agreed to take the interview because it is done by exophase which is a pretty serious site, I would not have accepted if it was by average public sites. About giving out so many infos about me well I guess that’s because since OE is discontinued there is no real point in hiding anymore, beside I rather be totally honest with you and answer the questions as well as I can.

exophase.com: You were a big part of the golden era for homebrew on the PSP. What was it like riding the wave along with other greats of the homebrew scene like the N00bz crew, Dark AleX, and others who choose to stay completely away from the spotlight?
Mathieulh: About other developers I see them more like friends than anything else, talking with them, working with them, sharing intels with them is what makes all the fun. Being alone is boring :/

exophase.com: What do you think about the future of PSP?
Mathieulh: Only time will tell, I am pretty sure that other hackers have already started to reverse the OE firmware and will release their work sooner or later. Unfortunately the PSP will only get major homebrews while most others will be ignored :/

exophase.com: Rumors have surfaced that the new PSP contains new security additions that might make homebrewing very difficult. Do you think you/others can crack the new PSP shown at E3 to run homebrew, and perhaps custom firmwares?
Mathieulh: Everything is crackable sooner or later, this new PSP is no exception, but since I do not have it in my hands, therefore I cannot make assumptions.

exophase.com: Are you anxious of the new security additions by Sony, or are you relaxed, knowing that if people have done it before, they can do it again?
Mathieulh: Well it is always fun to see what security features SCE can add to their consoles, although they have never really been efficient in the matters of securing their software, unfortunately for them, thankfully for the scene.

exophase.com: Where does the homebrew community go from here? Where do you see the homebrew community about 1 year from now?
Mathieulh: I see that most users will probably lose interest in most homebrews and only a few will still be awaited such as the great daedalus 64 emulator for instance. Everything that could be done on the PSP in terms of homebrews have been done but I shall not underestimate the developer’s imagination to bring us new homebrews and new concepts that most people would not have imagined :)

exophase.com: Will you be continuing your work on the PSP or retiring?
Mathieulh: I will continue to be in N00bz and perhaps help a few friends of mine developing softwares but I am done with anything related to custom firmwares.

exophase.com: Do you have any other next-gen console in mind that you would like to tinker around with?
Mathieulh: The Xbox360 or the PS3 (I am not interested into the wii for homebrews and I do not take part in piracy either). I am more interested on the Xbox360 though as the system is way better to develop on (unlike what Sony tries to claim with the ps3). I like the fact that the cpu uses real cores (and not SPUs) and that each of those can handle 2 threads at a time. Although the PS3 would probably be way easier to hack than the 360, the 360 installed userbase is greater. Beside SCE claim that they will persecute anyone finding an exploit on their console (which is still not illegal in certain places such as the EU) so I rather not take my chances on it. Still kudos to Microsoft for their work in securing the 360 kernel, this is what I call a real security (and a real challenge for hackers)

exophase.com: PS3 and Linux or Xbox360 and XNA? Which one do you think is better for budding developers?
Mathieulh: Both are not worthed in my opinion as both are way too restricted, I would say PS3 Linux because it is free though but there is no hardware acceleration on it, it does not have enough available RAM either, while XNA is restricted to C# and you cannot use your own libs and you need to pay 99 USD a year for it to test builds on the 360 (which I think is a rip off)

exophase.com: Out of the 3 next-gen consoles, which would be your favorite console for the games on the platform?
Mathieulh: I pretty much like the Xbox360 followed by the Wii. I do not think that current PS3 games are worthed for now, but time will tell.

exophase.com: Would you like to say anything to the big companies like Sony/Microsoft?
Mathieulh: They should listen more to what homebrewer request and give them means to work efficiently on console platforms. That way they would attract more people to their system and avoid hackers to have to find flaws in their systems (which ultimately leads to piracy)

exophase.com: And perhaps some parting words for homebrew users/your fans?
Mathieulh: I would thank them not only for eventually have supported me, but also any developers on this scene who worked so hard to make it better, I would tell them not to forget great developers from ps2dev such as nem, tyranid, mrbrown etc who are too often forgotten and whom we would not be able to have such great homebrews without them.

—–

Our full team here at exophase.com would like to thank Mathieulh for agreeing to the interview.

We would also like to officially unveil our IRC server hosted at irc.exophase.com where we hope to build a strong community of intelligent gamers and homebrew users of not just the PSP, but all current and next-gen consoles. All of you are invited to connect to the server (irc.exophase.com) using an IRC client (mIRC, XChat, irssi, etc) or our Java gateway in your browser. Note: Most of our staff/users idle in the #psp channel which is the main channel on the server.