Tasty Framerates
Two weeks ago, I discussed a wish list for a potentially revamped PSP. On the heels of that, SCEA confirmed that the 3.5 firmware upgrade would finally remove the CPU speed cap of 222 Mhz, letting the system run at its full potential of 333 mhz. The speed cap was meant to ensure greater battery life. Any happy hacker around in December 2005 could tell you that with lots of the firmware tweaks, homebrewing, and a copy of GTA: Liberty City Stories, the system ran like a dream at 333 Mhz.
In a recent PlayStation.blog entry, God of War honcho Cory Barlog confirmed that Chains of Olympus will take advantage of this new tweak. Does this mean that Kratos will kill your battery faster than his blades can cleave a minotaur? Perhaps. We know that it's not retroactive, however, so unfortunately, none of your existing games can (officially) exploit it. Hopefully, though, it's a sign of things to come with the hardware. I'm just sayin'...
Don't count on taking Dante on the road just yet.
In other homebrew news, sales of Lumines on Amazon have spiked after news that the game's code has an exploit that can be used to hack the new PSP 3.5 firmware code. Let's see how long that lasts before Sony brings down the hammer with a miniscule firmware upgrade that increments the version number by hundredths of a decimal.
It's interesting to see how these sorts of things happen. I've caught flak in the past for being critical towards homebrew, but the way I see it, I'd rather not brick my PSP to play old games when there's plenty of commercial stuff out there that I enjoy playing. Sure, I can't play Super Mario Bros. on my PSP, but that's no big deal for me.
I think it's amazing, however, when someone discovers a flaw in an older game and something like this erupts. I wonder if Ubisoft will order up another run of the game to capitalize on the sales boost, even if Disney now largely distributes Q Entertainment's games? This is a fascinating exercise in cause and effect. I wonder if it'll be anything more than a flash in the pan?
The Littlest Mailbag
Not much time to answer everyone, since lots of e-mails were repeat readers and were, frankly, damn near as long as my usual columns. But Greg, Capcom has never officially announced a Devil May Cry for PSP, even though, oddly, it's been logged in our database. I know, I try not to get my hopes up too much either, but then, Capcom has some event once a year, and I always end up calling dibs on writing up the news piece if/when the company announces it. Unfortunately, it still hasn't. Wait, that's less stuff to write up. Why am I complaining?
