Five Web Destinations for Homebrew and Homebrew News

Homebrew is all over the place. In fact, if you do a search for psp homebrew, you'll find that thousands of square miles of Web space are dedicated to the advancement of homebrew on the PSP.

If you do get into homebrew, chances are that you'll want to keep up on it. The Web has you covered there, too. PSP news sites abound, covering homebrew as well as firmware updates, new features, upcoming games, and a heck of a lot more.

Where do you go for all this incredible stuff? Whip out your browser, and navigate to these five fantastic sites.

The List: PSP Homebrew

http://psp-homebrew.eu

and

http://psp-homebrew.eu/firmware.php?showconfirmed

PSP Homebrew (see Figure 13.3) is the quintessential site for finding homebrew that works with the firmware on your PSP. The front page contains a miniature FAQ that asks what, exactly, you're looking for or what you'd like to know.

Figure 13.3. PSP Homebrew helps you decide what to do with the site.

Most of the links point to some form of what I like to call The List (Figure 13.4; the second URL above), which, all told, contains more than 800 entries detailing homebrew applications and games. More than 350 of those entries are confirmed to work on one version of firmware or another.

Figure 13.4. The List is the ultimate, centralized listing of homebrew available for download.

You can click the column headers at the top of The List to sort the entries. Click Genre, for example, to sort by whether the entries are apps, games, emulators, or some other type of software. Oddly, sometimes when you go to another page of the list, the sorting gets reset. The List is not perfect, but it's close.

Emulation, Homebrew, and More: PSP News

http://psp-news.dcemu.co.uk

The name PSP News (Figure 13.5) pretty much describes what this site is all about. Although the site focuses on the PSP, a link bar at the top lets you check out a wealth of other consoles, too. Off on the left is a navigation pane with forums; links; and (if you scroll down) a crude homebrew browser that links to lists of applications, games, and other goodies. Also included is a strong section on emulation, if you're into that sort of thing.

Figure 13.5. PSP News covers emulation, homebrew, commercial PSP software, and more.

Hacks for All: PSP-Hacks

www.psp-hacks.com

The front page of this terrific hacking site (Figure 13.6) features news focused more on hacking and homebrew than on legit PSP stuff, but the navigation pane on the left has a link for general PSP news, too. Part of the Dash Hacks Network, the site also provides links to hacks for other platforms, including television! To find gigabytes of homebrew, click the Downloads link in the nav pane and then choose a category.

Figure 13.6. PSP-hacks covers homebrew and hacking in depth.

Hacks for the Clueless: Noobz

http://noobz.eu

The legendary homebrew developer Fanjita teamed up with another noted developer, Ditlew, to create Noobz (Figure 13.7). The sporadically updated news section on the front page doesn't cover everything that occurs in the homebrew community, but it does go into depth on the most important topics. The most important link in the left nav bar is the eboot loader link, from which you can download the developers' homebrew enabler that exploits a save bug in Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories.

Figure 13.7. The Noobz site is the home of the folks who developed the GTA eboot loader.

Might as Well Jump: PSP Updates

http://pspupdates.qj.net

If you're familiar with the ubiquitous Digg.com, you'll have an idea how the news links on QJ.net Presents PSP Updates (Figure 13.8) work. If you like a story, you Jump it up; you can check out the most-Jumped stories to see what users like you have been finding most interesting. Besides Jumps, the site features up-to-the-minute PSP news with a homebrew slant, and buried in the Categories menu of the nav pane are several sections leading to homebrew downloads.

Figure 13.8. Jump it up! If you like a story on PSP Updates, give it props.