[ PSPUpdates.com ] has just provided pictures of the Sony PSP's recieved in European Stores. On September 1st, the Sony PSP will be on Sale for everyone to buy finally and legally.

"Our friend Dale from thegamescompany.co.uk (who provided the images) let us know that the European PSPs will be shipped with firmware 1.52 on them and a separate UMD disc which will contain version 2.0. Currently neither firmware versions support the execution of homebrew code to be run on them, but Yoshihiro of team WAB is working on a way to downgrade a 1.52 PSP to 1.50. If you wish to use your PSP for homebrew, do NOT upgrade to version 2.0 as there is no known method to downgrade it."

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»» View all the pictures!

[ JoyStiq.com ] has just recieved a BETA photo of the XBOX 360 Marketing Booth that will probably be in stores at the release of the XBOX 360 this Christmas. It is really the sexiest marketing booth I have ever seen. The wireless controllers are real, but not the system itself or it wasn't plugged in.

"I’m here at Games Market Europe in the Business Design Centre, Islington, London, where the first UK games trade since the ECTS/Game Stars! fiasco last year, is starting to kick off. This is my first report of (hopefully) many from the day which I’ll be posting later today and possibly tomorrow. I’ve already spoken to representatives from the BBFC, Codemasters, Digital Jesters (Crazy Frog Racer creators) and the guys at the Ubisoft stand. I’m hoping to sit down with the boss of European Ratings board, ELSPA and a marketing executive from Eidos, so hopefully I’ll catch up with them later.

Here’s my first photo of note from the show, a real live Xbox 360 marketing booth! This was in the Gem Distribution section of the show. Come Christmas 05’ they’ll be the ones setting up Xbox 360s in game retailers and passing on units from Microsoft. Unfortunately, the assistants aren’t allowed to turn the Xbox on, which is a bit of a bummer since, well, I wanted to see it turned on for real! However, they assure me that this machine is a real Xbox 360 and is powered by internal components. No more G5 powered Xbox 360s from here on in. There’s another close-up shot of the wireless controller after the jump."

Team WAB and Yoshihiro (irc.blackcats-games.com #wab) have developed a downgrader for the Sony PSP that will most possibly be released on September 1st, 2005! This will work on all versions of 1.5x that have been released! This includes: 1.5, 1.5.1, and 1.5.2. Many fans of the PSP who accidently upgraded when they bought their PSP now have a chance to enjoy the full collection of emulators and applications for the Sony PSP that have been made via homebrew.

Now there may be a chance it will not be released on that day due to not being able to test it on all the different PSP's in the current regions of USA, Europe, and Japan. Therefore, he is also asking for donations which his email is: yoshihirowab@yahoo.com to hopefully be able to fully test out his downgrader and that it doesn't "brick" your PSP.

Scans from the Latest Arcadia report that a new Tekken 5 version is in the works, which will include 2 new characters ala VF4EVO. They are Lili and Dragonov. The game is scedualed to appear this fall in Japan.

Source: Arcadia/Ko-hatsu