just wondering, now that the psp is out in japan does anyone know about any homebrew projects going on yet. anything to the effect of an emulator or a gc++ compiler or even a psp library. on a side note. about the umd's. according to sony those discs have a 60mm diameter, would you be able to take one of those discs out of that little case and put in a standard 60mm cd-r??

The discs are surely not compatible with any consumer drive. Homebrew development has not yet started, e.g. no libs and no toolchain available yet.

Actually it makes a lot of sense to keep the format uder corporate control. This not only affects piracy but also prevents unlicensed 3rd parties from distributing unauthorised content.
MS, Sony and Big N are not making their money by selling hardware (in fact there is even a loss on each sold unit at first). They make their money with licensing fees they get from authorised developers. Therefore they need to control the creation of the media (e.g. publishers have to order it from MS/Sony/Nintendo) and the distributed content as well.
They have certain standards in quality, gameplay and content that need to be matched in order for them not to lose their image and to enable easy access to games for their customers (in terms of game controls/layout a.s.o.).

All of the above cannot be hold if they'd open up the market for homebrew development! And heck, nobody holds you back from creating the next AAA GC or PSP mega-seller in your cellar. If you have a great game and keep the (high level-) code portable, you can still make a PC game and send it to publishers. If they see any potential for your game they will get you licensed and have you an official devkit sent. I'm sure there will be possibilities to develop for the PSP without any official devkit in the near future. And you will surely not need the original media for that (only potential pirates would want that...).

Just my 0.02€ worth,
Pat.

What's the capacity of the memory sticks the psp can use?

I think the PSP can use up to 512MB Memory Stick Duos. But don't quote me on that.

I'm kind of interested: Sony put out the Yaroze and then the PS2 Linux kit, and one of their reps dropped hints in the PS2 Linux kit forums that a similar thing would be out for the PSP.

The fact that the PSP can apparently boot games off memory sticks only serves to whet my appetite.

Anyone who can understand Japanese... please Google for us! I have no idea how to search and I'm sure the Japanese have just as many homebrew sites as us. :)

PSP and DS would be great for emulation. But I guess since they're trying to block piracy, it would be too much of a pain to bother. NGage/Series 60 are probably the easiest ways to have emulation on the go. Still mediocre, but playing old favorites while on the bus or whatever is a great boredom fixer.

The PSP is able 2 run games from the memcard for demo's and stuff, so there is a way.