PSP Homebrew wars - m33 vs. AoP, Sony wins first round

Homebrew community has already suffered some losses in the previous period, with some modders retiring from the scene. In the past few days, homebrew scene has taken another blow with the ongoing dispute between two modder teams. In the current situation, it is unclear what benefit either of the teams has by the moves they have made, but so far it is obvious that biggest Homebrew opponent - Sony, is winning.

As far as we can tell, it all started with Russian Homebrew modding team m33 issuing a statement claiming that team AoP has been using parts of their software. Modders from m33 also announced a temporary hold on custom firmware development as the consequence. Team AoP responded to accusations by also temporarily discontinuing custom firmware development, and afterwards announcing “blowing m33 out of the water“.

The cause of the dispute, according to m33 team, is a leak of custom code used for patching original Sony PSP Firmware. Leak, made the code publicly available, thus enabling other modders to use it, and of course a chance for Sony to take a peek. According to m33 team, Sony grabbed the chance and used the leak to make changes to original firmware, thus making it more secure and harder to patch.

Team AoP did not comment on the accusations from m33 team, but shortly after their statement, declared a cease of development on custom firmware “until some issues are resolved“. Shortly after, updated statement was released by AoP team leader - Yanko, proclaiming that team is “back at the drawing board to really blow m33 outta the water“.

Even though both modding teams are working for the same community, community itself is suffering from their moves. Custom firmware development has been put on hold on both sides, and will pose more difficulties ahead if Sony really had a chance to take a peek at custom code leaked out to public. If m33 is correct at claims that Sony already made appropriate changes to original PSP firmware, both teams will probably have problems circumventing new Sony security related changes. Even if all claims are false, if there was no leaked code and Sony did not make any changes to original PSP firmware, damage has been done to the Homebrew community - instead of cooperating for the sake of community teams are at war.

From all that has happened on both team sides, it is obvious that Sony has won this round. Below you can see the statements released from the both teams.

M33 Team statement
Hello, world.

As you have seen, some things have changed between Sony and the developing of custom firmwares.

Due to the leak (that we’ve always gone against this crime) of the OE sources from a private svn, everyone can
take a peek into the patches done from the Open Edition to the original firmwares to allow the development
into this scene that was growing day after day. And, when we say anyone, we include Sony.

This intrusion into one of the basis of the actual PSP Scene, has just made harm to the entire world of the
PSP Scene. Therefore, Sony saw this and made some interesting changes in some modules (mainly loadcore), plus
the change of some nids that are used to the development of M33 Custom Firmware.

So, if you can’t wait for the new release, you’ll have to wait; and this is cause this leak and this changes
made upon the material we work and we try to release asap to the *entire* psp community. Looks like, as always,
there is someone that wants to be important in this world when no-one asks him, and his result is this delay
on the development of the new versions.

This “benefit” that much lammers talked about in foreign forums, talking about OE leak, will just made a result
in the near future: that serious developers (including us) will think twice before releasing anything else.

And also, speaking about the new “custom firmwares” that have been released, such as AoP, and others addons
that use M33Cf, will be deeply studied and reversered to see if *anything* of the core, reboot, or whatever
from our work has been ilegally used. If this is afirmative, we’ll have to act against this.

This changes won’t probably last too long and won’t be an important problem, but it’s just, as we have just said,
another resultant of trying to be someone on this world by stealing and leaking instead of studying.

Please have patient and stay tuned for the next Custom Firmware for PSP and PSP Slim and Lite

AoP Team statement
Until further notice Team AoP is ceasing firmware development. We are not leaving the scene and we intend to finish the firmware. but due to some recent accusations and issues ranging from personal to testing we have decided to cease development until we have some items resolved.

Yanko, leader of Team AoP
We simply have some reconsidering too do. lol but were back to the drawing board to realllly blow m33 outta the water.