PSP firmware hack drives Lumines sales

by Kyle Orland { Jun 25th 2007 at 11:28AM }

Well that was fast. It was just Saturday that hackers at Noobz found a buffer overflow exploit in the puzzle classic Lumines that allowed hackers to run a simple Hello World program on any PSP firmware, including the recently released version 3.5. By Sunday, our blogging brethren at PSPFanboy caught the above screengrab of Amazon's Movers and Shakers page showing the game's sales jumping a ludicrous 5900 percent in just one day. As of this posting Monday morning, the same page shows a more moderate 750 percent rise pushing the two-year-old title to the second-highest spot on Amazon's video game sales charts.

We understand that there are a lot of people out there that want to exploit this new, uh, exploit to run homebrew code on their PSPs. What we don't understand is how there can be so many PSP owners out there that don't already own Lumines. How do you buy a PSP and not immediately pick up this hauntingly beautiful musical puzzler? We suppose there could be some PSP owners out there who eschew UMDs altogether for legally questionable emulators, but really, if you need a firmware hack to justify shelling out a few bucks for such sublime puzzle goodness then we don't want to be your friend anymore.

Tags: buffer overflow, BufferOverflow, emulation, emulator, exploit, firmware, firmware 3.5, Firmware3.5, hack, hacker, lumines, PSP

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

t3h ub3r 1337 haxorz @ Jun 25th 2007 11:37AM

1st..........Also $0ny is t3h sux0rz!!! Neo Geo Pocket Color FTW!!!

Shagittarius @ Jun 25th 2007 11:42AM

Just buy a GP2x...The screen is better and its the right size ratio for these games. Did I mention its open platform and there are emulators for everything?

Crono @ Jun 25th 2007 11:42AM

Even more proof that the only thing the PSP excells at is playing SNES games.

*dons flamesuit

Crono @ Jun 25th 2007 11:42AM

Cool shagi, what store can I buy one at?

kingofwale @ Jun 25th 2007 11:46AM

sadly that nobody above me knows ANYTHING about Sony PSP or its homebrew ability. *sighs*

JodyAnthony @ Jun 25th 2007 11:49AM

I still dont own this game. I've come close to buying it (its only like $10-$15 now) but I haven't bit the bullet yet. Anyway I'm not buying any more games until I finish some of the games I already have.

I loves my PSP though. I adore Me & My Katamari. It may be harder to control than the PS2 games, and the framerate may suffer sometimes, but boosting the PSP to 333mhz helps quite a bit, and I just can't resist that lovable prince.

Stevo @ Jun 25th 2007 11:50AM

I wonder how many PSP's would be sold if it didn't have homebrew capabilities...

JodyAnthony @ Jun 25th 2007 11:50AM

plus the hacked version of the SNES emulator that came out recently plays Secret of Mana at full speed, 60 fps. sweetness indeed

AgentESPIO7 @ Jun 25th 2007 11:55AM

I used to use homebrew on my PSP, but I accidentally updated my PSP and now I can't hack into it anymore. I did buy Lumines when it first came out, so yay.

Martin @ Jun 25th 2007 11:57AM

JodyAnthony, what's the name of that SNES emulator? Since it is one of the things the PSP is good for, I'd like to grab it.

So is this the new GTA: LCS 2.0 Update to have? Does this actually let you run homebrew, or has only "Hello World" been confirmed?

required @ Jun 25th 2007 12:07PM

It's amazing that Nintendo still pays you kids.

thispaceforsale @ Jun 25th 2007 12:07PM

There is something like 8 million psps in the US, let's say 5% are into homebrew/emulation or 400,000 users. Even if only 5% of them need lumines that's still 20,000. Which is enough to push any title released that long ago into the sales spotlight.

JodyAnthony @ Jun 25th 2007 12:08PM

@martin

http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=63097

sheppy @ Jun 25th 2007 12:08PM

You know, for a system that supposedly has no games to play, thanks to a TRU clearance, my collection has now breached 40.

JodyAnthony @ Jun 25th 2007 12:10PM

its just a hacked version of SNES9X-TYL. a couple of games don't work quite as well as they used to, but most games have great speed boosts. Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu 3 both play at full speed, and earthbound runs great with a frameskip of 1

ssuk @ Jun 25th 2007 12:45PM

@4: www.lik-sang.co-- oh wait...

Deviation @ Jun 25th 2007 12:48PM

Well, if they're like me, they never bought Lumines because Lumines 2 came out and has almost all of the content from the original game. Lumines 2 cost me all of $15 by the time I bought my PSP.

That said, I might hunt down a copy of the original now because I'm running the 3.50 firmware and I'd love to get in on some emulation action.

sheppy @ Jun 25th 2007 12:52PM

Yeah, Lik-Sang was a great choice for GP2Xs... that's where I bought mine. Where they were selling used units as new and refused to honor a warranty, opting instead for a $30 coupon code off the price of another "new" unit, making their GP2X prices a mere $40 more than Play-asia. Or you could not be a dick...

@4

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-d1-77-1-49-en-15-gp2x-70-1rsb.html

That's for the value pack. Doesn't include the TV hookups though. That's Play-Asia.

Here's the other search results through Froogle.
http://www.google.com/products?q=gp2x+value

Slaziman @ Jun 25th 2007 12:53PM

cue Sheppy explaining to ssuk why Lik-Sang sucked for the 1000th time on Joystiq

Slaziman @ Jun 25th 2007 12:54PM

Damn it I was too late.

Rootbeer @ Jun 25th 2007 1:00PM

My new phone came with a free 60-second preview version of Lumines Mobile on it. That was about as long as the game was able to hold my interest; when the time ran out, I didn't crave more.

Is the full PSP version more compelling? Or is it really just Yet Another Tetris Variant to go on the pile with Columns, Dr. Mario, Klax, Meteos, et al, et al?

losttoys @ Jun 25th 2007 1:10PM

Why even bother with this when you can use Dark_Alex firmware?

Alex McKee @ Jun 25th 2007 1:32PM

Well, I bought Lumines II, which doesn't work for this, unfortunately. Please still be my friend?

Adam Chance @ Jun 25th 2007 1:39PM

So this is why I lost 2 auctions..

Rob Accomando @ Jun 25th 2007 2:23PM

@22, it's people who upgraded past 3.01(I think that's the right one) any cannot downgrade then upgrade to DA firmware.

sheppy @ Jun 25th 2007 2:23PM

@Rootbeer

What you experienced was roughly the equivelant of trying to play four player Halo 3 on a 3" screen with speakers made of cathair and tinfoil. So no, what you experienced was not even remotely as good as the full version. If you're truly curious, Lumines II went on clearance today at Toys R Us for $10. At that price, it's kinda hard to argue against it. Especially with all the modes and even a skin (music track) editor.

And correction on earlier today, decided against pocket racers so my PSP collection sits at 40, not over 40...

But I did snag Gunpey, Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror, and EA Replay for the PSP at TRU today for $10 each....

Rob Accomando @ Jun 25th 2007 2:26PM

oops, typing on a cell phone sucks

sheppy @ Jun 25th 2007 2:26PM

@slaziman

I'd hate to disappoint. I have a reputation to keep. I have a couple followers (the hell?!? who follows ME?!? This is like getting military strategy advice from Custer!) and now even an Anti-Sheppy floating around. Plus I have a bricked GP2X (been contemplating the Value Pack for a while, actually) which brings immeasurable hatred to the online store it was purchased from.

JodyAnthony @ Jun 25th 2007 2:39PM

sheppy, how is ea replay? Ive been thinking about picking it up, if only for the ultima game on it

sheppy @ Jun 25th 2007 2:56PM

@JodyAnthony

Not sure, actually. Got it during my lunch break. Primarily I wanted it for Road Rash, Haunting starring Polterguy, and the Strike series. Kinda saddened to discover it's not the full 2D trilogy (it's missing Urban Strike) on that front. But I haven't had a chance to play yet. Maybe sometime tomorrow night I'll crack these games open.

Captain Obvious @ Jun 25th 2007 2:56PM

@sheppy

[trolling]

One of the main reasons why a store like Toys 'R Us has a clearance sale is because those games aren't selling to consumers. They have to sell them at a severe loss to cheap wads like you just to get rid of them. Anyone who has a least bit of a brain wouldn't buy PSP games at full price anyway, they just don't deserve that much money.

[/trolling]

JodyAnthony @ Jun 25th 2007 2:57PM

then how do you explain toys r us's current buy 2 get one free deal on all DS games?

sheppy @ Jun 25th 2007 3:12PM

Well, considering there were more DS and GBA games to hit clearance today than any other console at TRU, I'll take that as a sign. Actually, no I won't. Clearance on games is like christmas. You can snag the games you want that the $40 price tag kept you away from.

Look, when you get a collection as big as mine, some games you're willing to pay full price for, some games you aren't. For me, I heard good things about Syphon Filter but I've never been a big fan of the series. At $20, it's tempting. At $10, it's irresistable. Likewise on EA Replay. Most of the things on there are emu possible. Just like throwing some cash out on emulated software. This will also be the last "classics collection" missing from my PSP library. And Gunpey... well, I have Gunpey and Gunpay EX on Wonderswan. I think I'm allowed to wait for the $10 price tag.

JodyAnthony @ Jun 25th 2007 3:15PM

sales kick ass.

Aberu @ Jun 25th 2007 3:55PM

Comment summary:

Anti-Sony fanboys all take this good news as bad news stating that they are doing this because there are no games. (I insert link to my myspace which has a list of 80+ great games to play) Other people say it does have great games. Nintendo DS guys come in and say DS is bettarz. Someone quotes the GP2x which actually DOESN'T have any good games, except those played over emulation. Another quotes some obscure handheld that sold like crap and really wasn't that great (aka neogeo pocket color).

Did I get that right?