Loose Threads: What do we all think of handheld homebrew?

There is nothing quite like cracking open a brand new box fresh PSP or DS. The pure virginal untouched beauty of either handheld is something any gamer can appreciate, no matter what their denomination.

There are some, however, who no sooner have they liberated their new toy from its cardboard prison, that they're rabidly filling its slot with a homebrew cartridge or usurping its firmware for a more illicit version all in the name of perverting its intended use.

We're talking, of course, about homebrew aficionados, those lovable rogues who can turn a handheld console into a vessel for almost any game from the last 20 years in the blink of an eye. On last week's Loose Threads, we put the topic of homebrew up for debate.

One of our forum stalwarts, Mandark, was typically early to the discussion:

"I'm not into homebrew. I didn't buy my handhelds to run a ton of third-party programs. It's very clever what some people can do but it's not for me! Yeah, I'm boring like that."

And he's not alone. Mandark's sentiments were echoed by SetsFireToPoshHammer:

"I have to say, though it pains me to admit it, I am much too scared to venture into the world of homebrew. It just seems so complicated and I am a bit old fashioned about keeping my consoles virginal and pure. "At a guess though I would say that surely the PSP is the place for ported classics and the DS for more original projects based around the hardware."

An unexpected start, then � we thought there would be loads of you codesters our there, ready to defend your controversial hobby. In fact, it wasn't until danskmacabre stepped in that anyone had anything positive to say:

"There are some great homebrew games and apps out there. Such as Colors, a very well written drawing package, you can even email your images to people from your DS. Dicewars is a classic (it's basically 'Risk'), I would have been happy to pay for that if it had a commercial release. Lots of other tools, utilities and games that are fun and they seem to be getting better. There's certainly a place for homebrew, even if the cards that run homebrew are a bit of a dodgy, grey market."

And that, believe it or not, was all you lot had to say on the matter. But that's actually okay because there was plenty of discussion going on elsewhere in the forum.

Our favourite involves the interesting tid-bits coming in as a result of our predictably inflammatory Opinion: The PSP has become a blunt Swiss Army Knife feature last week.

Splat wrote:

"I really don't care about a camera for my PSP, let alone Skype, GPS or all those other things. People who buy a PSP are generally gadget freaks so they already have MP3 players, decent phones, digital cameras, etc. They don't want all-in-one devices. They want cutting-edge single use devices. "So my beef is that I'm worried Sony failed to convince the big publishers to increase support for PSP so it's adding all these peripherals as plan b."

Then a shockingly handsome chap chipped in with:

"The PSP is a console that would really benefit from a robust download service in so many ways, something which has been promised and never delivered for far too long now. Sure the new PSP store is a step in the right direction but what use is a flashy site if it is only being drip fed content."

However, a vocal forum newbie Autobon saw things differently for the PSP, adding:

"The reason third-party exclusives go to the DS more is because for a long time the PSP was doing horrible in sales. The Slim really picked the PSP back up, and now it's doing a great job. Now we have games like EndWar, Force Unleashed, Devil May Cry 4, Need for Speed, etc."

There is the risk of there never be an end to that particular discussion but alas we must stop here. And so on to next week's topic: Is iPod gaming worth the time? As always, more details can be found over in the forum.

In the meantime, click 'Track It!' to be sure to catch next week's Loose Threads.