PSP modder extraordinare Dark Alex calls it quits

After nearly a year of playing cat-and-mouse with Sony's legal and dev teams, it looks like the heat was too much for Dark-AleX, the modder behind a couple (in)famous PSP cracks, including the "run any PSX ISO" 3.02 firmware and the bust-it-wide 3.10 "Open Edition." In a terse posting on his website, the cracker says the effort was not only taking up too much of his time, but that Sony's recent "menaces" to PS3 modders left him unwilling to continue. We can see why he'd drop out, but we're sad to see him go -- the PSP homebrew community owes him a great deal.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[Tristan @ Jul 3rd 2007 10:56AM]

Dark_Alex will be missed. I wonder what he means by legal problems?

[some person @ Jul 3rd 2007 2:33PM]

I don't understand it either, isn't it ok to mod unless you try to sell the modded system?

[nick @ Aug 7th 2007 5:47AM]

Sony probably paid him to quit because every time sony brings out a fw he hacks it.

[Xavier Gill @ Jul 3rd 2007 11:02AM]

muchas gracias Alejandro!

[JGUNZNP @ Jul 3rd 2007 11:21AM]

Thanks for all your hard work. The psp community won't be the same without you.

[Chris3D @ Jul 3rd 2007 11:18AM]

A Tribute To Dark_Alex
http://www.pspmod.com/forums/psp-general/17873-tribute-dark_alex.html

[Blake @ Jul 3rd 2007 11:18AM]

Dark_Alex, thanks for helping me stick it to the man!

[thak @ Jul 3rd 2007 11:18AM]

maybe dark alex is moving on...........to the iPhone

[Big @ Jul 3rd 2007 11:20AM]

I haven't purchased a SONY UMD game for PSP in a very long time.

I've got a bunch of classic NES games, Super NES, Turbographyx 16 and Sega Genesis games on a Memory Stick and they work so great on PSP.

My fav's are Shinobi, Contra 3, Soldier Blade and Chessmaster.

There is a shop in Chinatown that sells preloaded Memory Sticks.

[Bachus @ Jul 3rd 2007 11:23AM]

my bet is he's getting paid. by sony. to make firmwares that take someone better than him to open.

he's got skillz to pay the bills.

[Hexxeh @ Jul 3rd 2007 11:28AM]

Seeyah buddy, you've been great and the community will miss you. I wonder if he's willing to let other people continue with his OE firmwares and such.

[pspimp @ Jul 3rd 2007 11:40AM]

Sony paid him to stop.Simple

[KiraXD @ Jul 3rd 2007 12:52PM]

Or hired him to help with their security for sony systems. (as is the case with various famous hackers.)

If i was a good hacker, i would definitely take a job offered by sony or another major electronics corporation... and put my talent to use to make a life for myself... seems like the best route.

[thesawzall @ Jul 3rd 2007 11:35AM]

He oughta give the iPhone a try. More hardware features, more fun.

[Big @ Jul 3rd 2007 11:38AM]

I know how to hack Iphones... to pieces with an Axe.

[Manny S. @ Jul 3rd 2007 11:53AM]

My PSP continues to gather dust on the shelf while my DS gets plenty of play time. So sad. Thanks Alex, for everything.

[locknroll @ Jul 3rd 2007 12:09PM]

Maybe he got a girlfriend??

[Dan @ Jul 3rd 2007 7:36PM]

Those actually exist? I thought those were just things noobs told others to get when they couldn't win, like going outside or getting a life.

[lettcco @ Jul 3rd 2007 12:26PM]

thank you DAX for everything...

but can't you just go underground and invisible so Sony can't trace you?

[Ari @ Jul 3rd 2007 12:26PM]

It's a sad day in PSP history. I currently run Dark_Alex's OE, and it is a godsend. The PSP scene owes a lot to the likes of DA and Fanjita, and so does Sony. They made the PSP interesting again. The PSP is a handheld whose only interesting feature, sadly, is the extensive homebrew capabilities. Sony has dropped the ball when it comes to making decent PSP games, and without homebrew, I can see the PSP going the way of the Dreamcast. Hopefully someone can pick up where Dark_Alex left off, even though those are some mighty shoes to fill.

[nomadic0ne @ Jul 3rd 2007 12:51PM]

It truely is a sad day for PSP owners.

I have had a PSP for quite some time and after initially playing through one or two games when I got it, it sat unused for almost a year and I was going to sell it for a DS.

Then a friend showed me DAX's OE custom firmware.
Since then, I take it everywhere and have bought two memorysticks (2 and 4 gig) even though I hate $ony's proprietary format.
I have MAME, NES, SNES, SEGA, and N64 emulators as well as ScummVM to let me play games like "Sam and Max: Hit the Road" and "Day of the Tentacle".

Unless someone picks up his torch (I honestly wish I could, but I lack the skill), I only forsee myself loosing interest in a great product that has potential, but is gimped up by it's very maker.

Thank you Dark_Alex for all you've done!
Much respect for your talents and persistance!
You will be missed!

[Randavance @ Jul 3rd 2007 11:26PM]

He will be immortalized with the great hackers/crackers of the past. Those who didn't do it for profit, but for self entertainment and loyalty to the community instead of loyalty to the corporate share holders.

[Albert @ Jul 3rd 2007 1:24PM]

damn...i sold my psp a year ago. but i remember when i relied on DARK alex so much. you're the BOMB man. THAnks for everything. i played like 30 psp games without a single umd. if only somebody that as great as you....would be tackling the ps3 right now.

[peshue @ Jul 3rd 2007 1:26PM]

Maybe he realized that despite all his efforts, you could still pick up a gp2x and do all that stuff right out of the box.

[Jamar @ Jul 3rd 2007 2:28PM]

Show me where the heck you get a near-flawless PSX emulator for the GP2X (like the PSP has) and I'm in. For now, though, it's still the PSP for me (except for Phoenix Wright/Ace Attorney- games 1 through 4 and I got a DS Lite just for that).

[XSportSeeker @ Jul 3rd 2007 2:57PM]

Another smooth move from Sony... like when they shut down lik-sang.
Just hope DAX is not completely abandonning the modding community...

[genexk @ Jul 3rd 2007 2:09PM]

anyone thinks maybe sony offered him a job or millions of dollar just to make him quit?

[tyler_hinkle @ Jul 3rd 2007 2:22PM]

Is it really necessary to call him a cracker? I, for one, don't know what his ethnicity is, you don't have to be racist about it. ;)

[Rob @ Jul 3rd 2007 10:08PM]

You're kidding right?
Haven't you heard of the terms/names "cracker" and "hacker."?
Although incorrectly, both terms have been used interchangeably.
There was no racial connotation anywhere.

[tyler_hinkle @ Jul 3rd 2007 10:15PM]

Wow. Yes. I was kidding. Thus the sly winking smiley at the end.

[rokerovakero @ Jul 3rd 2007 2:34PM]

I guess you can say Sony finally killed the PSP going after this guy, now it will turn again into a great $200 UMD-player/ipod killer that happens to play games.

[StrangeBum @ Jul 3rd 2007 3:27PM]

It truly is a sad day for PSP modders out there. Alex contributed a lot to the community and will sorely be missed as everyone has been saying. Sony ruined this system on their own, all Dark Alex ever did was make it a system worth purchasing.

And for all of your legal teams Sony I say this 'Take your damn legal papers, and forcibly insert them up your anus.....basically, shove it all up your asses you pricks.'

[Andir3.0 @ Jul 3rd 2007 3:33PM]

Yeah, because it's totally Sony here... how could I miss that!

If it were someone writing wrappers to run OSX on any computer or Cracks for Windows you would have said they deserved to be squashed.

[Dolf @ Jul 3rd 2007 3:44PM]

It's certainly a shame to see talent brought to a halt. Luckily we live in a society where you can speak with your mouth and your wallet. If you really want Sony to know that they suck then quit buying anything they offer no matter what it is, be it a phone, tv, dvd/bd player, whatever. The people giving up their money for Sony's products are the ones that supply them with the resources to go after people like Alex and Liksang. Keep that in mind the next time you're shopping.

[Alan Partridge @ Jul 3rd 2007 3:57PM]

I would not!

Fuck Apple and Microsoft too...up any orifice!

[Miles @ Jul 3rd 2007 4:55PM]

Tell me why I'd want to play shitty games that came from the 90s again?

Oh right, you guys think 2D games are awesome.

2D is shit, and so is the PSP.

Get a DS, it's more powerful and has better SCREENS

[James @ Jul 4th 2007 3:47PM]

Miles, I don't even know where to begin telling you how wrong you are.

2D is not shit, though you may be a little whining 8-year-old unable to appreciate e.g. Super Metroid or any of the first 6 Final Fantasy games, which were all amazingly awesome (the rest were mostly awesome as well, but 7 started 3D.

The PSP does not have a ton of good games, but there are a few -- for instance, Portable Ops is a real Metal Gear game squeezed into a handheld, and even has reasonably good controls. I could say the exact same thing about the new PSP Ratchet and Clank. There's a few good RPGs, and a lot of good PS1 games that you can play if you use Dark Alex's OE firmware (YOU WILL BE MISSED!). Hell, some of the PS1 games that are good are even "3D", and therefore not "shit".

The DS screens are smaller and lower resolution than the PSP (though if you add them together, I suppose they might be bigger...), and as for "more powerful", one 66 MHz and one 33 MHz core do not equal one 333 MHz core, by any math that I'm aware of.

That said: I bought a PSP first, to play emulators on mostly, but was pleasantly surprised to find quite a few pretty good PSP-native games (eventually). I got a DS last month (mostly for Castlevania and the upcoming Zelda), and have been thrilled with it as well. I'm certainly not going to say that the PSP is better because it has better stats, but I had to address the nonsense in the post above.

[Andir3.0 @ Jul 3rd 2007 5:11PM]

So who, may I ask would you prefer makes your next portable system? Nintendo? How would you feel if someone on the Nintendo modding community decided to pack up because Nintendo's lawyers were breathing down their necks?

[Alan Partridge @ Jul 3rd 2007 5:34PM]

Fuck 'em...backwards!

[Mister Cark @ Jul 4th 2007 1:56AM]

Dark Alex's 3.40 OE firmware is pretty much the only reason I even turn on my PSP anymore. I've been having a grand old time installing my old PSX games on my 4GB Memory Stick (purchased solely for this reason) and playing them while at lunch or waiting for the oil to be changed, etc. If there were any decent games for the PSP--aside from Valkyrie Profile, which itself is a PSX port--DAX's efforts wouldn't be as big a deal for me. But there aren't, so they are.

This is a great blow to me, and the PSP homebrew scene at large. I sincerely hope that he realizes how much entertainment he has made possible.

[an_old_freind @ Aug 1st 2007 8:31PM]

hey if ur still a fan of dark alex's work leave ur addy and he will get back to u
plz help alex to get back on to his feet

[Genasis @ Aug 19th 2007 11:07AM]

10-4 Buddy...10-4