Released in the US on October 14 of this year, the PSP 3000 has thus far stymied the efforts of the homebrew hacking community to, well, hack into it. In addition to trimming the fat off the PlayStation Portable, adding a microphone, and brightening the screen, it seems Sony has also snuck in some changes that close off the loopholes hackers previously utilized. This matches current anti-pirating efforts by Nintendo to disrupt their activities by blocking the use of flash cards on the new DSi.

According to PSP World, the Pandora Battery exploit, which allowed hackers to access the kernel memory and firmware of the PSP, is now closed. PSP Fanboy even went so far as to declare that the PSP 3000 is “impervious to hackers.”

Some hackers, such as Royginald from the Philippines, have taken the drastic step of switching the new unit’s CPU with the PSP 2000 CPU. Unfortunately, PSP World points out that because the new, brighter screen is interlaced, it is incompatible with previous PSP hardware. Thus, another effort fails.

These days, two weeks is a long time for a new piece of hardware to remain pristine and unexploited. If nothing else, Sony should be proud of themselves for outsmarting the hackers for this long. If Sony’s efforts prove successful, maybe it will encourage PSP owners to purchase more games, thereby spurring development of more quality titles for the currently languishing system. Of course, it’s probably just a matter of time before someone finds a creative way to break into the PSP 3000. We’ll keep you updated.