PS3 hacked - What are the consequences?

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My opinion: PS 3 sales will boost.

edited 10th Jan '11 12:50:17 AM by Sati1984

It's funny that the hackers said they hacked the system to allow Linux to be installed on the PS 3 rather than to play pirated games. The PS 3 used to allow Linux to be installed, but removed that feature. Doing so apparently wasn't a good idea.

Naturally, regardless of the hackers' original intentions, the system is now open to piracy.

I'd love to see a hack which restores the PS 3's backwards compatibility!

The PS 3 never had backwards compatibility, it just had a built-in PS 2 emulator that didn't always work. I can certainly see someone installing a PS 2 emulator on one though. And I wouldn't be too surprised if the homebrewed emulator was better designed than Sony's.

An interesting point raised by one of the users who commented on the article:

"... multiplatform games are still selling more on 360.

Can anyone answer the question this data poses. If piracy is a signicant factor in sales of games why are multiplatform games still selling more on the pirated platform?"

With this hack, I predict the game sales will rise too!

Nothing.

All that hack can do is allow homebrew games to be played on the newest firmware, and "backups" of new games like Black Ops or Gran Turismo 5 to be played on earlier firmware versions. Pirating PS 3 games still requires sacrificing PSN and all firmware beyond 3.41, and failOverflow's presentation hasn't changed that.

edited 5th Jan '11 7:35:48 AM by Foobar2002

^ You clearly underestimate the power of homebrew. Wii's homebrew can allow complete region bypassing.

The PS 3 has been hacked for months. And you know what we've gotten? Some emulators, a handful of demo homebrew games, and a dozen "backup managers" used to manage pirated games.

I'm going to try to contain my shock.

^x2 The thing is, that unlike the USB trick, this hack actually broke the root key to the console. Translation: Any hacker with the time and skill can make the system run any PS 3 program and/or firmware as if it were official software for the system, and it's effectively impossible to block via firmware updates without chucking functionality for every PS 3 game released so far out the window. To add insult to injury, the hackers also found the PSP's root key in the process.

My prediction: Multiplatform games will bear the brunt of the piracy wave, seeing as they are typically designed to meet XBox 360 data size requirements (and by extension, are easier to download illicitly than some 30 GB PS 3 exclusive). That said, I think that the inevitable piracy wave will take some time to gain momentum, seeing as the PS 3's hacking scene has pretty much been non-existent for the majority of its lifespan (being a PITA to program also helps).

edited 5th Jan '11 11:38:11 AM by TheGinkei

being a PITA to program also helps

This has killed more than one actual console in the past, so why should a hacking scene be any different?

It should be easy for Sony to push a firmware update that 1) uses a different key for new games and 2) if a game uses the existing key, allows it only if it appears on a whitelist. (Since approval of every game already goes through Sony, they have a complete list of all software to be whitelisted.)

...404 Article Not Found?

Ah, you have an extra / at the end. Is bugging it for me for some reason.

From what I gathered, they can't do that. Sure, they can use new keys for new games (and probably will), but they'd block all the old versions, no way to whitelist. And that's moot too: someone got the key for the loader, so all they have to do is hack that. Or something.

edited 7th Jan '11 4:00:27 PM by TheInferno

Removed the "/" from the end

It begins.