Sony Disable “Install Other OS” in firmware (v3.21)

[Shifty Geezer]

I want a fully fledged PS3 Linux, so i hacked the PS3, with the risk of opening the door to Cheaters in games, and pirated movies and games, but that is ok, because it´s my RIGHT to have more than is written on the box? wtf

Once you buy something, it's yours to do what you want with. If I want to hack my TV's firmware or replace it's electronic innards with my own bespoke image processing engine, or fix it into my fridge door, I'm entitled to, but of course then I'll lose the support of the manufacturer who has not intended it to be changed these ways and so cannot offer support. If I want to create my own console firmware that allows me to play hacked games, I'm entitled to.

However, I am not entitled to actually play hacked games because that's copyright infringement and theft of the developer's hard work. One can also question if one is entitled to distribute a firmware created to adjust one's own console, but I think that's fair, just as long as users of customer firmware recognise doing so invalidates their warranty.

So in principle, there's nothing wrong with desiring modifications of the hardware one owns to enable it to do more (and XB as a media server seems a classic example). What is wrong is using that as an excuse to enable pirate games, and further there's a moral consideration about creating a custom firmware "for good" if you know it's going to be used "for evil."

 

[patsu]

One more thing about CFW to complete the loop before I move away from the topic.

The biggest benefactors are the commercial pirates. They sell bootleg software and hardware to the consumers, or the resellers. It is not uncommon to hear/see million dollar offers to specific western hackers to crack a platform, or to replicate one. Naturally, you won't see these above the table.

 

[dobwal]

http://www.gadgetvenue.com/geo-hot-...paign=Feed:+GadgetVenue+(Gadget+Venue+dot+com)

This reminds of a quote from Kungfu Panda.

"One often meets his destiny on the path he takes to avoid it."

Shifu

Maybe Geo will call the custom firmware Tai Lung 1.0.

I guess if you don't have a young child the chance of you getting the reference is slim.

I think Sony just put a bull's eye on the top of the PS3.

 

[patsu]

Yeah, a few posters above already linked the news in. His action is only going to confirm/justify the fear -- if he can deliver.
[size=-2]The bull's eye will be (or has been) there anyway as PS3 stays locked down longer than anyone else.[/size]

EDIT: Well okay, it would also refine the Cell security approach but that's like a consolation price.

 

[N_B]

Once you buy something, it's yours to do what you want with. If I want to hack my TV's firmware or replace it's electronic innards with my own bespoke image processing engine, or fix it into my fridge door, I'm entitled to, but of course then I'll lose the support of the manufacturer who has not intended it to be changed these ways and so cannot offer support. If I want to create my own console firmware that allows me to play hacked games, I'm entitled to.

However, I am not entitled to actually play hacked games because that's copyright infringement and theft of the developer's hard work. One can also question if one is entitled to distribute a firmware created to adjust one's own console, but I think that's fair, just as long as users of customer firmware recognise doing so invalidates their warranty.
[/URL]

But hacking the firmware...isn't that still copyright infringement and theft of Sony's hard work on their OS? Like Geohot says he is going to make a modified 3.21 with OtherOS support. I doubt he will make it from scratch.

 

[dobwal]

But hacking the firmware...isn't that still copyright infringement and theft of Sony's hard work on their OS? Like Geohot says he is going to make a modified 3.21 with OtherOS support. I doubt he will make it from scratch.

If Sony or Geo sold the firmware or if Geo copied the firmware for some use on something other than the PS3, then yes.

But he just offering free customization for firmware to PS3 users who have expressed permission to use the firmware in its original form.

 

[Npl]

The irony is that Sony`s action will now lead to the impression that geohots hack is a wide open door that had to be shut down immediately and will generate much more interest than his hack alone ever could. Whether this really was the primary reason for Sony to take action is irrelevant now.

Running backups of games should be out of reach for a long time still, and hackers can still reverse/dump the Firmware aslong they dont upgrade.

And the CFW would only install on a hacked PS3 so I dont think he would reach alot people with such an effort.

 

[PARANOiA]

How so? It destroyed the PSP and essentially destroyed any chance of publishers wanting to put good games on it, IN THE GUISE OF "HOMEBREW", that is NOT good for the consumers, when I refer to consumers I mean PEOPLE WHO PAY LEGITIMATELY FOR NON-PIRATED GAMES, not steal them via piracy.

You're assumption here is that CFW was responsible for the PSP's downfall. If that's the case you need to make a better case, as opposed to putting it out as fact.

In my mind, the PSP is unsuccessful because it has poor battery life, it's too inconvenient in terms of size as a handheld, and its featureset is generally aimed at a very small audience. People don't want a "Portable PS2" on the move. People want bite-sized, tailored gaming.

That's also why the DS is so successful. It is nice and small, lasts for days on end without a charge (in terms of practical use, obviously, not literal 48-hour charge times ), and has a massive library of popular games. The exact same piracy exists for the DS, but developers make an absolute killing. It's the best selling machine on the market today.

If custom firmware killed the PSP, why didn't it kill the DS?

Your "anger" here is misguided. Sony need to design a game device for the market... not give the market what is easy to push out under its current business model, and then blame that same market for its own failures.

 

[patsu]

People don't want a "Portable PS2" on the move. People want bite-sized, tailored gaming.

Actually, PSP games do that. ^_^
They are tailored for bite-sized gaming, at least the ones I have are like that. I wasn't looking for bite-sized gaming experience per se. I was looking for something I could play on the plane.

DS fits a child's hands/hold, that's for sure. PSP is targeted at older crowd.

 

[RobertR1]

You're assumption here is that CFW was responsible for the PSP's downfall. If that's the case you need to make a better case, as opposed to putting it out as fact.

In my mind, the PSP is unsuccessful because it has poor battery life, it's too inconvenient in terms of size as a handheld, and its featureset is generally aimed at a very small audience. People don't want a "Portable PS2" on the move. People want bite-sized, tailored gaming.

That's also why the DS is so successful. It is nice and small, lasts for days on end without a charge (in terms of practical use, obviously, not literal 48-hour charge times ), and has a massive library of popular games. The exact same piracy exists for the DS, but developers make an absolute killing. It's the best selling machine on the market today.

If custom firmware killed the PSP, why didn't it kill the DS?

Your "anger" here is misguided. Sony need to design a game device for the market... not give the market what is easy to push out under its current business model, and then blame that same market for its own failures.

Whatever market Sony aimed for with the PSP rejected the offering here in NA and it'd seem Europe.

If Piracy was the blame, you'd see DS like hardware sales with poor software results. This would be greatly evident in Japan where the PSP is a success. Instead what you see are low hardware and software sales which seem to sync up.

There can be many contributing factors for it's rejection from other territories. Anything from poor software offering, portability, price and so on. I seriously doubt anyone at Sony is going with the dumb idea of "PSP failed due to piracy!" and closing the book on it. If they did and their answer is the PSPGo it should be even more evident that piracy perhaps isn't the core of your issues. It failed because they failed to identify their potential buyers in various markets.

 

[patsu]

They did admit publicly that piracy has both helped the PSP unit sales, and hurt PSP in the long run though.

Piracy cannot be solely blamed on PSP's state today. Sony neglected the platform (left it auto-pilot) and focused on PS3 for a good 1-2 years.

Moving forward, piracy will continue to be a sore spot for PSP if they stick to the current technical base, especially in piracy infested countries. There is no denying that CFW helped make that happen.

 

[dobwal]

Given the historical price range of the psp and the fact that 50 million+ psp have been moved into the market, I don't see how one can label the psp a failure in terms of hardware sales.

While the psp hasn't move a ton of software, I wouldn't put that phenomenom totally on the back of piracy. I don't know anyone who owns a psp thats bought a ton of games. I have yet to see any actual data on the internet that shows piracy is rampant enough to cause such a large discrepancies between hardware sales and software sales.

Hacking a psp is something a general consumer is not going to do. And a 50 million+ userbase is not going to be dominated by a bunch of powerusers with hacked psps. I personally think that the PSP lacks software sales because it lacks software that readily attracts gamers.

I haven't bought many games for my psp because I find readily no attraction to games that come across as light versions of console titles. I don't own a DS or know anybody who owns one but the marketing I've been indirectly exposed to, presents an experience thats totally unique to the DS. Its not like the DS is dominated by a bunch DS Sports and DS Fits that try to mimick the Wii success, but the PSP is dominated by a bunch of titles that mirror something you would typically find on a console but would probably be better served by being on one.

 

[patsu]

While the psp hasn't move a ton of software, I wouldn't put that phenomenom totally on the back of piracy. I don't know anyone who owns a psp thats bought a ton of games. I have yet to see any actual data on the internet that shows piracy is rampant enough to cause such a large discrepancies between hardware sales and software sales.

You won't find accurate channel sales data in those countries. ;^)
I tried in the IT sector for 2 years.

I believe when HP tried to collect their own sales numbers via the channel in the region. They encountered a myriad of tricks to circumvent the reporting. Sun Microsystem had similar issues.

Hacking a psp is something a general consumer is not going to do. And a 50 million+ userbase is not going to be dominated by a bunch of powerusers with hacked psps. I personally think that the PSP lacks software sales because it lacks software that readily attracts gamers.

They don't have to hack PSP themselves. The units (can) come pre-hacked. The reseller or professional pirates take a cut.

In fact, when PSP-3000 was announced, I got a call from China. A Vice President of certain company (a friend) asked me whether he should get PSP-2000 asap (for his daughter and himself) since PSP-3000 is supposed to have stronger security. This was what the salesman told him (to try to close the sales).

OTOH, I have also seen cute, young girls rushing and squeaking into a SonyStyle store buying a colorful PSP each. They were stumped by the salesman when he told them to pick a free game (This was an official promo). It looked like they only want to play movies and music on it. Or may be they already have a "game source". I don't know.

So the truth is somewhere in between.

I do agree that PSP is rather common in Asia when I was visiting. I wouldn't call it a failure. It's just that I am not sure whether they are all/mostly playing legitimate software when I hear/see a game.

 

[tha_con]

There are 50 million PSP's and vary rarely do any PSP titles break 500K, and people are saying that maybe piracy isn't an issue? Bizarro world is bizarre.

 

[Kittonwy]

You're assumption here is that CFW was responsible for the PSP's downfall. If that's the case you need to make a better case, as opposed to putting it out as fact.

In my mind, the PSP is unsuccessful because it has poor battery life, it's too inconvenient in terms of size as a handheld, and its featureset is generally aimed at a very small audience. People don't want a "Portable PS2" on the move. People want bite-sized, tailored gaming.

That's also why the DS is so successful. It is nice and small, lasts for days on end without a charge (in terms of practical use, obviously, not literal 48-hour charge times ), and has a massive library of popular games. The exact same piracy exists for the DS, but developers make an absolute killing. It's the best selling machine on the market today.

If custom firmware killed the PSP, why didn't it kill the DS?

Your "anger" here is misguided. Sony need to design a game device for the market... not give the market what is easy to push out under its current business model, and then blame that same market for its own failures.

Let's not PRETEND that DS doesn't suffer the problem of DS owners pirating games and having dozens to hundreds of them on a card, just because the DS is successful, it doesn't mean the lost sales aren't a huge problem, the PS2 was successful also and it was a platform that was plagued by piracy, and NOTHING should ever justify piracy, the difference with the PS2 is that it was mostly hardware piracy, in the PSP's case it's all spawned from CFW.

 

[dobwal]

There are 50 million PSP's and vary rarely do any PSP titles break 500K, and people are saying that maybe piracy isn't an issue? Bizarro world is bizarre.

Bizarre is attributing lack of software sales to piracy for a product when the most popular product has been descibed as having a bigger problem with piracy and yet doesn't exhibit the same lack of software sales.

The DS has sold 125 millon handheld and 700 million software units. Its done so despite piracy which so rampant that in S. Korea DS hardware sold more units than software in 2007.

The psp lacks killer marketing and killer software, its not just piracy thats killing the psp's software sales. I've seen marketing for the psp itself, but i've rarely seen major marketing for psp titles especially third party titles. And outside a handful of titles, I don't see really see a compelling library.

 

[patsu]

Is tha_con saying piracy killed/is killing PSP, or is he saying piracy due to CFW is an issue ? There is a difference.

I noticed less DS piracy. May be on my next trip, I should look out for it. In any case, tight channel control, target audience, price point, customer satisfaction, etc. may contribute to the final outcome also.

 

[joker454]

The DS has sold 125 millon handheld and 700 million software units. Its done so despite piracy which so rampant that in S. Korea DS hardware sold more units than software in 2007.

Isn't that due to the DS's audience being somewhat different? DS as far as I know is primarily used by women and young kids. Women are less likely to pirate software and I think parents are less likely to set the "it's ok to steal" example to their kids so they probably mostly buy games for them. So even though DS piracy is rampant, in it's particular case they can still run a successful business with it.

 

[dobwal]

Isn't that due to the DS's audience being somewhat different? DS as far as I know is primarily used by women and young kids. Women are less likely to pirate software and I think parents are less likely to set the "it's ok to steal" example to their kids so they probably mostly buy games for them. So even though DS piracy is rampant, in it's particular case they can still run a successful business with it.

Problem with that is homebrew on the DS is very broad and diverse for a portable that is suppose to be dominated by women and children. Just look at the list of emulators available on the DS.

The question becomes why do those that don't pirate on the DS tend to buy more games than those that don't pirate on the PSP. 125 million DS hardware with 700 million software versus 50 million psp hardware and 200 million software. You talking 150% more hardware but 250% more software. DS top five titles moved between 17-22 million units a piece while psp top 5 is more 2-4 million a piece.

Does piracy have an effect. Yes. But to think that piracy is the sole reason seems rather simplistic. Its my opinion there are several attributes of the psp that held back software sales. Sony has had problem with software sales with both its current gen products one where piracy doesn't really exist and the other where piracy exist in a healthy quantity.

 

[obonicus]

I guess if you don't have a young child the chance of you getting the reference is slim.

I think you're underestimating us man-children.

Spoiler

See patsu? You don't have to go all the way to GAF to argue with one of us!