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Sony threatens to pursue legal action against PS3 hackers News
PlayStation 3 News by Games Industry.biz
Following reports that hackers have cracked PlayStation 3's anti-piracy softare, SCEA has declared that it will "aggressively pursue" anyone caught engaging in such activity with legal action.
"Unfortunately, hackers will try to exploit any hardware system software," SCEA spokesperson Dave Karraker told GamesIndustry.biz.
"The best we can do as a company is to make our security that much stronger and aggressively pursue legal action against anyone caught trying to use an exploit in an illegal manner."
As reported by CVG.com, hackers have cracked PS3 firmware versions 1.10 and 1.11 - thereby forcing the console to boot illegal copies of games.
Booting games and playing them are two different things, however; so far, hackers have not been able to get any of the copied games to run, nor have they been able to run homebrew software.
Every hardware launch brings with it a race for hackers to defeat the system's protections, whether for the technological challenge, to run copied software, or to allow for homebrew games.
Despite Sony's attempts to prevent its emergence, the PSP has a strong homebrew community - and hackers are doubtless hoping to establish a similar base for PS3.
If legal consequences are not a deterrent, there are other risks involved. Like Microsoft, which has banned some modded Xbox 360 consoles from Xbox Live, Sony could easily stop PS3 units from accessing the PlayStation Network. Hackers also risk 'bricking' their consoles.
"Naturally, any use of an exploit on the system software does void the warranty on the PS3 system... Which could be a costly mistake to see if you can run an old SEGA CD game on it," said Karraker.
Do you spout off a lot on forums? Read GamesIndustry.biz to off-set yourself.
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BadBoyBonner
12/06/07 @ 19:39
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"Which could be a costly mistake!" - HAHAHA even Sony agree the PS3 is costly! lol
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 12/06/07 @ 20:40
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cthulhu_steev
12/06/07 @ 19:53
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ha! ha!
I love it when cunts run to their keyboards to cuss the PS3 in every single fucking thread!l Bad boi, come again! Hardcore! Mickey Finn! Ba Ba Bass Generator! Tothebeattothebeattothebeat! |
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chupachups
12/06/07 @ 20:23
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"Despite Sony's attempts to prevent its emergence, the PSP has a strong homebrew community - and hackers are doubtless hoping to establish a similar base for PS3."
Can't you already run homebrew code officially by booting the PS3 with Linux? In any case, homebrew is a laughable figleaf, we all know that the most significant effect of cracking the protection is an increase in piracy. |
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ProtoformX
12/06/07 @ 21:43
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It would be nice if the hackers started to work for Sony and contributed something legitimate to the advancement of the PS3. But then again, I think I see why they don't - if they worked for Sony and expressed a desire to make the console region-free, etc Sony wouldn't let them. At least as hackers whilst they're not supposed to be dojng this stuff, at least they can.
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BadBoyBonner
12/06/07 @ 21:43
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Cthulhu_steev
Any chance you could interpret that into English for me? Mainly so I can respond with a worth while reply. |
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crazyhorse174
12/06/07 @ 21:59
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As much as I can say that I'm not the biggest Sony lover in the world and equally I dont hate them, I dont understand why there are a lot of people pissed off that their cracking down on piracy. they have every right to do this - it is breaking the law after all.
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GamesConnoisseur
12/06/07 @ 22:13
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Piracy is a filthy abmoniation, anyone who have 'backup' DS game, PSP, PC or even had copied games for Amiga/Spectrum will be damned for ever, they will scream for fire to be put out but if Sony people are there, they will add tanker sized fuel and have a BBQ!
Seriously, we know that if piracy is not managed or prevented from becoming mainstream, then good people in the industry will be on the dole and we only get educational or commerical flash games. No more Gear of War, Legend of Zelda, Final Fanasty XII (add your favourite game here). |
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The Bodybuilder
12/06/07 @ 22:29
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Sony should just do what MS does, inhibit every console with the potential of the "Ring of Red", ensuring no one dares to mod thier console, as sooner or later it WILL be sent to MS.
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I'm slightly confused by this so called hack.
Apparently it 'boots' the game but does not run it. Exactly what does that mean on a PS3? That it recognized the disc format but doesn't accept the executable? In that case what has the hackers really done? It's not really a hack yet. Dizzy: Genji, Motorstorm, Resistance, F1, NFS:MW are examples of games that do not fit on a DVD. I'm not sure it is 95% if you count the exclusives titles since they do not have the same disc limitations as multiplatform titles. Walshicus: The longevity of games are increased by multiplayer functionality, if the PS3 didn't have online functionality not that many PS3 owners would be playing on their console since there haven't been that many games released for it. PSN is of course not great but it is a major component in the suite of applications for PS3. |
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BadBoyBonner
12/06/07 @ 22:52
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I do not think that most of us hate the Sony band wagon at the moment.
Most of us are just waiting for a good enough reason to jump on board for another fantastic ride. |
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BadBoyBonner wrote... "http://www.geocities.com/saurabh_jain100...
Bill Gates fanclub??? You gotta b e fucking kidding me ROFFLES!!!1111 |
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miiiguel: Resistance holds the crown for most data at the moment but there are more games that are above the limit (Genji, Motorstorm, F1 and NFS Most Wanted) and even more that are above the 360 disc limit (which is less than a full dvd).
But you are right, not even Resistance fills a singlelayer BDROM. Never mind a duallayer BDROM. |
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cobracotton
13/06/07 @ 04:02
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cthulhu_steev ROFLMAO i think I need medical assistance cos I laughed at your post, "to the beat to the beat to the beat" what are you on about man? thats hilarious were you mainlining glue / drinking a pint of petrol when you made that post?
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"Dizzy: Genji, Motorstorm, Resistance, F1, NFS:MW are examples of games that do not fit on a DVD. I'm not sure it is 95% if you count the exclusives titles since they do not have the same disc limitations as multiplatform titles. "
*bullshit* Anyway... hackers usually remove files that are not needed... like movies and duplicate data. You can't say with a straight face that these games use more than a DVD in data or textures. |
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"Following reports that hackers have cracked PlayStation 3's anti-piracy softare, SCEA has declared that it will "aggressively pursue" anyone caught engaging in such activity with legal action."
Not sure if the spelling mistake is on puropse or not... but good luck Sony, lets see how you deal with this one! |
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@ frod, disc:
It amazes me that the last time this discussion came up in a long Eurogamer comments thread, that everyone ignored the excellent point someone else made. Yes, the 360 DVD is way smaller than a Blu-Ray single-layer disc (even more so than the dual-layer), but Microsoft has some pretty impressive compression techniques and all they need to do is acquire these guys: http://www.theprodukkt.com/ and Microsoft will laugh itself into a coma at how much it could fit onto a standard DVD. |
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OK piracy is bad OK. I know lots of people will use the games are too expensive argument. Well a) get a job b) what isn't too expensive? The cost of a DVD-R? There really is no argument for piracy and the death of the Amiga is a pretty strong argument against.
PS @disc How come NFS:MW works on a 360 if it won't fit on the disc? |
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@dsmx
"When are companies going to learn that you can't beat piracy? Why not spend the same money on making games instead of legal action?" Lol. Why bother spending money fighting crime, when a town should really be spending its money on more casinos and brothels... @bioreit 3rd parties come and go... If they can pull off everything they say they can, great, but I've been waiting for Endorphin to become practical enough to implement in a game for 2 years. As far as I know, I don't actually know of any 3rd party (as in - outside of the games industry) technologies which have become regulars in games. |
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RexRunti: Possibly a bit of data replication to help loading and possibly some higher resolution textures.
zuljin: Havok, Granny, fmod, Miles, Ageia PhysX, FaceFX, SpeedTree, Bink Video. Unreal Engine, GameBryo, Renderware, Quake Engine/etc. and so on. Naturalmotion, the guys behind euphoria has tech that has been used by developers before. Endorphin for simulating physical reactions offline and generating animations for that. Also Naturalmotion has a state machine tool for animations called Morpheme, this is something Havok also provides. |
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@disc
Right. Now go back to my post and read what I said. Outside of the games industry. I use Havok every day by the way. NaturalMotion probably comes the closest to it, which isn't exclusively to the games industry, but still is used in very few games. My point was that; like the links you posted yesterday, they are not new technology. But having a paper on something, or a program that does something, is still miles away from actual use in a game. |
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@disc
Not quite the same still. Thats all offline generation. The only thing that pops into my head would be decompression/video/music codecs, but then they are so popular a company would just use whichever is cheapest. Don't get me wrong, if they can pull it off great, but I attended a seminar on (forgot the actual name) a materials tool, to define different types of object in a world. Not too many people seemed to be interested, but then that could have been due to them making ridiculous statements like "we model particles to the molecular level". |
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Sony can, like, fuck off back to their legal department and see if they actually have legal backing for this idiocy they are spouting off about. In the US ov A it might be illegal to hack the console due to the DMCA but US ov A is not the whole world. In most of the rest of the world, you bought it, you can do whatever the hell you want with it providing you don't break laws. No one can sue you for altering the code in the firmware or whatever of the PS3 you own.
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@Meho
Since Bioreit ran away like a little girl, I guess I'll take this one (huffs chest) "In most of the rest of the world, you bought it, you can do whatever the hell you want with it providing you don't break laws. No one can sue you for altering the code in the firmware or whatever of the PS3 you own." You managed to contradict yourself there. "Providing you don't break laws" and "noone can sue for altering code". When you buy a piece of software you agree to the terms and conditions, that usage is as governed by the owner - not you but the creator/writer. Legally this is a no brainer. They may not be able to sue, but I'm sure they'd have no problem getting a criminal record on someone caught. But then, I think thats the hard part, to actually catch someone... |
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No, EULA, especially shrinkwrapped EULA (as is the case with most retails software and hardware) are not considered proper agreements by most European courts (and how could they be, you are being faced with an agreement AFTER you have paid for the product). So, providing you didn't break copyright (for instance made and sold copies of the code), which would be illegal, altering the code to do legal things with it is perfectly within the boundaries of the law.
I mean, imagine buying an iron and 'hacking' it so that it uses less power to do the work and then being sued by the manufacturer for voiding your 'agreement'? This is basically the same thing, no? |
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