The PS3 has now officially been hacked.

[Perversion]

Yes it has.


The comments are interesting. Some people believe that modding or hacking a console to be able to run homebrew is a bulls*** excuse for piracy. Some people believe that hackers do it for the challenge, or for the fact that Sony forcibly relinquished the capability to use an OtherOS.


I WILL say that I have 2 original Xboxes, one of which is modded. I also have two PS3s, one of which is currently non-functional. Depending on what is able to be done with it modded, I might do so myself at some point.


You guys obviously know (judging from the amount of games in my collection and my staunch support for developers I like) that I'm not a pirate. But I can see where a topic such as this might get a bit touchy (MegamanDXguyorwhatever).

So, what are your feelings on this?

[Goufunaki]

Re: The PS3 has now officially been hacked.

I just want something that will let me play my import PS1/PS2 games.

[Toaster]

Re: The PS3 has now officially been hacked.

Watch as hackers make PlayStation 2 games work slim models.

[The_Real_Crunk]

Re: The PS3 has now officially been hacked.

Watch as hackers make PlayStation 2 games work slim models.

I have no problem with this~

[Jehuty]

Re: The PS3 has now officially been hacked.

Its for pirating. Blatantly too.

[Valkysas]

Re: The PS3 has now officially been hacked.

It exists only for pirating, "homebrew" is just something people like to use an excuse. Very few people use hacked consoles just for homebrew stuff, and pretty much none of them use it only for homebrew stuff.

Thanks for more rampant useless firmware updates, hackers. **** you all.

I can't wait to hear the claims of "I can't afford to buy games at retail" defense argument despite the cost of a blu-ray disc burner or big-ass hard drive that these pirates will be using, nevermind the cost of the PS3 itself.

[Goufunaki]

Re: The PS3 has now officially been hacked.

That, and it'll be the "money they would never have made from me to begin with" excuse.

[Sampson]

Re: The PS3 has now officially been hacked.

Yeah, its for pirating.

Pretty much anything can and will be hacked in this digital age.

But using piracy as an excuse for game/system failure is just that, an excuse.

Here's a list of the most pirated games for 2010:
http://gamepolitics.com/2010/12/29/m...ted-games-2010

All of those games are huge commercial successes.

I have to believe the consumers who are willing to purchase games, and those who are willing to pirate are for the most part different segments of the market. Not everyone can be a pirate--it requires some technical knowledge the average gamer doesn't have.

The "pirate segment" of the PC market happens to be a much larger percentage of the market than the "pirate segment" of the console market. PC game developers have adapted to this. Console developers will just have to do the same.

[Valkysas]

Re: The PS3 has now officially been hacked.

Uh, it's just an excuse? PSP ring any bells? RPG Maker itself ring any bells? Well known fact that the game was so heavily pirated worldwide that no one was buying it even in japan, and instead just waited for the pirated versions to come out. Enterbrain's RPG Maker division begged the pirates to stop when sales dipped so low that they were almost dissolved as a result. Meanwhile tons of people were just happily stealing the software. The only thing that saved them was the vast majority of the PC RPG Maker users deciding "oh yeah, we're kind of being assholes" and turning against the pirates. Enterbrain then took a huge good faith risk and released XP in English after the attitude shifted. Not long before the shift, the surveys they circulated asking about a US release came back mostly saying it had to be free, or under 20 for anyone to buy it.

We know this. We know piracy almost killed the franchise, and the division of enterbrain that made it. We happen to be from the one community that knows just how much piracy can **** everything up. So there's no way it's "just an excuse".

Granted, this isn't the case for everything (I know RPGM's position is pretty damn rare), but it happened. That any member of this community could ever say "piracy is just an excuse for failure" is absolute bull****. It can ruin the smaller companies. Bigger companies with higher profile games, yeah, they don't get screwed that much, but they still get screwed. Smaller companies and smaller profile games don't appear on "top pirated games" lists, so people forget about them. The top 5 pirated games are the top 5 pirated games because they're popular games. Other games do exist.

[Sampson]

Re: The PS3 has now officially been hacked.

You said "RPGM's position is rare" and it is. 95% of gamers have no interest in the RPGM series, and of those that do, 90% would probably never buy it because of its complexity. Therefore, you're looking at such a tiny market. Its the nichest of niche games.

Beyond that, the market that it appeals to is a highly sophisticated gaming market. We are the ultimate video game nerds. Maybe 10 or 20% of the people that play Madden know how to pirate games. We pretty much all do.

The fact that RPGM wasn't killed by piracy is the ultimate testament to piracy being an excuse. Can you think of a worse situation? They created a niche game which appeals to the gamers who are most likely to pirate and still they've managed to put out XP and VX.

As for the PSP: first of all, the PSP didn't actually fail. Yes, the DS destroyed it comparatively speaking. But, the PSP still moved 50 million units and was still the most successful non-Nintendo made handheld console of all time. The N-gage failed. The PSP just didn't live up to expectations.

Why didn't it live up to expectations? Games, games, games. Or lack thereof. Just look at the list of the PSP's greatest hits. Its laughable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...est_Hits_games

What must-have games did the PSP have? What flagship title did it launch with? Not saying that it didn't have any good games, but the good games it had were, again, niche titles that didn't appeal to most gamers. I think the PSP actually did rather well given its poor library.

[The_Real_Crunk]

Re: The PS3 has now officially been hacked.

Its freaky how widespread pirating is. I know tons of people who download new movies. My own mother hasnt bought a CD in years thanks to limewire and now frostwire. My stupid brother and his retarded little friend both download PC games all the time. My brother says he refuses to buy Ubisoft games for some reason about not wanting to support them, so he just downloads them. His friend told me "Its totally legal in Canada. I looked it up. As long as you arent making profit off it its legal!", and refuses to believe otherwise.

Its just like when Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade where talking about that big pack of games on steam or some other site where you could pay whatever you wanted, even one cent, as long as it wasnt zero, and all the proceeds would go to charity, and people still pirated it.

[Sampson]

Re: The PS3 has now officially been hacked.

You can decry everyone for being immoral, but it won't change anything. The companies will just have to adapt.

In terms of games, it'll have to be an emphasis of things like online multi player and scarce goods like collector's editions. In terms of movies/music, the industries will have to push distributional networks at a fair price that are more convenient than pirating. Ala netflix/rhapsody.

[marcus]

Re: The PS3 has now officially been hacked.

It's a shame they can never track these statistics by region because I guarantee you majority of pirates are people in countries where video games are literally $100+ or aren't available at all. I thought Americans had it bad when games started hitting $60 and then I started complaining when PC games, which are free from licensing and retail fees, started hitting $60 but people in Australia and Europe have to pay outrageous fees like $120 for a new, boxed copy of Call of Duty Whatever which is basically the disc in a plastic case with a one-page reference sheet. Then they have to deal with terrible servers which screw everyone else over when they try to connect to something faster.

PC piracy is high because, surprise surprise, everyone has a PC. Technology has become so stagnant that a cheap graphics card from 2007 can basically play any game on medium settings. Ivan Stereotypvich in Ukraine can download all the games not available in his region because he has no other choices other than pay $50 for shipping on a single game. Console piracy is much lower by comparison because console sales are limited by region and video games will only work on specific regions. This isn't the case with a PC game.

I agree with Sampson that piracy is an excuse and devs just need to find a better means to put out their product. The music industry tried to fight back with pitiful returns, turned to digital, and suddenly saw massive spikes. The movie industry in the 80s relied entirely on rentals which could be easily copied by anyone with two VCRs until they finally decided "Hey, let's just release cheap tapes ourselves and make bank off it." Game developers have turned to digital sales and DLC incentives and it's working. Call of Duty Black Lips may have been pirated by 5 million people but it sold 2 times that many in a week.

[Valkysas]

Re: The PS3 has now officially been hacked.

The fact that RPGM wasn't killed by piracy is the ultimate testament to piracy being an excuse. Can you think of a worse situation? They created a niche game which appeals to the gamers who are most likely to pirate and still they've managed to put out XP and VX.

They released XP because they were right about to be shut down at the time, and there was literally nothing to lose. If they had not released XP in english at that exact moment in time (as the PC RPGM community was turning anti-piracy), yes, the franchise would have died. Their earlier push to release 2000 and 2003 in english was met with a large response of "**** you" and even declarations of "we'll put that up for free too" from popular PC RPGM websites, and were thus abandoned. The PC RPGM community at the time HATED Enterbrain because they wanted Don Miguel to take down his pirated version of RPG Maker 2000 so they could release it in english. His site being the most popular PC RPG Maker community at the time, it was a sensible request. With XP the situation changed, and people were begging for it. Enterbrain decided to see if the community really had shifted, and lucky for them and us, it did. The RPG Maker Pavilion staff was one of the major players in convincing them to give it a shot, so yes, I know exactly what the situation was with them at the time.

The success of XP and VX is not a testament to anything other than "the PC RPGM community decided to stop being douchebags". You have no idea just how bad it got.

THAT being said, as far as I'm aware, the situation in japan has not changed. Most still favor the pirated versions.

Game developers have turned to digital sales and DLC incentives and it's working. Call of Duty Black Lips may have been pirated by 5 million people but it sold 2 times that many in a week.

and yet both humble indie bundles are still pirated, which cost literally anything you felt like paying. Apparently for a lot of people, that was still too damn much. I know digital distribution is working, but pirates are still complete assholes, and the piracy of games that cost whatever you want to pay for them prove that.

Basically, my point is that if you pirate, you're a dick.

[Jeroak Nelave]

Re: The PS3 has now officially been hacked.

I've got a pretty good idea who our resident pirates are...