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Playstation 2 Recalled In Japan
silvergun writes: "According to FGNonline, the 1.25 million Playstation 2 units sold in Japan have been placed under a mandatory recall by Sony, due to the fact that they can play DVDs for territories other than they were intended. I'll say ouch for Sony." Update: 03/31 02:04 by CT : Several people noted that the recall was on the DVD Playing Software, not the actual PS2 hardware itself. Sorry about the confusion.
If people really want to watch the latest DVD's that are released in other countries, they can purchase that region's player with which to do so. There is nothing stopping them from doing that. There are no rules or regulations against that.
However if there was a possibility for other companies to make a player that defeats regional encoding their manipulation simply wouldn't work because they are trying to manipulate something they don't own -- the behavior of players. This possibility does not exist because they have a monopoly on CSS keys licenses => looks like an abuse of monopoly power to me...
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
3.You can't claim the PS2 is in any way a DVD-copying machine, any more than a standard,
fully-region-encoded DVD player is.
Though DVD players which allow titles from any region to be played back violate the DVD licensing agreement. And the DVDCCA is already cracking down on manufacturers who put in hidden menu options or ways to modify the players.
The MPAA has had a word with them and they will be disabling the hack RSN. In fact, such hackable players will probably disappear from the market within the year.
Only because they slipped past the lawyers. Manufacturers don't sell them as non-regional models.
Or do you mean stuff in 19" rackmount enclosures, intended for studio use?
I can see this developing in a similar way to the PSX 1 mods that are around - they are based on the original 'region' controller that shipped with the press demo and other usints when the PSX was first released. All that happends is you burn the data onto an eprom and solder it into your PSX (but I guess you all knew that anyway :)
So I assume somewhere down the line people will be getting copies of the recalled software and using it instead of the stuff their PSX shipped with.
Which kinda brings me to a point......... this software has been recalled etc etc. Would it actually be illegal for me, if I owned a UK PSX2 for example to replace my software with the old software as I own the hardware and stuff. I guess this is like asking if it'd be legal to use someone's copy of word 2 if I owned word 6 so I guess it would be illegal.
Hohum
troc
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
No support, future games check for version and don't work with low ver until you replace it.
You call them, they tell you to upgrade before getting any support.
May be the dial-up service does the same.
/Simon
I don't know anything about percentages or what causes them, but I've got two DVD's now that haven't worked, right out of the shrinkwrap. One was a "There's Something About Mary" disc, and the other was Monty Python's Flying Circus volume I. Both of these would just go nuts on multiple players, both my hardware player in my entertainment system and multiple PC/Mac DVD drives. I returned them to Sam's Club and got new ones, but it was weird. Are these type of things caused by copy protection or shitty discs?
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When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
It's getting so bad that I'm starting to wonder why studios are willing to release stuff to the public at all. (Yes, I know it's about money, but they're so damn paranoid about people copying their stuff that it's getting difficult to play it legally). I'd love to see a study on what percentage of legitmate purchases are made unusable and/or returned due to defective copy protection (or region coding) systems...
I guess if I lived in the US there would be enough local DVD titles of the stuff I actually want for it to be worth me getting a DVD player. As it is, Australia has such a crappy collection of titles, if I can't get stuff from another region I typically have no reason to buy a player in the first place.
On a more serious note - who cares? I know that when I get my PSX2 it'll be mod-ed to the hilt and it'll be able to play whatever the h--l I want...
Great, let them spend all this money recalling the software and reissuing the Japanese region software. Then let them sell PS2s in USA (presumably with North America region software).
Then it'll be time to hit 'em. Hit 'em? Yeah: Surely this whole region scheme is illegal, as restraint of trade, anyway. Why haven't the DVD folks been sued over it yet? I don't know why, but I'm sorta glad it hasn't happened yet. I say let them spend a lot of money deploying region-compliant players, and then WHAM! Sick DoJ (and European counterparts) on them, getting a court order to make everyone recall every DVD player on the market in USA & Europe, and replacing them with ones that will play in every region.
Let them waste their money. I look forward to reading about their stockholders jumping out of windows.
And the best part is this: since all the DVD player manufacturers will have contracts with DVD-CCA, where those contracts contain an illegal condition (the requirement to respect region codes), the very validity of those contracts will become questionable. So maybe some of them will renegotiate, and others will just assume they can throw all the conditions out and make DVD players without any restrictions (e.g. Macrovision) at all, etc. Some might sue DVD-CCA, and some will get sued by DVD-CCA. There will be chaos, and lawyers' fees will have more stockholders jumping out of windows.
It will be glorious! :-) Will they have time to crack down on players for personal computers, when they're busy with Sony, Panasonic, etc?
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Sony Exec, senior year: "Lessee... I've got my 600 level business course, Electronics Thesis, Intro to upper-level management, and I just managed to squeeeze into 'creating a thriving black-market for Dummies'. should be a full year."
insightful humor, no less.
--kevin
occasionally, i reserve the right to say something.
vOv
No they couldn't. The DVD driver software is only used when playing DVDs, and since it's stored on a memory card, any checks by the game software to ensure that version 1 of the driver software was not present could be defeated by removing that memory card and using another one for playing games.
Changing the hardware would be fairly unpopular, since the 980,000+ people with the old hardware would be quite upset, especially those who did 'up'grade their software...
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
By tweaking the PS2-specs, so that the old
PS2 will be incompatible with newer Playstation2
-games, they could at least in theory force
people to return their old ones, for the new.
Of course. There will probably be black market
modchips that makes the old PS2 maintain
compatibility.
As for the tweaking, Microsoft has done it for
years, so why not Sony?
now everyone knows why I use a computer to eat instead of the stock market. Sony was up $10+ today.
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+&x
Not to mention that Region Codes and other price fixing due to geographical regions is illegal under the WTO. England, Australia, New Zealand and other countries have already banned DVD players which enforce region codes.
-- iCEBaLM
Just think, you are using whatever mod for years, collecting an international movie collection, then one day you buy a legitimate movie or game and from then on the PS2 says, "Sorry, you are using an unauthorized, illegal and immoral set of drivers designed to defeat the regional coding," every time you turn it on until you get the latest version of the mod or change over to Sony's "legitimate" price-gouging/censorship version of the OS.
I wonder if MS will try stuff like this with X-box?
It really disturbs me that PS2 will probably become the console of choice, despite Sony's malevolence and incompetance.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Um, are Japanese 7-11s that different from the ones here in America? I certainly wouldn't expect to go to one here to buy or return electronic equipment of any kind -- might get a Frostie maybe, but certainly not a Playstation console.
I know this is semi-offtopic, but that paragraph has me extrmemly curious now. I'm picturing these strange Nipponese convenience stores, with the Nascar imagery I'm used to replaced with Hello Kitty and the rack of porno mags (unsaleable to persons under 18) replaced with glittering Playstation decks (unavailable for export to the USA without a DOD-or-whatever-it-is munitions license. Heh -- we're not so different after all... hahaha
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Aren't they a couple of days early for April 1st?
:)
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I wear pants.
Yes I speak playstation and I ate a banana too. it said unto me that i should roll some rocks down a neanderthal and spout off over some ice cream.
I LIKE TO EAT POOPY
rm -rf ~/.signature
Future games could contain a mandatory check to see if they are running on a version of the OS that can play DVD's from all regions. This way, after a while, you will be forced to swap startup CD/DVD's in order to play the latest games. Anyway, I am sure they will come up with some sort incentive program.
Sig goes here
it's in my head
There's probably a Sony engineer laughing to herself quietly right now. But the question is how could Sony allow the Playstation to be released without regional encoding if they were serious about it??? Could this be a quiet way for Sony to begin protesting the union they are a part of without blatently violating the rules (oops...recall!!!!). Sure Japan's a big market but it's not like they are going to lose revenue over this. Let's hope a similar bug is in the US release. Sony has probably lost DVD sales over this this issue to other companies. But face it, pirating will occur regardless of the restrictions they try and put on regular joes like me. So why punish Joe/Jane??? I think the real issue they face is high bandwidth internet and compressed video. Just wait till you can download and watch the Matrix in real time 1024/768 30fps compressed video. Thats when they will start to shit. Until then it no big problem...........
Waiting in Wisconsin
no sig.
It's not a mandatory recall. nothing in the article says that you have to take it back.
"PlayStation2: SCEI has been forced to recall the start-up software which accompanied the 1.25 million PlayStation2 units shipped to date, in order to combat a bug that allows the Japanese consoles to play foreign DVDs. "
"Gamers can return their illegitimate software wither via mail from April 1, or through 8,000 Seven-Eleven stores soon. PlayStation2 will now ship in Japan with software that does not support the playing of foreign DVDs. "
I would think that someone would be smart enough to find another reason to recall the units. Who wants to part with their playstation 2 so they can lose the ability to play dvd discs they weren't "allowed" to play before.
How does this mandatory recall thing work? I doubt that they can force people to give back their PS2s, or is there some license agreement between Sony and their customers? If I had bought a PS3, I would screw Sony and keep mine so I can watch DVDs from any region I want!
I don't have one, but a friend in Europe does. It's great if you're an English-speaker in a non-English speaking country, and want to order US DVDs in English.
This is a bit of a blow for those of you following all of the stuff with DVD/RIAA/MPAA/DeCSS/Whatever other series of meaningless letters you want.
/. be partially responsible for this? Could the unintentional whistleblowing have thrown a wrench in Sony's plan to slip this one past the grownups until the heat was off? I would hate to think so, but it seems possible.
But I think that this is more about their standing with CSS or whoever, than public image or actually caring who watches which DVD where.
From what I know about the 'hack' (very little), it didn't seem like it was supposed to be found at all, or at least not as publically announced as it has been.
Which raises an interesting question: could
Then again, what do I know?
It's not the hardware being recalled, it's the software.
yeah, like if i had paid out cash for any dvd player, and found it could play all regions, i'd return it. i really would. honest. heh. how the hell can sony expect them to be returned? the only way i could see any being returned at all would be if they refused any right of warranty and/or support to those who didn't return them. even then though, i'd rather take my chances and keep my machine . . .
Apparently, the PS2 regional override is just activated by mashing buttons when powering on the systems (there's no set "code"). If you manage to push enough of them, it causes some sort of interrupt conflict and the regional protection doesn't get loaded (or something like that; I don't remember the specifics). In any case, this seems to be definite proof of the old adage that a bug is simply an undocumented feature ;).
Green Monkey
Its that curse again ... ...
Sony bought into TAO
TAO are involved in OS development for Amiga
The Amiga has a well documented curse
Hence all their troubles are really THE CURSE OF THE AMIGA.
This is just my paranoid theory, your mileage may vary...
and remember just because you're not paranoid, doesn't mean their not out to get you.
A couple of months back, it was found that owners of Gran Turismo 2(PSX) could only complete 98% of the game due to some last minute changes to the game. Not really a big deal but enough people complained that Sony 'recalled' GranTurismo2 and replaced it with a '100%' version.
Compared to the amount of GT2 CDs sold, the number of people that went for the recall was miniscule.
This is just Sony putting on a good face for the industry/public. 'Look, we did the right thing!'
D
The first, last, and only tech news site on the net
A device which contains a crack for DVDs, the code necessary to play DVDs from all regions? I'd keep it and buy another playstation.
And if I could get some of the code onto my computer and analyze it, like they did with bleem, search for the keys, well we could be seeing DeCSS all over again!
Just have to move to Antarctica before distributing so as to avoid legal concerns...or keep to self, heh heh heh
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
..but rather the start up software. I.e., a CD (or a DVD, I don't know, I don't own one).
That sucks for Sony, but it is definitively not as bad as having to recall the consoles themselves.
OG.
Given that software development and publishing are tightly controlled by Sony (who have to approve each title that is manufactured), they could change the format of new titles so that it breaks the old units, and update the firmware of the new units to work around the introduced "defect". You can keep your old unit, but say goodbye to any plans to play new PS2 games on it.
One other thing I was going to bring up but forgot to mention - in the Daily Radar article they mention a future HW recall is possible if Sony cannot overcome the issue of copying DVD's to a VCR via the PS2 output (through lack of macrovision altogether or unprotected component output I cannot remember).
If that did come to pass, the article states that might very well put the estimated US launch date into jepordy.
That would bring about an interesting situation indeed - would Sony then stick with the scheme to region code DVD's, or would loss of the potential benefit of having the timing to place a PS2 in 75% of American homes lead them to break away from the MPAA and fight the lawsuits that would come from a U.S. release of hardware that would allow perfect duplication and possibly region free DVD playing with hacked DVD drivers?
It seems like the very design of the PS2 (DVD player software loaded from CD) makes it fairly open to modification.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's DVD player software that's loaded into the PS2 memory card - they have the software on a CD in case you buy a larger memory card, or need to erase the software on the card you have to make room for save games and then want it back later.
I found a bit more detailed article at DailyRadar that explains how to get a PS2 to play a US DVD - it's a button seqence, quoted here from the article:
----------
wait until the PlayStation2 bootup sequence ends, hold the following keys as it fades to black:
L1, Circle and Select
Or,
L3 (the button function of the left analog stick)
If the code is successful, two lines of Japanese text will appear, and the movie will begin normally. If one line of text appears, the code may not work on that movie.
-------------
So it's not perfect, but enough to get them in trouble.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
DVD Copy Protection costs Sony $5billion (Monday's Headline)
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+&x
(The PS1 DexDrive was compatible with both Japanese and North American saves... I'm assuming the PS2 one will be as well.)
Green Monkey
1) Why doesn't someone big sue the DVD CCA for restraint of trade with the whole region encoding scheme? Money. Don't you guys see....it's much cheapr to buy into the system and try to make it work for you than to try and fight it. Sure, the rewards are potentially greater, but the risks are much bigger.
/. effect. That is a very real, documented case of the internet's power to disseminate. I can't think of a single news station/newspaper/magazine that can claim that. They may have a larger/broader base of viewers/listeners/readers (for now), but we all know that is changing. Ultimately time will tell if journalists can really be held responsible for things like this. After all, it is their job to "get the scoop". The net just makes the scoop a matter of seconds rather than hours.
2) Why is Sony doing this recall now? I'll bet its a contract issue with the DVD CCA. You can bet that when they sign the NDA and technology license agreement, there are clauses about not infringing upon the whole scheme. Here again it's much much cheaper to go along with the crowd than to do what's right.
3) Why 7-11? Well, why did the US Mint release the new Golden Dollars in Wal-Mart first, before the banks? It's simple: convenience of location and power of distribution. There are pantloads of WalMarts here, and they are pretty close to where people live (in addition to being pretty popular places, especially for Southern teenagers on Friday nights.) I'm sure 7-11 has a similar stature in Japan: lots of stores close to where people live, and people are in the habit of going there anyways. Besides, id Software had Quake 1 shareware CDs sold in 7-11 in the US. It's not THAT strange.
4) When will the DVDCCA/MPAA/whomever get a clue? Never, as long as nobody is willing to fight. What we really need is a company with the money and the balls to fight this thing out. Afterall, assuming there do exist clauses in the DVD Forum contracts making you comply with region encoding, you can't be bound by them if they are illegal. Perhaps there is a company out there willing to sell such a value added product (Apex?) and also willing to legitimize the whole thing.
5) Are journalists responsible for creating problems like this? That's an interesting question that we don't seem to have an answer for. 5 years ago, I'd think not. There didn't exist news networks to get infortmation out to large numbers of people rapidly enough to make a difference. Now there is the Internet, with the potential to move millions of people to action in a matter of minutes. Don't believe me? Think
... honestly, how can it be illegal for someone to sell a non-region encoded device?
Even in the US, assuming that the DMCA stands (which is a big if), I would have assumed that several things occured in the manufacturing of the PS2:
If Sony would be in trouble for anything, it might be for failing to adhere to the terms of the DVD CCS license contract (which undoubtable says something like "You are supposed to enforce Region Encoding"). However, this is contract (ie Civil) law, certainly not criminal law.
Of course, IANAJL (I'm not a Japanese Lawyer), so things may be different there.
Certainly, if the case is Civil, people who bought the PS2 aren't legally forced to return it. They can keep it. If it's criminal (wherein the possession of such a device is illegal), well, then, guess you have to give it back.
I'd be interested to see what this turns out to be...
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
Other people have posted this already, but since few seem to be noticing I thought I'd mention it again. It's only the CD's that come with the Playstation 2 that are being recalled - these hold the software which you load into the Playstation 2 memory cards, which is in turn used to play DVD's.
The software was buggy, and I believe not only would not play Japanese DVD's (though I could be wrong about that part), but it definatley let them play Region 1 (US) DVD's - quite a no-no in Japan!
You do have to wonder though how many people would return software that would let them play US DVD's. Perhaps Sony will refuse to support the systems at all until the CD's are returned.
DailyRadar (yes the site is a bit juvinile but it has pretty good PS2 coverage) has a story about this as well - they mention that Sony might have to recall all the actual PS2 hardware if the ability to copy DVD's from the component output is not resolved.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Just think! A black market filled with DANGEROUS CRIMINAL MASTERMINDS will soon spring up, centering around ilicit "original PS2 trade". PS2 cartels will come into power, and rule japan and other countries with an iron fist of TERROR , doling out favors and original PS2s to those that please them, and curry favors... While they ruthlessly withHOLD these blessed units from those whom do NOT please them, condemning such individuals to an eternety of region coded gaming and DVD watching. OH THE HUMANITY! OH THE PATHOS.
Ok, I'll stop.
Sony:
"Sorry guys, the software we gave you is too good. You'll have to return it for an inferior copy. I'm sure you understand."
Customers:
"Fuck off."
translated from Japanese by,
tingalingusob