Slashdot Mirror
Sony vs Modchips
Cryptnotic writes "Sony
has decided to instigate legal action against companies distributing two new Playstation 2 modchips, the Messiah and the NEO4. Sony has previously ignored modchip makers who made products which were only capable of playing CD-R copies of games. These new modchips, however, have legitimate uses, such as playing original import games or out-of-region DVD's. Aparrantly this is what has angered Sony." If I could read Kanji I'd probably care a bit more ;)
I guess none of us should be surprised at this. After all, we know how the big distribution houses like to do things, and how we (the consumers) really have no choice.
Well, I hope this gets people angry, because it's really such an obvious ploy to line Sony's pockets with our money. I really don't see how these companies can keep this sort of thing up without any sort of outcry from those of us that own the products that we can't do what we want to with.
I mean, geez, if Sony doesn't want me hacking up it's boxes, why did it _sell_ them to me? Come on Sony, ligthen up!
If Sony curbs modchips, then people won't be able to bypass the copy protection. Your case with the Dell is flawed, because the PC is open hardware. PS2 is closed to the max, and they are attached to both the hardware (which they don't make money off of) and the software.
Not to say that this is fair in a legal respect, but Sony isn't thinking about law (like every other corporation); they are thinking about money. Again, blame the creation of the stock market for creating this mentality in businesses.
Zodiac Survey
I find regional coding abhorrent myself, but in terms of law, providing the capability of running software that isn't licensed for a release in a given region is one of the specific things the DMCA was meant to stop. It was practically written by Sony (and its cohorts).
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
SONY never went after MOD chip makers because there was no legal precendent. With the DMCA and the broad enforcement and wide interpretation of it's laws, SONY probably feels - make that probably does - have a clear victory in this case. But this is just another case of a major corporation essentially sueing the people by going after a few companies. Armed with the DMCA and the legal standard that legitimate use doesn't matter, large, entrenched companies can continue to use the DMCA to prevent other, legitimate, businesses from eating their market share.
Not that it really matters - people will always make these mod chips and sell them, or instructions to make them, on the internet. Heck, even X-Box hacking is gaining steam against M$'s weak protections. The problem is companies want to control more than just their product - they want to control if you can buy it, use it, how you use it and for how long. Yeah, right - I'm going to sit back and pay money so some other company can control a small part of my life.
If we've learned nothing from history, you only own what you can control, and you can't control people or technology... for long.
RC
The article write up is a bit demonising and misleading IMHO. These new modchips are the first ones that allow users to play import games, but they're also the first ones which allow you to play copied DVDs (previous ones could only do CD-Rs). Now, I can't be bothered to get into the copyright debate, but it does annoy me that both the mod-makers and the console designers lump import games and copied games together. I don't give a crap about copied games, but the console makers shouldn't make a fuss about their region-locking. If they aren't delivering what I want, and I can get it from the US or Japan then that's their problem. In fact, I'm half-suprised that they can legally attempt all this region-locking stuff.
... the problem with the entertainment industry is that it is often tied to disposable income (if you don't watch TV you're not going to die regardless of what kids think). As such there is serious competition for our attention ranging from walking in parks (NY muggings excepted) to window-shopping in malls (a legitimate form of entertainment as shown by theme parks taking this philosophy to extremes such as Disney). Groups such as Sony have to come up with ever more inventive ways of parting you from your money ... err catching your attention and delivering amusement. This problem is exasperated by the fact that different countries value leisure differently. A third world sweat shop worker just simply has better things to buy (like education for their kids) than light entertainment. Hence global companies cannot charge the same price for the same item (CD) in different countries. Hence their desire for market segmentation tools such as multi-zoning.
... up to the point of lobbying legislators (cough*DCMA*cough) to exterminate what they view as inappropriate economic conduct.
Now is this considered fair? Places like Australia don't believe so as their competitive watchdog recently ruled that multi-zoing was anti-competitive as it hindered parallel importing (is source CD from other countries). On the other hand companies argue that it is like passenger classes in planes, first-class still get there at the same time as cattle-class but pay significantly more. Many companies (esp software/pharmaceuticals) use the high prices of their products in 1st world countries to cross-subsidise less developed markets. Given the increasing connectivity of world trade this is becoming increasingly difficult.
Computers with digital rights management (aka service variability) is one mechanism to enforce this market segmentation, especially if it can be enforced through fixed/controlled end-points (cough*Xbox*cough). This is why companies hate mod-chipers and related products (satellite decodes, overclockers, etc) as it allows individuals to exploit the artificial price differential between 1st/3rd world pricing strategies. The end-result is a technological arms race (embedded ids, self-destruct, registrations, etc) in order to maintain this separation between high-margin customers and more marginal users. A person collecting warez for bragging rights is *NOT* willing to pay the same recommended price as someone looking to kill time by renting an evening game.
Anyone who thinks a company is going to destroy their global economic model just to please a small (but vocal) group of (from their point of view) "parasites". A large enough business entity can tolerate a small percentage of free-riders but is likely to come down hard on any systematic or organised threats to their business provided they can distance themselves from any media-fallout (cough*Adobe*cough)
Fortunately the free market (e.g. open source movement) has a little influence in moderating the extreme behaviour of the more pervasive global corporations.
LL
What happens when Sony goes out of business (unlikely, I admit) as other software companies that used this as an excuse for intrusive copy protection have?
Hmmm, good point. I could blabber something about escrow, but it'd be crap because there is no way Sony are putting 100,000 GT3 disks in a warehouse in case somebody like me scratches one. BTW - have you actually seen a GT3 disk? They have this messed up "PS" logo watermark on the read side. The read side. God, that'd be a bastard to pirate properly.
Placing the word backup in quotes as you did looks like it is meant to indirectly accuse anyone who makes backup copies of programs or games they have purchased of copyright infringement.
Guilty, but that's what the vast majority of modchips are used for, unfortunately. As an aside, I'm not exactly snow white when it comes to this issue myself. I have pirated (PC) games in the past - they generally get installed, cracked, and played for up to (generally) 24 hours. Anything that keeps my attention for longer than that warrants going out and buying a copy. For the last couple of years that's been Quake3 and UT, everything else has been chucked, forgotten, and not missed in the slightest.
For the PS2 this problem is solved with video game rental from your local video shop. SSX - buy. Ridge Racer - don't buy.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
Man I can't believe you got an insightful on that, you obviously don't know sega's history with consoles.
In the beginning there was NES and master sytem. Both were good, but as soon as NES gained %10 market share and NEC decided to bring the PC duo to the states as the turbo grafX sega got scared and went back to make an even better system. Main thing that killed the system more than anything was sega thought they would port their own games to it and make a bundle, so not too many 3rd parties produced games for it.
The better system came to be known as the Genesis, or megadrive in japan. Oooh ahh parellax scrolling backgrounds, 128x128 sprites, 16 bit. FM sound! Even better yet it was based on system-B hardware from the arcades! Arcade (cough sega) games could easily be ported. Again sega gambles that they could not be dethroned because their share of the arcade market was so strong. SNES arrives on the scene along with TurbografX. Sega tries to compete with Nintendo's polygon games by introducing the 32X, terrbible failure, nobody wanted to pay for an extra peripheral to poly's. Worse yet was their try to compete with the TurbografX by releasing an overpowered (but well priced) CD addon that was mostly used to show the girl from Different strokes running around in scantily clad lingerage. The FMV games sucked really bad, they just plain stunk. Dragons lair was cool, thats about it. Again sega gambles on their brand name to compete in the console arena.
To further add to the confusion and to compete with the N64and atari jaguar (yes atari was still trying) sega released the saturn with maybe 10 games at the most written for it. Developers said it was a pain to code for (i'm just repeating what I read) Sega was left to develop most of the games in house. Again they gamle on their own games and lost.
Ok lets go to the dreamcast. I'm not gonna long wind it anymore, im outta steam but sega gets scared by Xbox and PS2 and heads for the hills yet again.
Most of the gamers I know, we were like 14-16 years of age back in 1984-85 when consoles really started to move. . Between me and my friends we got close to 17-19 years experience with buying, selling, trading, and most importantly playing consoles. Every one of them i've ever talked to felt completely screwed by sega. It is a pattern they repeat over and over again which in my opinion will eventually drive the company out of business, and that is, "When anyone steps up to us we're gonna run away run away!" because that is exactly what sega has allways done.
They make great games, and they make great console systems. They COULD turn it around by taking nintendo's and playstations approach of "Lets hire a great team, and push this system to its limits for many years" DK3 on the SNES really pushed the envelope for platformers IMHO and is a shining example of what new development tools and methods can do to boost the life of a console.
Sega, if you're reading this, if you really want my money listen up. Don't be so ready to give up on the DC yet. Make an X server for that graphics chip you use that runs on both the DC and PC hardware (my buddy has a PC based version of your DC graphics chip, no X server exists) Make sure you ship ethernet adapters, keyboards, mice, hard drive adaptors and some friggen version of linux with the thing. I for one would gladly pay $200-300 for a completely custamizable system than can be used as an X terminal on any TV. I will guarantee you millions of dollars in revenue because THIS SITE WOULD REPORT IT. You would have millions of geeks rushing out to buy them cause they would be cool. The usability of the system would be stretched out for many years if you did this and as the price of hardware got cheaper and your volume of sales larger, there would be a good profit in it for you.
It's not always the case that a modchip HAS to allow playing pirated games. For example, http://www.techtrix.co.uk/addtocart.asp?prod=13 is a modchip wchich lets you play original imports, but will disallow CD-R or CD-RWs, thus addressing Sony's concern that such chips promote piracy.
If more companies made such chips, perhaps Sony might see them in another light than just a "piracy" enabler.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
A modchip is usually a piece of hardware that contains the software to bypass the copy protection. PROM modchips are typically used because the people who make them can make a whole batch of programmable chips, and if the mod is rendered useless, they can update the software and still make modchips out of the PROMs they've got.
Old modchips worked by flashing the Playstation BIOS, or replacing parts of it on boot, so that when the game would call on the copyprotection, the new BIOS would say that every disc in the unit was good.
PS2 is different, though. See, it's meant to be flashed every single time you put in a new disc. And since the code in memory can change every time a new game comes out, it's a bit difficult to make a BIOS modchip. You need something different.
The quick and dirty solution people came up with for the PS2 is to intercept the checks as they're heading to whereever, and change the signals so that they're the proper result. Thing is, each game can do this differently. Due to the nature of the PS2, the checks could be called from a vector unit, from the memory card processor.. or even the reader unit itself. And the modchip maker has to add a wire for each signal they need to intercept.
Nowadays, PS2 modchips require 20+ connections (probably even more by now) just to cover all of the different signals that can be sent during a check. And each check is cumulative; you have to keep the old checks while adding for new ones. This is kinda ridiculous, since this introduces modchip bloat.. a new modchip defeat comes out, and they have to add more connections... it can really suck for people if they need a new modchip every time a new game comes out.
Enter the Messiah. You wire it into the DVD-ROM reading hardware, rather than throughout the rest of the unit. Since all checks have to go through the DVD system anyways, this is only logical.. thing is, Sony made it really tough to figure it out. Which is why it took them over two years to get the chip made.
Without a link to NEO4, I can't say whether or not they've gone the same route, but if they have, these two chips could spell the end for Sony's PS2. Since all PS2 consoles use the same BIOS, flashed every time a game starts, Sony can't easily change the hardware design of any newer units coming onto the market. So if this modchip is undetectable, and it does all the things they're saying it does in hardware, this could be checkmate.
Make an X server for that graphics chip you use that runs on both the DC and PC hardware (my buddy has a PC based version of your DC graphics chip, no X server exists) Make sure you ship ethernet adapters, keyboards, mice, hard drive adaptors and some friggen version of linux with the thing. I for one would gladly pay $200-300 for a completely custamizable system than can be used as an X terminal on any TV
Sega don't (didn't) make the graphics chip, Videologic do. The (current) "PC Version" is the Kyro II, which uses a similar Tile Accelerator approach to the PVR chipset in the DC. There is an X server, and linux, and keyboards, and mice, and ethernet available for the DC. You would pay about $2-300 to do that (without a harddisk), once you'd found someone willing to sell you the ethernet (in short supply).
You'd probably be better off getting something like this x86 settop box for the same money, which would be quieter (silent vs DC's noisy fan) and easier get binaries and bits for (but suck for games), and you can either add a 2.5" HDD to it, or keep it silent and boot off a dirt-cheap CompactFlash, your server, or DiskOnChip.
Personally, I would not use X on an 800x600 monitor, let alone my TV.
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
FYI, there is an interesting write-up on the early years of modchips at http://www.oldcrows.net/mcc.html
Pac Bell didn't sell you a phone line.
Don't believe me? Stop paying the bill. You don't own it.
Oh, and dismissing those inconvenienced by the region coding debacle as "fanboys of Japanese video games, scat films, bukakke movies, cartoons, etc." may be a trifle incorrect. Anything released by a non-US distribution house has the same region coding problem, and there's more film industries out there than you might realise.
But no, if all you get is from your own region (whatever that is), you *won't* realise the existence of the outside world. And is that ignorance a good thing, do you think?
How do you know? And what does it matter? It's copyrighted material, and under fair use provisions, people used to have the right to copy the CD/DVD for personal use. Copyright implies rights not only for the author but also for the public.
Ever heard of Blockbuster? Less than $5 for 5 nights with a game. If you can't afford that, then it's highly unlikely you can afford the game to begin with, and so don't spout bullshit when you know that the reason you pirate games is so that you don't have to pay $40 for them.
Does your work know you recommend software based on your pirate activities? And how do you figure you can't get the same type of information from a 30-day eval or a money-back guarantee? Seems to me you'd be getting the same software you pirated. You just have a time limit on how long you can use it/get your money back. Wherein lies the problem. I bet you continue using the warezed software at home, don't you? And I wonder how much warez you use at work ...
That has nothing to do with piracy. That's due to region-coding, which is a completely different animal. I know there were modchips for the old PSX that would kill the region coding without allowing pirated software. I don't know if such a thing exists for the PS2 yet (probably not), but I'm sure one will soon enough. It's a bit hazy whether or not playing movies/games from other regions is illegal (I don't believe it is illegal, but IANAL). It's very clear that playing "backups" (euphemism for pirated movies/games) is illegal. "Right" and "wrong" don't come into it, unless you subscribe to the school of thought that believes the law defines what's "right" and "wrong".
... take you to court for copyright infringement.
Those of you who try to make Sony seem like the bad guy here. Do you have any idea what (money, time, effort, blood, sweat, tears) it takes to bring a game to market? Do you have any idea how much R&D when into designing just the console itself? I am not saying I have never pirated a piece of software BUT I am saying companies have every right to take steps to ensure I can't. A video game console is sold to you as a device which is meant to play games (or movies) from within your "region" and in your country. There is never any promise made outside those 2 things. Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft has no farking obligation outside of making sure it does anything BUT those 2 things. Don't give me that: "but I want to backup MY games" OR "I want to run linux on it" OR "I want to play xxx game from Japan" OR "It mine and they have no right...." I am sorry folks. If you want the PRIVILEGE of playing video games you cannot complain about what Sony is doing here. Sony has every right to protect their (and their developers) interests. What do you propose they do? Ignore the problem because 1% of PS2 owners were only going to use modchips for playing imports? (And I am being geneours as the number is likely much less than 1%) The absolute truth is that for every 1 person that wants a modchip for reasons that don't hurt Sony (like playing original import games) there are 249 that use it just to copy games that they feel are "owed" to them. But seriously, some of you around here have a seriously farked up way of thinking. To have the BALLS to **complain** when someone tries to protect their property. Jason
Ever feel like you are driving the getaway car?
This may have been posted before, but anyways. SCEA is Sony Computer Entertainment of America. They do not get a cut of anything sold by sony in Japan. Region encoding is an attempt to ensure the bottom line for the local division. True it is ridiculous because it prevents consumers here from seeing lots of good games only released elsewhere. Those who would import games to begin with are a minority, a vocal minority but a minority nontheless, as has been proven many times before big business doesnt care about minorities, and only about $. I believe a large part of the reasoning on the part of SCEA is that because the FBI and its raids last weekend have alot of people scared it can take advantage of the situation and force its will upon those that could possibly undermine its bottom line.
I wrote that essay up because I got tired people saying every console is sold at a loss. It's just as annoying when people were saying the Genesis had blast processing. "It must be true! I heard it from a few people!" The reason why Sony is profitable is because they went out and spent $2B before the first PS2 was even created on things like the chip foundry with Toshiba and the dual-oscillating DVD/CD laser, while MS and Nintendo are paying someone else a profit to design their machine chipsets and assemble their machines. Everyone involved is going to be making a profit. No one is going to work for free or lose money just because they want to be nice. For us to accept that Sony is losing money per console sold, we also have to accept that many, many, many employees at Sony are involved in a conspiracy to defraud investers of billions of dollars in stock value by misrepresenting hundreds of millions of dollars in profit. And all these employees are looking at jailtime if Sony gets caught. And Sony will face fines in the hundreds of millions of dollars from government agencies in Japan. Further, we have to accept that SEVERAL governments are turning a blind eye while Sony then violates trade laws and continues to engage in dumping their products in foreign markets around the world at below cost in order to leverage their market share. And most importantly we have to accept that Sony chooses to sell their machines at a loss AFTER spending $2B to even make the first one. Sony will have to sell 330 million PS2 games just to reach a break even on the $2B, and that doesn't even factor what you claim they would be losing per console sold or the money Sony spends on advertising. I don't even have to prove that I am right when I can prove that I can't possibly be wrong. At least we all agree the humour on the site is good... ;)
Actually, you are wrong. Very wrong. One of the key selling points of the Messiah was that it could play DVDRs. Unfortunately, Gazza took all the promotional material off the web site, so you can't see this in action.
But believe me, I have seen a video that he put up and linked from messiah-world, showing all the advertised media, including DVD-R's, running. And now, backing up becomes feasible. Of course, I have yet to meet a person who actually backs up their games, but I find the import originals to be the main reason to buy such a chip.
Now, according to Gazza, it is very difficult (read: nearly impossible) for a mod chip to distinguish between a legit disc and a burned disc. If one could do that, they'd be halfway to burning bootable discs, and half the modders out there wouldn't be buying chips anymore. Because of the inability to distinguish between genuine and pirated media, playing bootlegs becomes a prerequisite for playing legitimate imports.
Let me guess. You're American, aren't you?
Firstly, you shouldn't be able to use your legal muscle to kill a company unless its actually breaking the law, I don't care how much effort your programming team put in.
Secondly, I only want a region chip because its cheaper to get one than it is to import the whole console. Believe me, if it was an either or situation without any cost or hassle implications I don't think a single person would buy the UK version of the PS2. I haven't got one at all, because these mods aren't known for their relibility, but I only want to play NTSC games, not the piece of junk PAL conversions we are given. I want to watch my collection of hundreds of (all legally bought) DVDs from around the world. I know a grand total of no people who have a DVD player incapable of playing US titles, and they don't see why it shouldn't be the same for games.
If you really feel what you're saying then just call anyone who bought a PS2 for Metal Gear Solid 2 an idiot - clearly thats how you feel about European gamers who want to do the same.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"