Sony Update Bricks Playstations

Stoobalou writes "A controversial update which was seeded by Sony in order to remove the ability to run Linux on the Playstation 3 games console has caused a storm of complaints. The 3.21 firmware upgrade, which removes the security hole provided by the 'Install Other OS' widget used by lots of educational institutions and hackers alike, also removes the console's ability to play games... turning it into a very expensive doorstop."

Comments

Par for the course?

[bjourne]

So is there any console or other electronic gadget you can buy nowadays which does not include forced locked own firmware updates that has the possibility of breaking it? Both Xbox360 and the Wii are just as locked down as the PS3.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

Both Xbox360 and the Wii are just as locked down as the PS3.

Is that why there's a massive piracy scene for the first two, and zero piracy on the PS3?

Re:Par for the course?

[elrous0]

No, there is one word to explain that: blu-ray. It's the same reason there as very little DVD movie piracy in the mid-late 90's (very few people had burners and security cracks yet).

Re:Par for the course?

[drinkypoo]

I don't agree, I think it has to do with videogame piracy, not movie. You can already rip Blu-Ray with a drive cheaper than a PS3. It is EASIER on the PS3, of course.

Re:Par for the course?

[commodore64_love]

Yes. In addition to a PS3, X360, and Wii there's also the iPhone and iPad that can be bricked via forced updates. Also certain DVRs and Bluray/HDDVD gadgets. I've also heard complaints about DTVpals being bricked by the Dish Company's updates.

And my response?

- Call Sony to demand restitution for the PS3 they broke.
- Wait.
- If no response to repair or replace the broken PS3, then I'd buy a new PS3 from some store (like amazon or walmart), put the bricked one inside the box, then return it as defective ("It just won't turn on. No I don't want an exchange; I want a refund."). The store would eventually return it to Sony who would have to deal with the property THEY destroyed.

Re:Par for the course?

[penguinboy]

Apple does not force iPhone and iPod updates.

Re:Par for the course?

[tagno25]

I cannot brick my Android phone. Event deleting the firmware it still boots to the flash loader.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's true. They charge for them ;-p

Re:Par for the course?

[commodore64_love]

Ooops. I just noticed I didn't answer your question. I'm not aware of any gadgets you can buy New which does not have firmware. Of course you always have the possibility of simply not updating your TV or DVR or Bluray Player so it can't be bricked, but you also run the risk of not being able to play some new Blurays that require the latest firmware. (There's also talk of blocking output to the Component Video cables.)

Older gadgets don't have firmware. For example the Super VHS I bought a few months ago has no firmware. It also ignores those "Don't record" digital content flags buried in some signals. I like it.

Re:Par for the course?

[bami]

"put the bricked one inside the box, then return it as defective"

That's fraud, also, I think they print the serial of the PS3 on the receipt so they wont match when returning it.

Re:Par for the course?

[marcansoft]

No, there are two words to explain that: Other OS. Check out this table (slightly outdated, it's a year old or so) by console hacker Michael Steil (or watch him talk about it on any of his talks). Every console post-PS2 was hacked for homebrew, and then those hacks were abused for piracy. The PS3 comes with homebrew, therefore there is little motivation to crack the native system. Pro-piracy people are rarely good hackers, and need homebrew to piggyback on. In fact, the reason the PS3 was recently attacked was neither homebrew nor piracy; instead, geohot attacked it solely as an ego boost and to get media coverage (note how he hasn't even tried to develop a useful application for his exploit, such as GPU access under Linux).

Blu-ray is a minor inconvenience. There are a myriad potential ways of copying PS3 games that don't involve blu-ray discs.

Sony are shooting themselves in the foot by removing Other OS, and pissing off legitimate customers on top of it.

Re:Par for the course?

[Alphathon]

Well, technically it does have firmware, it's just not updatable. Firmware is just integrated, usually small, system software.

Re:Par for the course?

[HAKdragon]

All PS3 games that ship on disc ship on Blu-ray.

Re:Par for the course?

[PopeRatzo]

So is there any console or other electronic gadget you can buy nowadays which does not include forced locked own firmware updates that has the possibility of breaking it?

So far, the PC's I put together from parts don't have forced locked down firmware updates.

Seriously, this locked-down stuff is going to kill everything many of us love about computers, gaming, etc.

Does anyone out there doubt that at some point the iMac is going to be locked down to only allow apps via some iTunes like channel?

Why do Sony, Apple, and many others hate freedom?

Re:Par for the course?

[chuckhriczko]

Well, once rooted you can't brick it. However, until you flash the recovery image theoretically it can still be bricked. Besides, even with the recovery image flashed flashing a bad radio image can brick it too. But for the most part your right. The point is though that you still need to root the device in the first place. The only devices I know of that you can flash anything you want on right from the get go are OpenMoko phones.

Re:Par for the course?

[commodore64_love]

>>>That's fraud

Yes it IS fraud for Sony (or any other company) to destroy people's personal property. As I said I would follow proper procedure and give Sony an opportunity to do the right thing (repair/replace), but if they don't I will not just sit on the property THEY destroyed and do nothing.

I'm tired of corporations running over citizens as if they were smashed squirrels on the road to wealth. Oh and also dipping into taxpayer wallets by giving themselves free handouts (Congressional bills). I will do what I feel is necessary to protect myself from loss.

Re:Par for the course?

[Sporkinum]

Not only that, it's primarily fat PS3's that are bricking. I don't think they sell those anymore.

Re:Par for the course?

[Saint Gerbil]

Freedom is the not "best" way to maximise profits.
I can understand why they do it but they are cutting their own throats by pissing off the legitimate buyer\owner.

Re:Par for the course?

[commodore64_love]

>>>Does anyone out there doubt that at some point the iMac is going to be locked down

Nah. Apple won't go that route. They'll just make it so you can't run any of their programs unless you have 10.6 (the latest OS). If you have an older computer that won't run 10.6 due to not enough RAM or not megahertz, then you'll just have to buy a new one.

I suspect it's only a matter of time until MS does the same, although pressure from the business segment will probably keep XP alive a long, long time.

Re:Par for the course?

[Skylinux]

So is there any console or other electronic gadget you can buy nowadays which does not include forced locked own firmware updates that has the possibility of breaking it?

The Nokia N900 is such a device.
It is one of the few devices you truly own and where the vendor will not dictate what you are allowed to install.
When a new firmware update is available you get a notification asking you if you would like to install it or not, nothing is forced onto you.

But don't get me wrong, The N900 is not perfect. It is a new device with a new OS and some of the applications reflect that. The E-Mail client, for example, is a piece of crap without proper IMAP support and spell checking. The webbrowser on the other hand is pretty cool and works very well.
While E-Mail client can be fixed later on or replaced by installing another package there is one flaw which everyone has to live with. The N900 does not support USB Host-mode/OTG so it is impossible to connect an external USB Harddrive to it or a USB to Network adapter.

So yes there are devices out there which don't shove the penis of the CEO up your behind but you have to look around a bit to find them.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

"put the bricked one inside the box, then return it as defective"

That's fraud, also, I think they print the serial of the PS3 on the receipt so they wont match when returning it.

In the last couple of years that I've had faulty hardware that I went in for an exchange and/or a refund, none of the retailers that I have bought hardware from opened the box and checked the S/N as it was on the box. They simply scanned it from the box and the receipt and either gave me my money back or had given me the exchange.

Re:Par for the course?

[PCWizardsinc]

That's not true, my wife's iphone just this past weekend was essentially disabled until she plugged it in to itunes to receive some kind of update.

Re:Par for the course?

[EdZ]

I wonder about that. I know the old adage of 'never attribute to deliberate malice what could be simple incompetence', but this could be a very shrewd move on behalf of Sony. People will pirate games, but you can't download console hardware (yes, yes, LOLemulators). Part of the PS2's success could be attributed to widespread casual game piracy making the console hardware attractive. And once you have the hardware, the temptation to impulse-buy games is greater. Even if you generally pirate everything, the lure of SHINY SHINY BOX is great. Sony have done almost the impossible in keeping the console hack-free while they drive down the manufacturing cost. Now they're close to breaking even (or even turning a profit) it might be worth a short-term drop in game sale revenues for the long-term domination of the market. Though whether things will actually turnout that way is anyone's guess.

Re:Par for the course?

[Logical Zebra]

Consoles have serial numbers. Those serial numbers are visible through a window on the box they are packaged in. Said serial number is scanned when you purchase the console.

In other words, your proposed attack against "The Man" wouldn't work.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have insufficient data to draw this conclusion.

An alternative hypothesis, which also fits the facts, is that PS3 is simply tougher to hack.

Re:Par for the course?

[GameboyRMH]

I was on the verge of buying a used fat hardware-emu PS3 before this stupid "update" came out. Now those old ones are going to be even harder to find and more expensive.

Re:Par for the course?

[commodore64_love]

Then I'd have to alter my plan slightly:

- Try to get Sony to fix the "fat" PS3 they broke.
- Wait.
- If they refuse to fix my damaged property, then I'd mail-order a new "slim" PS3 from Sony directly. I'd return the fat PS3 using tracking or Delivery confirmation.
- Wait.
- After about 1.5 months I'd call my credit card company and dispute the charge, saying that I returned the PS3 (as sony told me to do) and have not yet received a refund. I'd provide the tracking/DC number for proof.
- Wait.
- The credit card company would refund the money. Sony would ultimately be stuck with the property THEY destroyed - as it should be. That's justice.

Re:Par for the course?

[JeffSpudrinski]

**"put the bricked one inside the box, then return it as defective"**

A friend of mine was banned for life from Best Buy for trying this.

They had an issue with a Linksys router they purchased from the (IMHO) worst online retailer...buy.com. They couldn't get buy.com to agree to replace it, so they went to Best Buy, purchased an identical piece of hardware, put the bad one back in the box and attempted to return it. The folks at Best Buy compared the MAC address of the one in the box to the sticker on the outside of the box and they didn't match.

They were then forced to do the "walk of shame" out of the store escorted by store security and were notified that they would be escorted out again if they ever entered the store again.

They were lucky they weren't prosecuted for fraud.

Moral of the story: don't try to make one company pay for another's mistakes.

The problem here lies with Sony and Sony alone. Wait for a class-action lawsuit and sign on if they won't fix their devices. Sony's gotten a buttload of bad press lately and I'm hoping they will fix this pretty quickly.

-JJS

Re:Par for the course?

[grahamm]

But the opposite is not true either. One reason for the success of the PC architecture is its openness. Just look at how well the IBM PS/2 with non-open MCA fared compared with system using ISA and PCI (in all their variants).

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

- If no response to repair or replace the broken PS3, then I'd buy a new PS3 from some store (like amazon or walmart), put the bricked one inside the box, then return it as defective ("It just won't turn on. No I don't want an exchange; I want a refund."). The store would eventually return it to Sony who would have to deal with the property THEY destroyed.

This is no longer an option due to the bill of sale having the serial number on it now. Go ahead and try it and be amazed when the sales clerk tells you that this is not the same Playstation they sold you but part of a earlier manufactured group that no longer ships.

Re:Par for the course?

[GameboyRMH]

I think Nokia N900s are also "unbrickable" - even an interrupted firmware update is recoverable, but that's because the "lowest level" firmware is never updated (or at least hasn't been updated so far and there's no info about doing it) - what they call a reflash is actually just re-imaging a regular disk partition in the solid state memory that contains the OS.

I wonder why more manufacturers don't use a similar "sub-BIOS" system that can be used to recover from failed firmware updates. I know some PC mobos will fall back on a ROM copy of the BIOS if the EEPROM BIOS fails or if selected by a jumper.

Re:Par for the course?

[FlyingBishop]

Most routers don't force firmware updates. Neither to printers, scanners, faxes, or a whole host of shit.

And firmware that disables features you paid for is a very new thing.

Re:Par for the course?

[Amarantine]

- If no response to repair or replace the broken PS3, then I'd buy a new PS3 from some store (like amazon or walmart), put the bricked one inside the box, then return it as defective ("It just won't turn on. No I don't want an exchange; I want a refund."). The store would eventually return it to Sony who would have to deal with the property THEY destroyed.

Good luck trying to put a fat PS3 in the box of a slimline PS3.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've done this before, and it's rather effective.

Re:Par for the course?

[RAMMS EIN]

I haven't bricked the Pandora yet, but that may simply be because I haven't gotten my hands on it yet. On the other hand, it's a community effort and it runs Linux and you are invited to contribute to it, so your chances of staying in control of the machine that you bought seem to be a lot better than with the PlayStation and Xbox.

Re:Par for the course?

[mikael_j]

It's the same reason there as very little DVD movie piracy in the mid-late 90's (very few people had burners and security cracks yet).

Doing a straight copy of a DVD doesn't require cracking CSS, you just copy the contents of the disc. The main thing that held DVD piracy back in the mid-late 90's was bandwidth and storage. While most people here in scandinavia would prefer 700 or 1400 MiB rips at the time we still hadn't convinced the average american "w4r3z d00d" that 250-300 MiB wasn't good enough for a full length movie...

Re:Par for the course?

[Idiomatick]

Agreed but who says you can't both be commiting fraud? And I believe GP meant that they wouldn't accept your return if it was a different ps3.

Also, I'm the last person to defend apple but... Apple likely won't allow less ram because they want to ensure some kind of decent experience. Windows7 might RUN on 500MB of ram but the experience would be crappy, and you'd likely have to run in ugly mode to keep it quick enough to be useable. Though, I have no idea of what OS 10.6 looks like at 1GB, maybe just as shitty as win7 @ .5G.

Re:Par for the course?

[BobMcD]

Except you're not getting 'justice' against Sony, but against Walmart - who only sold you a product that some other party damaged. Sony won't know or care about your fraud.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

The "required specifications" printed on the box are hardly an accurate comparison of OS bloat.

Windows 7 does NOT run "well" on a machine with 512 megs of ram, any more than Windows XP runs "well" on a machine with 64 megs of ram.

On two equivalent machines with reasonable specs, Snow Leopard almost invariably performs better than Windows 7.

--Anonymous Coward, who hates Apple as much as anybody, running Linux on a cheap Acer laptop

Re:Par for the course?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Your options are pretty much 1) PCs, 2) oddball chinese import gizmos(likely to be totally undocumented, a bit quirky, and very ill-localized; but unlikely to try any active lockout. 3)OpenPandora(assuming that they ship one of these days)...

Re:Par for the course?

[marcansoft]

And yet the PS3 isn't tougher to hack in the way geohot has (certainly not given Other OS). Look at geohot's hack: it's a simple RAM glitch, much like the one tmbinc pioneered over 2 years ago on the Wii ("twiizer attack"). Now that hacks are out for all consoles, we can compare the relative difficulty. Compare the PS3 (plaintext hypervisor in RAM, no hashing) to the Xbox 360 (encrypted hypervisor in RAM, hashing, encrypted executables). Both consoles have good security, but the PS3 hack is significantly simpler than 360 hacks from a technical perspective (drive hacks notwithstanding - that's a whole different ballgame). That's also confirmed given how little time it took geohot to get it to work, even though he was completely unfamiliar with the PS3 when he started a few months earlier. Even the Xbox1 LDT bus tap by Andrew "bunnie" Huang was orders of magnitude more complicated, and yet he pulled it off in 2001.

As a console hacker myself, I know quite a few others, and I can definitely say that interest in hacking the PS3 was near nonexistent before the Slim came out (sans Other OS), except for a couple Linux folks trying to poke holes in the hypercall interface to get access to the GPU.

Re:Par for the course?

[bcmm]

But don't get me wrong, The N900 is not perfect. It is a new device with a new OS and some of the applications reflect that. The E-Mail client, for example, is a piece of crap without proper IMAP support and spell checking.

I've not had a chance to use one yet, but if it's as open as I've heard, talking about "the" email client doesn't make a great deal of sense. Won't some hackers just write/port a nice email client for it? Or are unofficial add-ons less integrated than Nokia stuff?

Re:Par for the course?

[Vectormatic]

AFAIK the nintendo DS doesnt have firmware upgrades, not sure about the DSi though

but that's all i can really think off to be honest, off course your PC doesnt REQUIRE bios upgrades to run new games, but they might be beneficial for the entire system as a whole

Re:Par for the course?

[LingNoi]

What you're proposing is committing fraud instead of just suing sony in the first place for breaking your machine.

Re:Par for the course?

[sopssa]

To be honest Wii was first "hacked" for piracy with the mod chips. It was way longer than 1 month until you could run your executables on it.

Re:Par for the course?

[Idiomatick]

Totally true.

Though I don't think pro-piracy crackers are BAD. I think many of them are pretty damn good. But their skill set is very different. They can get into games and sites and reverse engineer lots of bits of software. BUT to crack a ps3 you need very high level hardware cracking skills. Totally different things. You also likely need some amount of money if you might end up breaking a ps3 or 10. Crackers are generally not wealthy people. Really though I think it is like saying "That celloist is a terrible artist; he can't even draw a good portrait of me!"

Re:Par for the course?

[twidarkling]

Except that Microsoft doesn't get any boost from hardware sales. They actually make MORE if they sell the OS separate from the hardware. It's in their best interests to keep Windows working on any POS computer people have.

Re:Par for the course?

[WillDraven]

I think since Sony gave their customers a $300 brick everybody that this happened to should promptly give Sony $300 worth of actual bricks through their headquarters windows. Mortaring them all together into one big chunk beforehand is optional.

Re:Par for the course?

[Ltap]

It's interesting to chart the course of stuff like this. After 300/350mb rips, people moved to a semi-standardized 700mb AVI with DivX/XviD and MP3 (later proper AC-3). This was mostly motivated by speed of encoding - even with a largish 700mb file, they could do AC-3 passthrough and quickly encode the video. Now some more properly done rips are appearing - either 350mb files with x264 (equal quality) or higher-quality 1.2 or 1.4gb rips (usually scaled down from HD sources).

Re:Par for the course?

[plague3106]

FWIW, mine is the old fat model and its not been bricked.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

Recently, as a reward for getting straight 'A's I took my son to a CompUSA and told him he could have any computer he wanted. Imagine my disgust when he selected a mac mini. It's as if I took him to a whorehouse for his first lay and he wound up giving head to the bouncer. Where did I fail as a father?

Re:Par for the course?

[Theoboley]

Im not so sure how this would work seeing as the Old George Foreman sized ps3's havent been in production for some time now, and they wont fit into the ps3 slim box...

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure if you read the Terms of Service/Eula/Contract or whatever else Sony provided with the console you'll find that you DON'T own the unit, you purchased the right to USE the unit, and they can rescind that right at any time, they would have to compensate you but are not actually required to by their Terms of Service/Eula/Contract. I don't own a PS3 or an XBOX 360 but I do have an original xbox and remember reading that in the fine print.

It's pretty much the same crap all the manufacturers are using now even APPLE, this way if they can prove you have been hacking their CLOSED hardware system for your own purposes (by breaking their Terms of Service/Eula/Contract) they can use the Terms of Service/Eula/Contract to lock you out of doing any more damage to their business model (because your obviously trying to cut into their profits by stealing games or something else they can imagine).

BUT don't take my word for it, go read the paperwork that came with the unit, see for yourself, it's buried in there somewhere.

Re:Par for the course?

[bertoelcon]

The folks at Best Buy compared the MAC address of the one in the box to the sticker on the outside of the box and they didn't match.

Don't most routers have a way to change their MAC addresses in the settings.

Re:Par for the course?

[plague3106]

The business segment you refer to will be buying new pcs with win7 pro installed, which includes xp mode. Technically they'll still be running xp for some things, but I think if you have most apps working good on win7 you'll eventually start demanding the last hold out upgrade or be replaced.

Re:Par for the course?

[plague3106]

Even if its a feature I don't care about and never intend to use? I have a computer already if I want to run linux.

Re:Par for the course?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

That's the ugly thing about the "new" lockdown vs. the "old" lockdown.

Bullshit like spinning a new proprietary connector every generation, or trying to swim against the current on industry bus standards and so on died because it was uneconomic. Rolling your own bus, or media format, or connector type, or whatever(unless you are overwhelmingly dominant in the industry) just raises your engineering costs and locks you out of economies of scale and 3rd party players who fill small; but necessary, niches. Plus, the chinese clone shops can probably get working copies of your proprietary connectors out the door almost as fast as you can(the trivial availability of super-cheap 3rd-party chargers for basically every cell phone, no matter how weird the connector, is likely one of the major driving forces behind the increasing acceptance of USB as a charging format. Connector lock-in just doesn't pay as well as it used to).

The "new" lockin, though, is craftier, cheaper, and a lot more dangerous. Look at the xbox360 HDD. Totally normal SATA drive in a cheap plastic box. Additional engineering cost? Minimal. Economies of scale? Pretty much identical to any other user of 2.5 inch HDDs, ie. vast. And yet, through a simple cryptographic trick, cheaper, larger 3rd party replacements have been largely locked out. The foundations of cryptographic lock-in aren't cheap(the mathematical developments, the crypto silicon getting cheap enough to use outside of NSA telephones, the tamper-resistant chip designs and hypervisors and whatnot); but, once you have them, it becomes trivial and cheap to implement highly granular lock-in and exclusion of 3rd party devices even on completely standard busses.

Essentially all modern busses have provision for vendor and device IDs, and (if simple burned-in IDs are too vulnerable to cloning) are easily complex enough for a smartcard-level authentication mechanism to be tacked on without too much expense. Locking out 3rd party peripherals no longer requires designing your own bus, or switching connectors, just a little bit of of software to pointedly ignore devices that aren't blessed. Since an increasing number of of devices are connected to the internet much of the time, you can even defeat sophisticated cloners. If all first party devices have a unique serial number, signed with your key, the cloners will not be able to generate new serials(since the new serials won't be signed), and won't be able to re-use existing serials in any quantity, since your device can simply report the serial of any peripheral connected to your authentication server and, if it is reported that it is a duplicate, simply ignore it.

Re:Par for the course?

[LordLimecat]

If Sony is acting in a way you dont approve of, (lets for arguments sake say theyre committing fraud), that does not mean your best option is to commit fraud right back at them.

In fact i think there is some old saying which applies here, something about 2 wrongs....

Re:Par for the course?

[marcansoft]

Yes, that part of the table is wrong (IMO it should read 12 months or whatever). However, this warrants some explanation.

Since the advent of drive modifications and consoles with signed executables, piracy has split into two camps: drive modification, and software modification. The latter implies homebrew and always piggybacks on homebrew, and is mostly what I refer to in my GP post. However, drive modifications are a different story. They mostly appeared when drive firmware patches delivered via homebrew on the GameCube were ported by modchip manufacturers to be delivered via an alternate serial port on the drive. The GC/Wii's drives are outsourced to Matshita, and they didn't bother to fix the hole in the GameCube. Paraphrasing tmbinc, "The GameCube had a connector on the drive board that might as well have been labeled 'insert modchip here'. With the Wii, they fixed this problem by removing the old connector... and replacing it with a new one".

Therefore, it is safe to say that DVD (drive) piracy on the Wii was there from the very beginning - not because the modchip makers are good, but because modchips were trivially ported over from the GameCube. On the other hand, softmod piracy on the Wii started, as usual, by piggybacking on homebrew.

The reason that drive mods are popular is because manufacturers have neglected that part of console security - they made their software secure, but didn't properly secure the drive. If you can convince a drive that a burned game is legit, then there's nothing that the console software can do about it. In order to fix this, you need to improve drive security and couple it to system security.

The Wii is the worst example - the drive bus is in plaintext and unauthenticated. This is why HDD-to-drive physical adapters are coming out from modchip makers.

The 360 is better, but the drives are essentially off-the-shelf PC drives. Although they're trying hard to detect and ban mods, and there's some crypto going on, the drives are still pretty insecure.

The PS3 is different; as far as I know, the BD drive is custom, secure, and much better coupled to the system.

So, to conclude and better explain things: the PS3 avoided commercial drivechips by having good drive security (something sorely lacking on other consoles), and avoided noncommercial software piracy by removing the incentive for homebrewers to hack the system (which will inevitably happen otherwise, as has been proven time and time again).

Re:Par for the course?

[Peteskiplayer]

replying to cancel moderation

Re:Par for the course?

[toastar]

All PS3 games that ship on disc ship on Blu-ray.

Yes but all PS3 owners, have a Bluray Reader.

Dump the thing across the network if you have to

Re:Par for the course?

[JavaBear]

Duh!

It have survived the challenge for over 3 years now!
And even hen the hack seems to be anything but trivial. Lots of hardware modification needed to crack open it's armor.

Personally I'm not using the OtherOS, however I have always planned on trying it. It's the principle of the matte that I'm upset about.

Had Sony not been lazy they could have locked down the OtherOS, and have users agree to an additional EULA which just specifies that the OtherOS feature may not be used to access the Hypervisor and circumvent the security, and attempting to do so will permanently disable the OtherOS feature on that machine alone. The Security system should be able to detect these attempts, if only Sony would get off their fat asses and fix it.

Re:Par for the course?

[Rogerborg]

The folks at Best Buy compared the MAC address of the one in the box to the sticker on the outside of the box and they didn't match.

Don't most routers have a way to change their MAC addresses in the settings.

Most routers have the MAC address printed on a sticker on the device itself - I assume that's what the Best Buy drones compared.

Re:Par for the course?

[The End Of Days]

None of the updates are forced, so your entire comment is invalidated by its own premise.

Of course you'd probably argue that you are entitled to continuing support from console manufacturers on your terms. I have no answer to that, just like there is no way to stop a five year old from screaming "I NEED CANDY." Reality disagrees, so there's no point in bothering with it.

Re:Par for the course?

[toastar]

that interest in hacking the PS3 was near nonexistent before the Slim came out (sans Other OS), except for a couple Linux folks trying to poke holes in the hypercall interface to get access to the GPU.

someone donate this guy a mod point.

Re:Par for the course?

[RMH101]

They're not going to be checking this, they'll be checking the sticker on the bottom of the unit against the one on the box or their records

Re:Par for the course?

[initdeep]

except you would lose the dispute when Sony promptly sent documentation to the CC company of your fraud.
And could likely have you brought up on charges.

Why don't you try this out and tell us how it goes.

Re:Par for the course?

[basotl]

So that then makes it okay to commit fraud against an unrelated party (retailer) in your book?

Re:Par for the course?

[initdeep]

most routers have a sticker on the bottom with the mac address on it iirc.

Re:Par for the course?

[RMH101]

No it isn't. The bulk of their revenue doesn't come from people buying retail copies of the OS and upgrading, it comes from deals with the PC manufacturers to supply new machines with the latest OS preinstalled. Hence bloating is in their interest and the hardware manufacturer's interest as it sells machines. A surprising small percentage of people ever upgrade their OS themselves...

Re:Par for the course?

[marcansoft]

I can only speak from my experience in Wii hacking, but I can safely say that the dude who "developed" wii softmod piracy on the Wii did so by duct-taping together existing homebrew in a very poor way. He can barely reverse engineer software and he hasn't contributed a single breakthrough to the hacking community - all he does is leech off of homebrew and present his duct-taped solutions and GUIs as breakthroughs. At the same time, he doesn't understand the implications of what he does, nor does he properly comprehend the system architecture, and he also doesn't bother with safety. This conspires to make Wii softmod particularly dangerous to the uninitiated, as you're almost guaranteed to permanently brick your Wii if you blindly do stuff, and still dangerous even for experienced pirates, as some of his tools just flat out randomly brick consoles for no reason at all.

The day he preannounced his USB loader for the Wii (something highly predictable, as someone had recently released high-speed USB drivers for homebrew), I decided to carry out an exercise and see how long it would take me to build the core functionality by doing what he does - duct-tape together existing modules and tools. The answer is that what is widely considered to be his major breakthrough amounts to 6 hours of actual work, plus polish and a bad GUI. I had a video proof-of-concept going before he even had a chance to release his loader.

It might be different on other consoles; that I do not know.

Re:Par for the course?

[NatasRevol]

Where did I fail as a father?

Taking your son to CompUSA...or a whorehouse.

Re:Par for the course?

[Fulg]

Don't most routers have a way to change their MAC addresses in the settings.

Good luck changing the MAC sticker text through the settings...

Re:Par for the course?

[Jerf]

Bricking a system usually means that the only way or ways the system has to boot now has something unbootable on it. Now the only way to boot it is to remove the firmware chips and write them with external hardware.

If you can boot your own code, that doesn't necessarily give you full control over the device, but it's certainly a big step in that direction, so all the closed platforms do their best to prevent this. As a side effect, this makes it a lot easier to brick, because if they fry their one-and-only path in, you lose.

I didn't find anything right away, but if the Pandora can boot off of its SD card, and it would be really stupid for an open platform built on hardware that can probably already do that to make that move, then it may be effectively impossible to permanently brick the thing, barring some sort of Killer Poke. You can always boot with the SD card and reload whatever you screwed up.

Closed systems brick easily. Open systems don't. I wouldn't call that so much an advantage of the open system as a disadvantage of the closed one. We know nothing stops consoles from booting off of writable optical media; the Dreamcast could.

Re:Par for the course?

[perryizgr8]

have you run win7 with 512mb ram? Its quite usable, almost as responsive as xp. Its quite surprising. Can't say nothing about apple though.

Re:Par for the course?

[marcansoft]

And even hen the hack seems to be anything but trivial. Lots of hardware modification needed to crack open it's armor.

To you, it may seem complicated. To me, injecting a single glitch pulse into a RAM line such that sometimes you get lucky and corrupt the right write is a shotgun-style trivial hardware glitch attack. Geohot's hack, hardware-wise, is one of the simplest out there.

Re:Par for the course?

[perryizgr8]

just like sony.

Re:Par for the course?

[tlhIngan]

Just because you CALL it fraud doesn't MAKE it fraud. Sony has said your perfectly free to not accept the update. You'll simply be unable to access any of their online services, or play certain newer games that run assuming the newest firmware. That's in the EULA that you accepted by purchasing the system and inserting a game disc, or putting it online and connecting to their services.

Big problem still is that Sony pretty much annoys you into doing the update.

I'm fine as I don't need PSN - my friends are on Xbox Live, and the only games I have for the PS3 I play are single-player. However, they pop up the dialog saying "a software update is required" on startup, and the bloody advertising ticker (which is non-removable as of 3.xx) still updates, even though all the PSN stuff now says "sign in".

At least an un-signed-in Xbox drops all the ads...

Re:Par for the course?

[Itninja]

whorehouse...his first lay...giving head to the bouncer

Wow, you sound like a very mature and seasoned parent. I bet you are a real hoot on career day.

Re:Par for the course?

[jo_ham]

You failed when you expressed disappointment in his decision to try. Let him find out for himself if a Mac is the "bouncer in a whorehouse" as you have come to see it. Maybe he might like it.

If it doesn't work for him, at least you've got a very small, quiet Linux box to mess about with.

Re:Par for the course?

[jo_ham]

What update was that? Or did she select "restore to factory settings"?

I have been using my 3G since it came out and I only ever update it on my terms when I am ready, skipping out a couple of updates. It has never been "essentially disabled" until I updated it.

I'm genuinely curious which update this was, and what version of the phone it is. Did she update iTunes to the current version? Did she download an app?

Re:Par for the course?

[Rockoon]

Facts not in evidence.

The rise of Win7 can be explained by computer sales.

On the steam survey, Win7/64 is already at 24.42% and Win7/32 is at 11.25%. You would have to believe that 35% of gamers have purchased a new machine, this year, in order to buy the crap you are selling....

It is undeniable that Win7 is moving at the retailer. We are talking about the largest software pre-order in history here. Millions of copies sold on the first day of release, and has been averaging 10 million per month. Did you not know these things before you decided to talk out your ass?

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can still get fat PS3 refurb once in a while.

Re:Par for the course?

[poetmatt]

Yeah, it's called a PC. You buy the games that don't have DRM. They are few and far between, and publishers wish they didn't exist.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact i think there is some old saying which applies here, something about 2 wrongs....

Yeah, I remember that one. It was "minus times minus equals..." No, wait...

"A 90 degrees turn followed by another..." No, that's not it, either.

"n plus -n is..." Uh.

"Doing something, then undoing it, doesn't undo--" Now that doesn't make sense.

Ok, I give up. How did it go?

Re:Par for the course?

[Fulg]

Not every store scans the serial numbers, for example Costco. I've swapped defective consoles that were past their warranty over there, if you do it once it's no big deal.

I've seen some posts earlier suggesting that this is scamming the store, but if you've ever worked at retail, you know that the store does not deal with the consoles - everything is done through a supplier, who deals with the manufacturer. Returns do get to the manufacturer eventually, at no cost to the store.

Yes, I realize that it's an abuse of the system, but I only did it as a last resort (e.g. before Microsoft extended the warranty on RRoD 360s).

Re:Par for the course?

[NitroWolf]

No, there are two words to explain that: Other OS. Check out this table (slightly outdated, it's a year old or so) by console hacker Michael Steil (or watch him talk about it on any of his talks). Every console post-PS2 was hacked for homebrew, and then those hacks were abused for piracy. The PS3 comes with homebrew, therefore there is little motivation to crack the native system. Pro-piracy people are rarely good hackers, and need homebrew to piggyback on. In fact, the reason the PS3 was recently attacked was neither homebrew nor piracy; instead, geohot attacked it solely as an ego boost and to get media coverage (note how he hasn't even tried to develop a useful application for his exploit, such as GPU access under Linux).

Blu-ray is a minor inconvenience. There are a myriad potential ways of copying PS3 games that don't involve blu-ray discs.

Sony are shooting themselves in the foot by removing Other OS, and pissing off legitimate customers on top of it.

This is just plain BS. Piracy on modern consoles (at least in the case of the Xbox 360 and Wii) involve bypassing the DVD drive's built in security check. This really has nothing to do with homebrew and you can, in fact, run homebrew on either system without modifying the DVD drive to accept pirated discs. So your statement that pro-piracy people are a) rarely good hackers and b) are piggybacking on homebrew is complete crap.

Get your facts straight before commenting on something you obviously know nothing about.

Re:Par for the course?

[poetmatt]

Well, you purchase the license to use the games. You do own the physical console and they legally cannot rescind your use of the console itself. They can try to restrict what you can do with it, but not your access to the device. That doesn't even mean you own them. People don't really pay attention to this distinction and how it erodes the right of first sale among other things.

This is why steam is still evil. You're "buying" a longterm rental. You're really not buying to own.

Re:Par for the course?

[Zerth]

Buy a Didj. You can probably find one for under 50 bucks. 400 MHz ARM Linux device that runs on 4 AA, has 3d acceleration, but unfortunately no wireless. Looks like a fat GBA.

However, it is technically an edutainment device.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardly unrelated. These box shifting retailers make their money by selling these crippled products, so penalising them is understandable.

Besides, if you believe what greedy industrialists call the free market, then wasting the time and money of the retailers will mean they will think twice about retailing crippled shite in the future. If Sony can't get their PS4 (for example) into some shops, maybe they will think twice about the DRM.

Re:Par for the course?

[Bert64]

The difference is that the Xbox and the Wii don't release firmware updates which remove functionality that is explicitly present in previous versions and actively marketed as a selling point of the machine...

Re:Par for the course?

[Bert64]

The Amiga was huge in it's day, at least in Europe, and a lot of that was down to how easy it was to copy the games (they came on floppies, and many had no attempt at copy protection whatsoever)...Most people i know who had Amigas would have a handful of bought games, and a huge box of pirated ones - usually copied from friends in school.

Re:Par for the course?

[griffjon]

What about the iPad? I hear it's super-open. /sarcasm

Re:Par for the course?

[slimjim8094]

Depends. My Dad had a story about how he bought a VCR from a slightly shady place about 20 years ago. When he plugged it in, it didn't work. He took it back for a refund, and they wouldn't take it. He called AMEX from a payphone and told them the story, and the rep told them "take it inside and try to return it again. If they don't take it, leave it on the counter and leave".

He got his chargeback. So it's not necessarily fraud. But the GP makes it sound like it.

Re:Par for the course?

[marcansoft]

Read my later post in the replies. I'm talking about softmod piracy. Drive hacks are completely different and are popular because manufacturers neglected drive security while strengthening their software security. The PS3 indeed has decent drive security, which is why it's withstood drive hacks. What I'm saying is that the reason it's withstood software-based piracy is because of Other OS.

Softmod piracy on the Wii piggybacked on homebrew. Recently, 360 soft-piracy (incl. downloadable content, etc.) has taken off or so I'm told, also piggybacking on homebrew. PSP piracy relies exclusively on homebrew, because the media is fully custom and the reader is integrated and you can't reasonably replace/emulate it on a portable. My point still stands; pro-softmod-piracy people (i.e. not modchip companies or drive firmware hackers in the case of the 360) are a) rarely good hackers, and b) piggybacking on homebrew.

Re:Par for the course?

[Aphoxema]

No, there is one word to explain that: blu-ray. It's the same reason there as very little DVD movie piracy in the mid-late 90's (very few people had burners and security cracks yet).

I partly counter your example with UMDs; absolutely no one has UMD burners yet the PSP has been an extremely convenient medium for playing games unlicensed, along with other homebrew software.

What is especially different between movies and games is movies can be reformatted into smaller sizes. Those 5 gigs of video can be turned into a few hundred megs which is easier to disseminate online. Games, though, can only have content taken out and some aspects of it compressed or reformatted.

Since dual-layer Blu-Rays are 50 gigs it's a little more daunting of a task, even with the 250 gig drives the PS3 slim has available. Even if someone were to plug in a 500 gig drive that's still only ~8 large games they can fit on the system at a time.

Surely, though, after custom firmware is finally developed, people will find ways to reliably use external hard drives with several terabytes of space.

So you're right, the difficulty in working with large amounts of data set back unlicensed DVD copying a decade, but once technology caught up it was no trouble at all. Even now it's quite manageable to copy Blu-Rays, in a few years the data will be even easier to handle.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

I cannot brick my Android phone yet. Event deleting the firmware it still boots to the flash loader so far.

There, fixed that for you ;-)

Re:Par for the course?

[tbannist]

Nothing you have posted contradicts the person you are responding to.

You need to show that the bulk of Microsoft's [Windows] revenue doesn't come from PC manufacturers to actually make your point. Instead you claim that 35% of gamers haven't purchase a new machine this year because... you don't think they have? I'm not sure about the average replacement time for gaming machines, but 3 years doesn't sound terribly far fetched. Especially if many people were waiting for Windows 7 to be released before replacing an older system.

As for your retail comments, Microsoft does sell many copies of Windows at retail, however, you haven't shown that the revenue from those sales represents a large percentage of their revenues. Also, the 10 million per month figure is licenses sold, which includes pre-installed versions of Windows. Lastly, retail figures for a new O/S tend to be big whenever Microsoft launches a new OS, however, they tend to diminish over time.

Re:Par for the course?

[VTI9600]

My PS3 isn't fat, its just full of features you insensitive clod!

(in all seriousness, it does have a multi-card reader and the ability to play PS2 games)

Re:Par for the course?

[commodore64_love]

>>>you're not getting 'justice' against Sony, but against Walmart

Ya know..... it helps to read the WHOLE message. Quote: "The store would eventually return it [for refund] to Sony who would have to deal with the property THEY destroyed." So Walmart won't be stuck. Sony will be stuck.

Re:Par for the course?

[BobMcD]

Except that's not even close to how retail works. Look into it. Sony will not be taking those back, ever.

Re:Par for the course?

[azuravian]

Apple does not force iPhone and iPod updates.

As far as I know no one "forces" them. Everything released up to the point the firmware update is released will still work. But with Apple, there are apps that require the latest updates, thereby "forcing" you to update if you want to use those apps.

Re:Par for the course?

[commodore64_love]

2 wrongs DO make a right. It's why we deprive thieves of their freedom and mass-murders of their lives. We commit the second wrong in order to bring justice to the 1st wronged party (the victim).

Re:Par for the course?

[aliquis]

Well, that depends I assume. Don't know how it worked really or if there was any extra measures taken but most games had a custom boot block/format or whatever the right name would had been on it so within Workbench/the OS the disc data couldn't be read. And hence rather hard (well, not really .. :D) to copy the data within the disc.

There was disc copy programs though which could copy the disc with no troubles whatsoever. But I have no idea if the formats on the discs somehow got out of standard or more complicated in some way trying to make it harder to copy the disc or if it was just about reading one block, writing one block and keep doing that until done.

And then some game actually had copy protection such as write in the right code or this and that word from a manual or such but that was always broken in software.

So yeah, no DRM maybe but non-standard (?) disc layout/format and lame attempts in software relying on code tables or other similar things.

Re:Par for the course?

[Japher]

Yes. In addition to a PS3, X360, and Wii there's also the iPhone and iPad that can be bricked via forced updates.

I've had an iPhone for quite some time and I don't ever remember a forced update. I always get a message informing me that an update is available and asking if I want to install it.

Re:Par for the course?

[abigor]

Me neither. This article is probably more Slashdot hyperbole to get the typically unknowledgable Slashdot poster into a frothy rage yet again.

Re:Par for the course?

[sjames]

It is fraud, but it can also be seen as a vigilante action made necessary by lax consumer protection laws and for that matter, lax enforcement of any laws against corporations.

Re:Par for the course?

[Whatanut]

I haven't synced my phone to a computer in the last 6 months. No "disabling" issues that required an update. I know plenty of other people with iPhones, as well. I've never heard of any forced updates.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

You failed upon going to the store.
Order a bunch of parts and build it.

Re:Par for the course?

[Idiomatick]

It is pretty responsive with minimal settings. Apple doesn't have minimal settings in the same way which makes it a sorta unfair comparison. Feel free to say apple is shitty because it isn't flexible and doesn't offer low settings.

Re:Par for the course?

[commodore64_love]

>>>The business segment you refer to will be buying new pcs with win7 pro installed, which includes xp mode

Maybe. Maybe not. I have yet to work anywhere that embraced Vista as their standard OS. Businesses keep clinging to XP because they like it.

Re:Par for the course?

[SmegginHell]

I lucked out when my PS3 was bricked by a firmware update last year. I had just purchased an 80gb fat PS3 refurbished online. I was a little wary of buying refurbished, but the price was just too good to pass up on an 80gb with backwards compatibility. I hooked it up and it worked fine, until I let the update run. Bricked it immediately. After some research online I found other people who had the same problem. They explained a lengthy process of calling Sony support and eventually shipping their console to them for repairs-a process I wasn't interested in waiting for since I just bought the damned thing. So I boxed it back up, called the company that sold it to me and told them it never worked when I got it. They took it back, sent me a new one a few days later, and I've had no problems since.

Re:Par for the course?

[iamnobody2]

In fact i think there is some old saying which applies here, something about 2 wrongs....

Yeah, I remember that one. It was "minus times minus equals..." No, wait...

"A 90 degrees turn followed by another..." No, that's not it, either.

"n plus -n is..." Uh.

"Doing something, then undoing it, doesn't undo--" Now that doesn't make sense.

Ok, I give up. How did it go?

three lefts make a right

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

And even hen the hack seems to be anything but trivial. Lots of hardware modification needed to crack open it's armor.

To you, it may seem complicated. To me, injecting a single glitch pulse into a RAM line such that sometimes you get lucky and corrupt the right write is a shotgun-style trivial hardware glitch attack. Geohot's hack, hardware-wise, is one of the simplest out there.

So simple ... yet no-one did it until Geohot.

Hindsight always makes difficult things seem trivial.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine my disgust when he selected a mac mini.

...

Where did I fail as a father?

At least he didn't fail as a son, and got the nice computer.

Re:Par for the course?

[Inconexo]

You paid for a console that can install other os and access to PSN, reproduce copyrighted media, etc, etc

Sony is removing some rights or another (you elect). So, if you ask me, it's a fraud.

Re:Par for the course?

[PingSpike]

What happens when you unplug the ethernet cable? That usually shuts my 360 up. If you only play single player games, shouldn't that stop wasting your bandwidth downloading ads or whatever?

Re:Par for the course?

[ultranova]

off course your PC doesnt REQUIRE bios upgrades to run new games, but they might be beneficial for the entire system as a whole

Mine required a BIOS upgrade to not complain about corrupted CMOS data (and lose all settings) at every boot. On the other hand, the process has been made pretty painless, with the BIOS being able to read and install the upgrade from a USB stick.

Re:Par for the course?

[nacturation]

Except that's not even close to how retail works. Look into it. Sony will not be taking those back, ever.

You're sure? Why is it that many products you purchase state in the manual "Do not take back to the retailer if you have a problem. Call us first!" Why would the manufacturer go to their expense trying to fix your problem if the retail store eats the loss and the manufacturer doesn't have to spend a dime?

I've returned products at various stores and have had the cashier specifically state that they send defective products back to the manufacturer. Why would they do that if not to get credit?

I'm genuinely curious if you have information on how the relationship between retailer and manufacturer generally works with respect to returning merchandise. Specifically for larger retailers who have clout in the marketplace.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wont work...
I bought my PS3 from Sony store, and they wrote down the serial # of the unit on receipt. I was also told that they need do a check of the hardware if i do a return, which takes about 30 mins. Not sure about other stores tho.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

We are talking about the largest software pre-order in history here. Millions of copies sold on the first day of release, and has been averaging 10 million per month.

That's because they were all thinking, "Anything has to be better than this Vista crap I bought into."

Re:Par for the course?

[jemtallon]

Sure they do. That's the main reason I won't buy Apple devices anymore. I once purchased an iPod and it would not work with any of the Linux tools until it had first been connected to iTunes, activated, and updated. Until that happened, it would just play a sound clip saying to update it. A brand new mp3 player should not need to be connected to the Apple network before it can ever be used. They forced an update that was impossible for me to perform on my computer. Eventually I sold it and went to an alternate vendor that actually wanted my business. That being said, Sony has a reputation for abusing their customers and that's why I avoid their products. I learned my lesson a few years ago when I owned a Sony Palm that had half of its functionality crippled when there wasn't a memory stick in it. (Despite the addl memory being completely unnecessary - it was just an attempt to sell more MS) They tend to do pretty well with an initial release of a product then follow it up with increasingly restricted copies until they become completely undesirable or unusable. It's too bad, really, because I could afford and would enjoy many of their products but they're not worth the associated costs in dealing with their policies.

Re:Par for the course?

[nacturation]

Depends. My Dad had a story about how he bought a VCR from a slightly shady place about 20 years ago. When he plugged it in, it didn't work. He took it back for a refund, and they wouldn't take it. He called AMEX from a payphone and told them the story, and the rep told them "take it inside and try to return it again. If they don't take it, leave it on the counter and leave".

He got his chargeback. So it's not necessarily fraud. But the GP makes it sound like it.

If the AMEX dude had told him to acquire a working VCR from a second honest merchant and return the defective one from the shady merchant to the second honest merchant, it would be fraud. What you described is different than what is being discussed here.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to mod you Overrated (I REALLY wish there was a -1 Wrong Mod, that didn't cause people to lose Karma, bust c'est la vie), but I figured I'd respond instead, since nobody explained why you were wrong... I have an old laptop at home with 768 MB of RAM. It has a slow, crappy 40GB HDD, and its video card long ago became physically damaged that if you try to install a driver for it (Windows or Linux), it will crash when it uses any form of acceleration. So, running with just the standard VGA driver, 768 MB of RAM, and on a slow-as-molasses old 40GB HDD, Windows 7... runs great. Granted, it's only web browsing, email, and light word processing, but with my experience with OS X, Tiger was fine on 1 GB of RAM, but not Leopard or Snow Leopard, and the lack of a working video card would pretty much be a total non-starter...

Re:Par for the course?

[FlyingBishop]

Users only use 20% of the features on a computer, if even that. However, everyone uses a different 20%. You can't just casually accept it when people strip out features you've bought, paid for, and used without incident.

Re:Par for the course?

[Ralish]

So, to conclude and better explain things: the PS3 avoided commercial drivechips by having good drive security (something sorely lacking on other consoles), and avoided noncommercial software piracy by removing the incentive for homebrewers to hack the system (which will inevitably happen otherwise, as has been proven time and time again).

This conclusion surprises me a little, as my understanding was that while the OtherOS feature would permit alternative operating systems to install and run (primarily Linux), aspects of the hardware would be restricted, most notably, the RSX, which I'm told is essentially the PS3 GPU. This would seem to me to be a fairly significant handicap? Even if not a major handicap, most hackers I know (and the hacker mentality itself) would find the notion of having a piece of hardware which you can only partially utilise completely offensive, due to "x" entity trying to keep you in a virtual "walled garden" so that the full potential of the device remains locked.

I guess I'm just surprised that even the fact that they allow you to install an alternative OS would placate hackers and the homebrew scene (and of course, the overlap). Because really, while it's a nice gesture, and definitely a major positive versus the competition (until now), it's still limited in that the rules of the game on its usage and capabilities are dictated by Sony, as they're now demonstrating by taking the capability away, and this just wouldn't be good enough for most.

My impression has always been that the lack of any major hacks of the PS3 hardware has been a combination of good security (the firmware doesn't seem to have any obvious exploits and especially the BD-ROM drive security, as you discussed above), and also, just general disinterest. The latter might be a combination of expensive hardware, but also the architecture of the system itself is quite unique and not necessarily accessible to others. The Xbox was something of a homebrew dream due to both how easy it was to hack through a modchip and how easy it was to code for, in that the architecture was so familiar, just an x86 box in a console case. I'm just not entirely convinced that the OtherOS is the primary reason for the PS3's lack of hacks, but rather, security a notch above the competition and lack of interest.

Please, correct me if I'm completely wrong, as I am interested in how the PS3 fits in with the other consoles from a security/homebrew perspective.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes there is. Its called a PC. Console gaming sucks. Its no where as flexible as PC gaming. A console cant upgrade its embedded video chipset but a PC the sky is the limit. The games are easily pirated for single user play and if you like it you can buy the game to play multiplayer. With a Console your at the mercy of the company who manufacturers it. With PCs build your own and the only limitation is your budget. You say you dont like the mouse, keyboard or joystick but rather like your PS3 or xbox controller ? Thats fine they have that for the PC too.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I've seen the "serious" rips these days are 720p och 1080p with the 700 meg releases being today what the 200 meg ASF releases once were. Of course for some reason there are still plenty of people doing rips who insist on messing with the audio while ripping (either they re-encode it as 96-128 kbps MP3 to shave a couple of megs off a 4 gig file or they simply screw around with it to make it sound "better", which I'm sure it does if you're using those dinky plastic ca-1998 computer speakers that came with your dad's old gateway).

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

The business segment you refer to will be buying new pcs with win7 pro installed, which includes xp mode. Technically they'll still be running xp for some things, but I think if you have most apps working good on win7 you'll eventually start demanding the last hold out upgrade or be replaced.

That was what they said about support for Windows 3.1, 98, NT, and 2000. We all know how badly that turned out. What makes this time around any different?

My shop has gone all Mac, and we aren't looking back. Everyone I have put on a Mac is thrilled with it (so far, but it's been more than nine months).

Re:Par for the course?

[BobMcD]

The larger retailers use product return data to negotiate lower prices, wherever possible. Those with such a notification in their product are under the belief that the notification will cost less than the next price negotiation.

I'm willing to bet that Sony has no such notice in their packaging, but I could be wrong.

All the stuff returned to a major retailer goes to a special department and/or outsourced company for processing. If deemed fit, it goes right back on the store's shelves, or to a discount/outlet store. If genuinely defective it will likely either be repaired and reprocessed or scrapped. A great deal of it winds up in the landfill.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately these days most electronic products have serial number stickers on the bottom/back of the product, AND on the outside of the box. I'm not sure if all stores check to make sure they match for returns, but if they do you're stuck..

Re:Par for the course?

[jonbryce]

Even if they don't, the serial on the PS3 should match the serial on the box.

Re:Par for the course?

[drolli]

A pc with preinstalled windows?

Re:Par for the course?

[Kludge]

but if it's as open as I've heard, talking about "the" email client doesn't make a great deal of sense

You are correct. You can compile your own email client for it if you want to. You can slap an email client written in python on it and run it.

The N900 does not support ... a USB to Network adapter.

But it does support USB networking, through which I can do anything, including ssh in or out. And it runs X, so I can display and use any application running on any other computer.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

You failed when you expressed disappointment in his decision to try. Let him find out for himself if anonymous gay sex is the "Mac mini" as you have come to see it. Maybe he might like it.

Re:Par for the course?

[marcansoft]

I think you have some valid points; the PS3 is probably less popular in general, and its security architecture has probably been overstated, which would discourage hackers.

My feeling is that the RSX limitation, while certainly an annoyance for Linux users, just isn't enough to motivate most people into actually breaking the system. Even for those that are, it significantly changes the attack front. A console with no "homebrew mode" needs to be attacked by breaking into the game-mode software, which is what the manufacturer wants to avoid. The PS3, on the other hand, can have small holes poked in the hypervisor without compromising GameOS. This already happened once: a bug was found that enabled the use of the RSX in an older firmware by exploiting some bugs in the hypervisor interface (without actually breaking into it). Sony patched it later.

It's worth noting that this RSX limitation is really the only significant hardware limitation for the PS3 in Other OS. Sure, some other peripherals are virtualized, but you don't really lose any functionality from that. You get access to the full system mode of the PowerPC, and you get access to 6 SPEs which is pretty good.

My personal feeling towards the PS3 (pre-Slim), and I suspect that of many other hackers, was "Meh. No RSX, annoying, but we've got Linux which is pretty good. Maybe we can do some neat tricks with the SPEs". Even if the notion of a walled garden goes against the spirit of controlling your own hardware, it's still so much better than the competition (the iPhone's tightly controlled App Store, the 360's tightly controlled XNA stuff, or the total lack of any reasonable indie game option for the Wii) that it means you tend to go for the other targets. The Wii is particularly bad; they won't let you get an SDK license unless you meet ridiculously high standards - WiiWare is really just a small game option for medium to large game studios, not for small indie operations. The bureaucracy is too large.

I wouldn't want to live in a world where we can't control any of our devices, but I think having "walled gardens" on a few (e.g. mainstream game consoles) is tolerable. I understand the manufacturers' point of view, and why they depend on some software security in order to avoid piracy. Sure, I'd prefer totally open systems, but having some officially-supported homebrew infrastructure still beats having nothing by a large margin.

Re:Par for the course?

[magnusrex1280]

I really hate it when people respond to someone's automated signature, instead of the issue being discussed.

Re:Par for the course?

[GWBasic]

So is there any console or other electronic gadget you can buy nowadays which does not include forced locked own firmware updates that has the possibility of breaking it?

Mac mini

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to strike a blow against capitalism, perhaps you shouldn't be buying their shiny crap in the first place?

Re:Par for the course?

[Atriqus]

Because if they did that, then I'd be possible to back-track to an older firmware, which is exactly what they try to avoid.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

2 wrongs DO make a right. It's why we deprive thieves of their freedom and mass-murders of their lives. We commit the second wrong in order to bring justice to the 1st wronged party (the victim).

To paraphrase Andre the Giant, I don't think that word (justice) means what you think it means... What you're describing is properly called REVENGE (the somewhat-newly-vogue American version of justice) and it absolutely does not equate to justice. The concept of "an eye for an eye" etc. has long been considered barbaric, regardless of what neo-cons (and victims of crime) would have you believe...

In fact, one of the FIRST signs that a justice system is veering away from true justice and towards revenge is when victims have input into the process. Virtually by definition a victim's interest is in obtaining revenge upon those whom they feel has wronged them. They have ZERO interest in temperance, mercy, or justification, they simply want to hurt someone back. True justice must necessarily combine all of those things and coldly mete out a punishment that is appropriate to all elements of the crime, preferably without being clouded by anyone's emotional baggage, whether they're the victim or the offender.

-AC

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he means "simple to reproduce", as in now that it's known, any halfway decent modchip hacker can manage it.

Re:Par for the course?

[gid]

While I'd never try this. I find this hard to believe. Most retail stores don't give a rats ass and will take said product back and let you buy a new one. Then then send the original product back as damaged to the manufacturer.

I bought a Dyson vacuum at Bed Bath & Beyond over 2 years ago, I took it back maybe 2 weeks ago. They gladly took it, didn't compare any serial numbers or anything. And even mailed me out a newer / less expensive model so I ended up with a credit back to my card and they've earned a loyal customer because of this policy (still use the 20% off coupons tho, as the store is rather pricey) This is for a $450 vacuum, I seem skeptical that Best Buy would go to this extreme for maybe a $75 router, maybe Best Buy has gotten paranoid over the years as people tend to scam more over high tech electronics.

I've heard many a story about how people have bought junk and best buy and found something else entirely in the box they opened. Unless your friend did something stupid like admitting his scam, or causing a scene, I'd seriously doubt they'd call security. They would probably just refuse to return the item. With that said, I guess anything is possible with the idiots at Best Buy.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

Little nit picking, from the linked picture, the psp was able to run unsigned/homebrew code out of the box in japan with firmware version 1.0 on day 1, version 1.5 'fixed' this.

Re:Par for the course?

[Bent Mind]

The business segment you refer to will be buying new pcs with win7 pro installed

Businesses use pre-installed operating systems? Maybe Mom-and-Pop small business that doesn't have an IT department. Everyone else has a default image they load themselves. The company I work for still uses XP, skipped Vista, and is experimenting with 7.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

I REALLY wish there was a -1 Wrong Mod

You did a great job of demonstrating why with your post. You're either lying, or you are a rare exception.

Re:Par for the course?

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh dude? It's fat. See? Yours is the one on the left and is more than a little chunky.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

So now reusing existing code is a bad thing? He should have reinvented the wheel and started from scratch?

Re:Par for the course?

[nuckfuts]

Is the flash loader itself not firmware?

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where did I fail as a father?

Taking your son to CompUSA...or a whorehouse.

Taking your son to a CompUSA...*not* a whorehouse.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Par for the course?

[QuantumRiff]

Or, instead of committing fraud, and hurting your local retailer in the process for something that is not their fault,
you could, you know.. Take Sony to Small claims court. This is exactly the kind of stuff that Small Claims court is made for. Sue them for the cost of a new device, plus filing fees.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well they've probably blown it now. Geohot has released a video of his CFW in action running 3.21 and booting to otherOS. As ever, he gives no details for the method or explain how others may do the same thing. It's even suggested it may work for the slim.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you buy the games. Really. If you go into Gamestop, or Wal-mart and ask to "Buy a license to this game" they'll just stare at you like you're an idiot. If you say "But this game", they'll ring you up and take your money. The box makes no mention of a license. You are buying the game. Just like at a book store you are buying a book.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not *quite* the same.

It's more like if your dad bought a VCR and it *did* work, then he took his old broken VCR, put it in the box, and left it on the counter, then charged the working VCR back.

*That* would be fraud, even if they were both Sony VCRs and the broken VCR was under warranty.

Re:Par for the course?

[cdpage]

Thanks for the insight, but it seems that geohot has worked around this one already. link,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-9wLWQ4-uA

Re:Par for the course?

[marcansoft]

It certainly takes some ingenuity and luck to come up with, but it's both simple to reproduce and not too hard to develop in the first place. I think the way geohot came up with it in a short time is a testament to its simplicity (geohot isn't stupid, but I wouldn't consider him a stellar hacker either). I think many other well-known console hackers could've pulled this off in a similar timeframe, it's just that they weren't interested in doing so.

Reproduction, in fact, can be accomplished with decades-old logic. You don't even need to be a modchip hacker, anyone with a cursory knowledge in electronics can make a pulse generator. It's a shotgun approach, so it doesn't rely in introducing any specific behavior or disturbing specific behavior. You're basically just injecting a large-scale fault over and over again until you get lucky.

Re:Par for the course?

[plague3106]

But a gaming console is not a computer, the target audience and purpose is much more tightly focused. Gamers use gaming consoles to play games, and in this generation, other media. If you look at what people buy a ps3 for, almost all use it to play games, and a large portion use it as a media center (the xmb shows sony's thinking). Almost no one bought it to install linux.

Re:Par for the course?

[AliasMarlowe]

Where did I fail as a father?

Taking your son to CompUSA...or a whorehouse.

Taking your son to a lousy CompUSA... instead of to a good whorehouse. The boy should learn useful skills, not just tech stuff.

Re:Par for the course?

[plague3106]

Many were clinging because they DISLIKED Vista. Win7 != Vista, and the sales numbers are panning that out (many businesses DO like 7 and are migrating toward it).

Besides, unless you're a contractor, I doubt you had more than a couple of jobs since Vistas release, and less since 7.

Re:Par for the course?

[TOGSolid]

Ahhh Linux. Old and outdated computer that you don't want to part with? Linux box!
Kid fucked up and bought a Mac and learned to hate it in a hurry? Linux box!
Bricked your Windows PC? Linux box!
Found out that your PS3 isn't as awesome as you originally thought it would be? Linux box!

Linux, making useless computers not suck since 1991.

Re:Par for the course?

[maxslash]

AWESOME.... your son is either extremely smart or you did something right, by your tone and the fact your a mac hater.. I am guessing your kid is smart.. let's hope he doesn't learn anything else from you.... I recommend macs to my friends and windows to people whom i don't mind billing by the hour. Windows has customers, mac's have fans!

Re:Par for the course?

[Skylinux]

yes you can and that is why I wrote "While E-Mail client can be fixed later on or replaced by installing another package ....."

I am running Thunderbird through Debian Chroot because I have not been successful at compiling Thunderbird for the ARM CPU yet. Others have installed mutt or Clawsmail so this phone gives you true freedom, thanks to Linux.

Re:Par for the course?

[Skylinux]

But it does support USB networking, through which I can do anything, including ssh in or out. And it runs X, so I can display and use any application running on any other computer.

Yes it does but this requires you to use another computer to go through so you might as well use the more powerful desktop/laptop machine.

I am a network administrator and I have been in the situation where I needed to download a RAID driver and write the image to a floppy. With proper hardware support I could have downloaded the file via a USB NIC then write the floppy image via a USB Floppy drive. But since this is not possible I had to go to my car to get my laptop.

I don't see the crappy E-Mail client as a serious flaw since I can just install my own but the USB issue is a design problem.

Re:Par for the course?

[dave562]

Everyone skipped Vista because it sucked. Those same people are now considering Win7 deployments because Win7 doesn't suck. It works great on current hardware. As XP boxes die of old age there isn't any reason to replace them with XP running on newer hardware. The only reason to stay on XP is because of application compatibility. Once the apps are updated, XP can die. In my organization, there is exactly one application that won't run on XP. I run it in virtualized XP. It kind of sucks to have to boot up the VM, but with a dual core processor that supports virtualization extensions, everything runs great.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

The term "hack" implies a measure of clever finesse, but just as often a jury rigged, ugly solution that "just works."

Your commitment to quality code and lofty standards are celebrated in the Wii homebrew community, and we're all glad that you're still contributing, but the ongoing bitterness isn't attractive. Your own exploits stand by themselves without having to make comparisons, Marcan.

Re:Par for the course?

[torgis]

They do, in fact, print the serial number of the console on the receipt. With the 360, they even designed a window into the packaging so you can see the serial number of the console contained within, without the need to remove it from the packaging.

However, situations like this simply require a little social engineering. Go to Sam's Club or Wal-Mart or some other huge store where the workers are understaffed, underpaid, and minimally technical. Buy a new console, place the old one in the box, and return it. Do your return near the end of the day when the employee is tired and just wants to go home. Chances are, nobody will notice the mismatched serial number and you will walk out with a brand new console. If they catch you, just play dumb. Employees at these stores are used to dealing with idiots as well.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good post, but here's (finally) a case where it would be very useful to distinguish "hacking" and "cracking". There's been a huge interest in hacking the PS3 ever since Sony released the Linux for it. Improvised PS3 clusters in university labs for simulations, etc. Whereas I understand "cracking" as doing a distinct no-no. (How's that for a technical definition. :P)

Re:Par for the course?

[JeffSpudrinski]

You list many of the reasons he decided to try this at Best Buy. He never expected them to compare numbers (and yes, they did look at the sticker on the bottom of the unit and compare that to the sticker on the box).

The story has reached legendary status in our circle of friends as he actually had his *wife* attempt returning it just in case it went bad. He wanted to make sure he wouldn't get banned from the store himself.

He's a character, that one...

-JJS

Re:Par for the course?

[bushing]

No, there are two words to explain that: Other OS. Check out this table (slightly outdated, it's a year old or so) by console hacker Michael Steil (or watch him talk about it on any of his talks). Every console post-PS2 was hacked for homebrew, and then those hacks were abused for piracy. The PS3 comes with homebrew, therefore there is little motivation to crack the native system. Pro-piracy people are rarely good hackers, and need homebrew to piggyback on.

This is just plain BS. Piracy on modern consoles (at least in the case of the Xbox 360 and Wii) involve bypassing the DVD drive's built in security check. This really has nothing to do with homebrew and you can, in fact, run homebrew on either system without modifying the DVD drive to accept pirated discs. So your statement that pro-piracy people are a) rarely good hackers and b) are piggybacking on homebrew is complete crap.

Get your facts straight before commenting on something you obviously know nothing about.

You might want to weigh your own confidence against the authority of the person making claims you disagree with before launching into an attack.

I don't really understand your objection to a), and I think Marcan's claims about b) are justified but deserve a bit of clarification. It's not so simple; as Michael Steil discusses, the efforts (piracy vs homebrew) often leverage each others' work. The only reason you can "run homebrew [on the Wii] without modifying the DVD drive to accept pirated discs" is that ... we were able to bootstrap our efforts by using modified disc images, which requires modifying the DVD drive to accept burned discs. The first unsigned code execution we demonstrated used a patched Lego Star Wars disc with code injected into it. Later, we used the same technique to inject debugging code into a copy of Zelda, and then used that to facilitate making a save-game exploit that ultimately did not require hardware modification.

It might have been possible to reach that end goal in some different way, but it would have been much more difficult.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

three lefts make a right

Is this where it all comes full circle? How much is that in wrongs?

Re:Par for the course?

[BikeHelmet]

It's ridiculous how good a 512kbit h.264/aac stream can look. Better than 350MB xvid-mp3's, and at a fraction of the size.

Increased processing power is definitely a contributor to piracy. :P

Re:Par for the course?

[BikeHelmet]

In the technical sense, that is the firmware.

But when you go to download firmware updates, you're usually downloading "OS updates". It's just that the OS is locked down or purpose-built.

Re:Par for the course?

[CronoCloud]

And then publishers stopped making games for the Amiga. If you guys couldn't afford games for the platform, why did you buy it, instead of a cheaper platform that you could afford to buy games for.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

You want a walled garden where only people who have passed your test of worthyness may use the systems they purchased? Why on earth would that be a good thing?

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

Two wrongs don't always make a right: I think you mean "wrong and anti-wrong cancel out", and that's certainly correct. It might be helpful to think of the wrongs as vectors.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm interested in more sophisticated attacks. Can you give some examples?

Re:Par for the course?

[StikyPad]

Spoken like a true non-parent.

After years of putting up with bullshit day after day, the least kids can do is serve as a punchline. Hell, that's about the *only* thing my daughter will do, besides her nails and her boyfriend.

Re:Par for the course?

[NoobixCube]

I always thought the 700MB file size of movies was more motivated by the abundance of CDs. Not that they said "Come hell or high water, I'll make this just squeeze onto a CD", but they probably just thought "one movie per CD sounds alright, let's get the quality up until we approach that".

Re:Par for the course?

[KDR_11k]

And you'd be content with a Mac Mini instead of something more powerful?

Re:Par for the course?

[marcansoft]

That's not a solution to this issue (in fact, it's worse than using a proxy to continue logging in with 3.15). This initiates a cat-and-mouse game with Sony, which will end with annoyed and/or banned users. It also voids the warranty on your console.

As a PS3 Linux user, I don't consider this even remotely as good as the old situation. Sure, functionally at this point in time it might be OK, but the whole point of an officially supported homebrew mode is that it's officially supported. Homebrew after Sony's move was bound to happen and I don't doubt that Other OS will come back, but now the PS3 is effectively like the other consoles - yet another closed platform where hackers play a cat-and-mouse game with the vendor.

I still blame both geohot and Sony for this situation. Geohot for releasing a hack with no useful initial value just to up his ego and get some more media coverage (as if he hasn't had enough already) without thinking about the consequences, and Sony for reacting the way they did. When I was working on the Wii, we were very careful about releases, attempted to establish communications with Nintendo (that didn't work out, but we tried), and thought about the consequences before releasing anything, both in terms of vendor reaction and in terms of usefulness vs. danger for users.

Personally, I am looking into possible legal action against Sony (I think they move isn't legal). If that doesn't work out, I'll just stay on 3.15 with a networking hack until that stops working. Even as a console hacker, it'll take more than a clumsy firmware patch to convince me to void the warranty on my expensive console just because Geohot and Sony pissed each other off. Maybe in a year or so, when my warranty is up, or when something useful comes out of this huge mess, whichever comes first.

Re:Par for the course?

[exomondo]

That's not true, my wife's iphone just this past weekend was essentially disabled until she plugged it in to itunes to receive some kind of update.

Shenanigans? I mean what is 'essentially disabled' mean? And what update was it?

Re:Par for the course?

[exomondo]

I've not had a chance to use one yet, but if it's as open as I've heard, talking about "the" email client doesn't make a great deal of sense. Won't some hackers just write/port a nice email client for it? Or are unofficial add-ons less integrated than Nokia stuff?

He means the provided email client. Yes there are alternatives, my mate got the N900 and it really is a brilliant device. /jealousy

Re:Par for the course?

[adona1]

To paraphrase Andre the Giant, I don't think that word (justice) means what you think it means

I think you mean Mandy Patinkin, AKA Inigo Montoya. You killed my movie quote. Prepare to die.

Re:Par for the course?

[WNight]

You've got that exactly backwards. The sign a justice system isn't, is that it listens to anyone other than the victim. If someone decides they control another person - can dictate what happens to them, why shouldn't exactly the same go the other way?

Perhaps the victim will choose to forgive, perhaps they'll choose to punish the aggressor as they see fit. They're both even in the end in that both got to choose once. Don't like absolute power resting in the hands of your victims - don't victimize...

Re:Par for the course?

[dissy]

Doing a straight copy of a DVD doesn't require cracking CSS, you just copy the contents of the disc

Actually it depends on the extent CSS was used.
CSS actually supports quite a few different types of keys.

Some of those keys are in the DVD players CSS-decrypter chip. Others are in a special place at the start of a DVD.
If the latter type of key is used, you will not be able to play a DVD-R with a CSS video on a standard DVD player, because you have just erased the disc keys by not copying them too.

On DVD+-R's that special area is either blank (just plastic there) or are pressed (So not writable) and pre-written with all zeros.
Either way, you can not write a new key in that spot, and the key already there will never match anything.

Placed in a standard DVD player, the player will see the CSS headers, authenticate the auth keys against its built in ones, see that the disc key is needed, read it from the special track, and assuming reading in zeros, attempt to decrypt the video using that key.
It will fail.

Thus, if you read the original DVD video and key, deCSS the video so no encryption key is needed, THEN burn to DVD-R, it will play.

Now granted, this is for video only, and only CSS encrypted video.

Data DVDs (IE Games, computer data, etc) will not be using CSS so that CSS key holding area on the DVD-R is ignored anyway.
In those cases you can do a bit for bit copy, copy-protection and all, and it will work just as the original.

Might that have been what you were thinking?

Re:Par for the course?

[dissy]

Where did I fail as a father?

Taking your son to CompUSA...or a whorehouse.

Well there goes our Friday plans :/

Re:Par for the course?

[Rockoon]

Instead you claim that 35% of gamers haven't purchase a new machine this year because... you don't think they have? I'm not sure about the average replacement time for gaming machines, but 3 years doesn't sound terribly far fetched.

If you don't understand the gravity of your error in assuming a 3 year upgrade cycle, you can take a look at their survey instead of talking out your ass. There is no way that they have such a cycle. You are claiming that they "upgrade" their machine by buying similar hardware. For instance, CPU's from the same manfacturer operating at the same frequency and with the same number of cores and with the same video cards.

No, sir. Steam users are not replacing their machines at the rate you imagine in this economy, but they ARE buying windows 7.

Re:Par for the course?

[Stoutlimb]

If that's your reasoning of why developers stopped making Amiga games, then why did the PC gaming industry which had identical problems, continue on to such great heights? Pardon me but I think you're making your facts up just to make a snappy comeback.

Re:Par for the course?

[deek]

I believe that Sony allowing Linux to run on the PS3 took the majority of hacker heat off it. That's why I think the PS3 has been unhacked for all these years.

But wait, Sony don't allow you to run Linux on the PS3 any more. Oh well, looks like the PS3 will soon have pirated games.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

Placed in a standard DVD player, the player will see the CSS headers, authenticate the auth keys against its built in ones, see that the disc key is needed, read it from the special track, and assuming reading in zeros, attempt to decrypt the video using that key.
It will fail.

As a brief aside, I want to point out that DVD Decrypter will still be able to decrypt a DVD created in such a manner. It won't be happy about it though. (Don't ask me how I know this...)

Just a bit of trivia.

Re:Par for the course?

[Lunzo]

But Dad, it's shiny...

Re:Par for the course?

[Drgnkght]

Only if it is done before powering up the PS3. Once the ticker is showing it stays up until the system is turned off, if I remember correctly. I've heard that if you remove the DNS servers from your network settings it won't be able to pull this information while still allowing you to access local media servers. I haven't tried this yet, but it seems reasonable.

Re:Par for the course?

[Cerium]

Same, my chunky PS3 is updated and works great.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out the attacks on the DSi, especially the RAM sniffer/injector by scanlime. You can even download the code and give it a go, if you can make the hardware setup that he built. Essentially, you downclock the DSi to a more manageable speed and then tap the entire RAM chip (address and data), so you can get a realtime trace of everything that the console does with external RAM, and change anything. The implementation itself is done using an FPGA and a USB 2.0 FIFO chip. It's really quite amazing.

This would be nearly impossible to pull off with the type of RAM on the PS3, but it definitely beats random glitching.

If you want an older example, check out bunnie's xbox hack from 2001. He taps the LDT (HyperTransport) bus on the Xbox1 using a custom sniffer board and highly tuned FPGA code in order to capture the fast DDR bus transfers and sniff out the secret boot sector.

Re:Par for the course?

[mjwx]

Is the flash loader itself not firmware?

Yes but it is completely separated from the OS.

If you brick the Android OS completely you can still boot into the flash loader. Think of it like this, the flash loader is BIOS, Android is Linux/Windows on your PC. Once you have rooted Android you can replace the flash loader, screw this up and brick Android at the same time and your screwed. You might be able to reload the boot loader somehow using the Android SDK but I don't know for certain.

Re:Par for the course?

[TrancePhreak]

DSi has firmware. The first firmware update tried to block homebrew/piracy.

Re:Par for the course?

[CronoCloud]

Well back in the 80's piracy rates were much much higher for the Amiga (and the C64) than for DOS. DOS gaming didn't really take off numbers-wise till the C64 and Amiga were killed by the NES/SMS/Genesis/SNES. If you read the gaming magazines back then you would read interviews with developers dropping C64 (and later on Amiga support) because of the piracy.

Here's why I think that was the case:

DOS machines cost a lot more, thus making their owners more affluent ( and older), meaning they had money to buy all those flight sims, hex based wargames and RPG's that were predominant on DOS, pre-DOOM.

A lot of those people who bought C64's and Amigas would have bought consoles, if not for the crash of 83/84 which basically killed the console market in the US till about 1987 when the NES really began to take off. Most of them only knew enough basic to "loac "*",8,1 and used their machines simply as gaming consoles. They never ran a word processor or other productivity app on them. Not that they could afford a printer. Actually, they really couldn't afford their Amigas and C64's and after spending so much on the machines themselves they didn't have much money for games a la "Kid, I just bought you that $$$ Amiga and now you want more money for games?" So they copied games. That trail would either lead eventually to some kid with the money for games or the money to pay for a modem and long distance charges to dial into one of those "cracker" BBS's supplied by the European cracker groups.

So yes, I do blame the demise of the Amiga on the pirates...and the SNES.

Re:Par for the course?

[Bing Tsher E]

A friend of mine was banned for life from Best Buy for trying this.

For some reason a threat like that just doesn't faze me. Where do I sign up to be 'banned' too?

Re:Par for the course?

[kyz]

Publishers don't make games - developers do.

Publishers were lured away from the Amiga because Sega and Nintendo offered them a higher markup. Sega/Nintendo collectively set higher prices than was standard for Amiga/PC software (£25 vs £30-£50 per game). Sega/Nintendo splashed out on advertising for their platform - Sega/Nintendo grew a larger customer base willing to pay more money for games. Commodore weren't nearly as effective.

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/ap2/bad/summit.html

Then Sony brought out the super-flashy Playstation, customers ran to it and Sega/Nintendo's 16 bit platforms died off far quicker than anyone imagined.

Seriously - it wasn't about piracy then, and it's not about piracy now. It's about how much money you make regardless of the quality of software you release. It's about managing risk. Every big publisher would prefer if the public could be reliably managed - "if I put $X into development and $Y into marketing, I will get at least $X+$Y+$Z back in sales."

At the moment they're failing, and trying to get a better $Z by reducing $X and increasing $Y by spending $Y on legislators rather than the ungrateful masses.

Re:Par for the course?

[mcgrew]

Both Xbox360 and the Wii are just as locked down as the PS3.

Now it's not just Sony that's rooting their customers' computers*, it's everybody.

*If you don't realise that game consoles are computers, turn in your nerd card.

Re:Par for the course?

[tbannist]

You seem unnecessarily hostile and rude, it would have been sufficient and more effective if you pointed out that according to the steam survey the annualized upgrade rate for march is about 10%.

Of course if you annualize the current rate of adoption for Windows 7, it comes out to about 18% leaving us with a rough estimate that about half of the people who are currently upgrading are buying new hardware and half are not.

Re:Par for the course?

[NitroWolf]

Read my later post in the replies. I'm talking about softmod piracy. Drive hacks are completely different and are popular because manufacturers neglected drive security while strengthening their software security. The PS3 indeed has decent drive security, which is why it's withstood drive hacks. What I'm saying is that the reason it's withstood software-based piracy is because of Other OS.

Softmod piracy on the Wii piggybacked on homebrew. Recently, 360 soft-piracy (incl. downloadable content, etc.) has taken off or so I'm told, also piggybacking on homebrew. PSP piracy relies exclusively on homebrew, because the media is fully custom and the reader is integrated and you can't reasonably replace/emulate it on a portable. My point still stands; pro-softmod-piracy people (i.e. not modchip companies or drive firmware hackers in the case of the 360) are a) rarely good hackers, and b) piggybacking on homebrew.

If you were talking about soft mod piracy, then why did you not say soft mod piracy? My guess is that you wern't and the back peddle is to save your point.

However, it's really immaterial in this context anyway, since your point is still invalid when speaking of soft mod piracy.

To say that the soft-mod pirate developers are not good hackers is just complete and utter garbage. Some of the amazing things they have come up with to make the Wii do things it was never intended to do are exceptionally impressive. As for piggybacking on homebrew, you can easily reverse that and say that homebrew has piggybacked on piracy as well. It's a shared relationship, whether intended or not, whether desired or not. Both sides take from the other side - to say it's all one sided is, again, complete garbage. So your point, even in the context of soft-mod piracy is completely wrong.

Re:Par for the course?

[NitroWolf]

You might want to weigh your own confidence against the authority of the person making claims you disagree with before launching into an attack.

I don't really understand your objection to a), and I think Marcan's claims about b) are justified but deserve a bit of clarification. It's not so simple; as Michael Steil discusses, the efforts (piracy vs homebrew) often leverage each others' work. The only reason you can "run homebrew [on the Wii] without modifying the DVD drive to accept pirated discs" is that ... we were able to bootstrap our efforts by using modified disc images, which requires modifying the DVD drive to accept burned discs. The first unsigned code execution we demonstrated used a patched Lego Star Wars disc with code injected into it. Later, we used the same technique to inject debugging code into a copy of Zelda, and then used that to facilitate making a save-game exploit that ultimately did not require hardware modification.

It might have been possible to reach that end goal in some different way, but it would have been much more difficult.

I should weigh my own confidence against and authority that is demonstrably incorrect? How so? You have no idea what my authority is, nor do I care to advertise the fact. In fact, my authority is immaterial since you can verify my claims against countless sites around the web.

My objection to a) is the claim that somehow the pro-piracy people are crappy hackers. It is, as I've said, demonstrably false. If you believe otherwise, please provide a definition of a "good" hacker.

The claims about b) are refuted by your own quote - piracy and homebrew leverage each others works, so by Marcan claiming that piracy piggybacks on homebrew, and there is no return in the other direction, his statements are again, demonstrably false.

It's funny, because it's fairly clear that neither yourself nor Marcan were around in the days of NES or Atari 2600 piracy. Since the days of the first consoles, the pirates have _always_ been clever and impressive in defeating the obstacles in front of them to pirate the games. I remember being amazed at the NES and SMS piracy contraptions that were available and the sheer engineering that had to go into them. It's one of the things that got me interested in hardware hacking as opposed to working purely with software.

Make absolutely no mistake - if homebrew didn't exist, the pirates would still have found a way to exploit the consoles. Just because the homebrew may have made the way easier/faster does not mean it wouldn't have happened. Otherwise - why would there have been console piracy before homebrew was even a consideration on a console? I mean... if pirates are such poor hackers, there's no way they could have figured out how to pirate every game console ever made.

Re:Par for the course?

[marcansoft]

Some of the amazing things they have come up with to make the Wii do things it was never intended to do are exceptionally impressive.

Those things were developed for homebrew and legitimate modding, then duct-taped together to enable piracy.

Not a single technological advance in Wii hacks has come from the people who develop piracy tools. Not one. Every single one of those tools is a rehashing of existing techniques used for other purposes.

What they do is impressive on a superficial level - for people who just want to pirate games.

The dumper used to pirate WiiWare and VC games was based on a technique used for Wii filesystem analysis during the early days (and the person responsible for the warez dumper was asked not to do that by the people who discovered it, which he ignored). I developed the APIs used to install content, for the Homebrew Channel, before they were abused to install pirated WiiWare and VC. The DVD Video mode trick used to read DVD-Rs was developed to play DVDs with mplayer, before being used for piracy. The IOS modification toolset was developed by neimod for homebrew uses, before being abused for piracy. Every single system exploit was discovered and used for homebrew - the softmod people haven't discovered or developed a single entry point into the system. The more difficult and buried IOS patches were developed by bushing as part of PatchMii to enable future IOS experimentation, before being stolen to become part of piracy cIOS mods (although the authors deny this, the identical patches speak for themselves). 99% of the work on softmods can be done by any code monkey. Just because you're coding for a closed platform doesn't mean you're hacking it if you're just using the hacks that someone else developed. Just because you can accomplish something new doesn't mean you developed the foundation for it.

To say that the soft-mod pirate developers are not good hackers is just complete and utter garbage.

Have you seen their code? I have. It's complete and utter garbage (most of the time). I've also seen the lack of safety and the complete ignorance of how the system actually works. I've also seen over one hundred people e-mail me asking for help fixing their Wii after it was bricked by faulty softmod tools (I've yet to see a single person bricked by The Homebrew Channel or BootMii).

Now, this isn't always the case. Some of the pro-piracy hackers doing "back-end" work have done some good work. For example, WiiGator's game loading patch is definitely clever and well-executed, although he doesn't pioneer the underlying techniques. But this is rare; most of the public-facing people in the Wii softmod world don't have a clue what they're doing.

Both sides take from the other side - to say it's all one sided is, again, complete garbage.

I repeat: Wii homebrew has gained practically nothing from wii softmod piracy (Wii modchips did play a role very early on, as bushing mentioned in his comment below). In fact, the only thing that vaguely qualifies for such definition is USB 2.0 IOS support, where the guy who developed it attempted to team up with the softmod guys. He regrets this; he did all of the work and the softmod guy took it and slapped his name and sponsor on it.

After the announcement of the USB copied game launcher, I developed a proof-of-concept USB launcher based on publicly available homebrew tools. I succeeded in 6 hours after 200 lines of original code (and posted video proof). None of the tools I used were developed by people involved in softmods - they all had their legitimate homebrew users before being abused for piracy. A few hours later, the real thing was released, which was widely regarded as the most difficult and technologically advanced piracy tool for the Wii. It equates to 6 hours of actual work, plus polish and a GUI.

As I've said, this may be different on other consoles, but on the Wii, the homebrew com

Re:Par for the course?

[CaseM]

700MB had more to do with burning the files onto a CD.

Re:Par for the course?

[Bert64]

Publishers stopped making games for the Amiga for a number of reasons, none of which have anything to do with piracy...

Commodore were very slow in updating the Amiga hardware, while the original Amiga was revolutionary in 1985, it wasn't until 1992 - 7 years later that the updated AGA chipset was released, and by this time it was nothing really special compared to the competition.
Commodore also went bankrupt in 1994, resulting in no further Amiga hardware coming out - very few publishers wanted to continue producing anything for a platform that had an uncertain future.

Those same publishers who stopped making Amiga games, usually continued making PC games... PC games were even easier to pirate than Amiga games primarily because you could almost always install them to HD (most Amiga users didn't have an HD, and very few games would install to it if you did).

Re:Par for the course?

[Bert64]

Most games didn't use non standard formats, but even those that did could easily be copied with tools like Xcopy.

Things like code tables were easily cracked, sometimes you would just get a copy of the codes either printed or in the form of a textfile, and many games had cracked versions available which removed the code requirement entirely.

Re:Par for the course?

[Itninja]

I've had kids (several actually) longer that many here have been of legal drinking age. And if I do say so myself, I am pretty damn good at it. It's the "parents" who 'put up with bullshit day after day' that are the true non-parents, insomuch as they are more like pro bono babysitters waiting for some else to sack up and offer the children consistent, reasonable, and appropriate discipline and structure.

Here's a tip: If you think parenting is a thankless and joyless chore, you're not doing it right.

Re:Par for the course?

[aliquis]

Oh well, what matters the most:

Anyone WTB 500+ floppies? :D Anyone!?! :D

Re:Par for the course?

[marcansoft]

Why on earth did I post this AC? The mind boggles.

Re:Par for the course?

[NitroWolf]

I was going to quote parts of your post, but it's really pointless answering them line by line. So...

It sounds like you are just a bitter developer that had some of his stuff stolen, to me. Again, I will repeat (which maybe you didn't see the other post), you are deluding yourself if you think that the piracy would not have happened without the Homebrew. Just because the Homebrew people got there first, somehow the pro-pirate hackers are crappy and unable to do the job. History would beg to differ with you. Every console from the dawn of consoles has been hacked/pirated - why do you think the Wii would somehow be different?

Is your point of contention the fact that the pro-pirate crowd took what was already available and made it usable instead of re-inventing the wheel? I mean, that's just ludicrous.

You want to do something on the console, you make it happen. In your case, apparently, you wanted to write some homebrew tools, you made it happen. In the case of the pro-piracy crowd, they wanted to pirate games - they made it happen.

Again, your assertation that the pro-pirate hackers are not good hackers is false. There may be some crappy hackers in that crowd, but there are some good ones as well. Just like there are some incredibly crappy homebrew hackers as well as really good ones. If your sole criteria for a crappy hacker is the visual aspect of their code, as opposed to whether or not it works, then perhaps I would concede your point, but I don't think many people would agree with you in terms of the definition of a crappy hacker.

If you had followed the console hacking scene at all from the bad old days, you'd see how silly your argument is. I have followed the scene since the Atari 2600 days, and the first real pro-piracy hack that amazed me was the NES hacks. They were some of the coolest hacks I had ever seen at the time and it's what got me really interested in hardware to begin with. It's just insulting to hear someone say pro-piracy hackers are crappy, simply because they hold a philosophical viewpoint you do not.

Re:Par for the course?

[Anonymous Coward]

Every console from the dawn of consoles has been hacked/pirated

Not the PS3. Funny enough, every console since the PS2 has been hacked for homebrew first, then for piracy. Are you saying this is an irrelevant coincidence?

Again, your assertation that the pro-pirate hackers are not good hackers is false.

My assertion that the Wii pro-pirate hackers suck at it is demonstrably true. As I said, just go look at their actions, code, and consequences of their actions. I can only extrapolate from available information. Given that every console since the PS2 has been hacked for homebrew first and then for piracy, and that I have clearly ascertained that the Wii pirates are idiots, my conclusion is that piracy advocates tend to not be nearly as good at hacking as homebrew advocates. You are free to disagree if you don't think my evidence is enough; I invite you to provide some of your own.

If your sole criteria for a crappy hacker is the visual aspect of their code, as opposed to whether or not it works, then perhaps I would concede your point, but I don't think many people would agree with you in terms of the definition of a crappy hacker.

I'm not talking about the code style (though there is often, but not always, a correlation between bad code functionality and bad code style). I'm talking about operation. Things like not checking return values, not performing sanity checks on input, blindly overwriting system software in an unsafe sequence, not using APIs correctly, trusting network data without checks (and I'm not talking about potential network attacks, I'm talking about stuff like assuming a download completes successfully and attempting to install downloaded system software without checking that fact), ignoring whether your patches were applied correctly, etc. are all par for the course on the Wii piracy scene, and are the reason why hundreds of people have had their Wiis bricked by the popular piracy tools, as opposed to zero bricked by the popular homebrew tools. Piracy tools also have an unhealthy dose of typical code bugs (memory leaks, buffer overflows, etc.), especially for the ones that are used to modify system software and therefore should be thoroughly tested.

In the case of the pro-piracy crowd, they wanted to pirate games - they made it happen.

And yet we made homebrew happen without bricking any users' consoles, including a full bootloader replacement (heck, I am paranoid enough when doing dangerous stuff that I've never bricked mine to the point where I had to use a hardware flasher), while every day some poor lusers brick their consoles trying to warez the latest Mario game using crappy piracy tools and guides.

Maybe we just disagree on what is due diligence for a programmer, especially when hacking an embedded platform like the Wii with a huge potential for permanent brickage (the Wii has no recovery mode, you know). If you don't think things like checking return values should be a given, then maybe you aren't qualified to make an assessment about whether the piracy coders are good. Then again, maybe you think I wasted my time writing that Starlet emulator to thoroughly check IOS behavior and the correctness of our code. Just keep in mind that I found Nintendo's bootloader update code bug and we implemented our own. So far ours has bricked nobody (even though a few bugs have cropped up - the checks and paranoia have prevented it from screwing over any user), while Nintendo bricked a whole bunch of Wiis (hacked or not) the first time they used that bootloader update, later on.

If you had followed the console hacking scene at all from the bad old days, you'd see how silly your argument is.

My argument, as the table in my very first post in this discussion shows, applies to post-PS2 consoles. I know things were different in the NES days. The piracy and homebrew sce

Re:Par for the course?

[marcansoft]

WTF, is slashdot posting my comments as AC for some reason? It happened earlier too :/

Re:Par for the course?

[NitroWolf]

Not the PS3. Funny enough, every console since the PS2 has been hacked for homebrew first, then for piracy. Are you saying this is an irrelevant coincidence?

As a point of fact in this context, yes that is what I am saying. Again, I ask, why re-invent the wheel? If the tools and know how are already there, it seems kind of illogical to throw that all away and start from scratch.

I feel that you may be mixing up facts here and your statements seem to be leaning towards a belief that only one side can have good and bad hackers. Just because there are good hackers in Homebrew does not mean there are no good hackers in Pro-pirate. Just because there are poor pro-pirate hackers does not mean homebrew has no poor hackers.

My assertion that the Wii pro-pirate hackers suck at it is demonstrably true. As I said, just go look at their actions, code, and consequences of their actions. I can only extrapolate from available information.

Well... by this logic then we can say Homebrew hackers suck at it as well, since I can produce for you lots of actions, code and consequences of poorly programmed homebrew as well.

Given that every console since the PS2 has been hacked for homebrew first and then for piracy, and that I have clearly ascertained that the Wii pirates are idiots, my conclusion is that piracy advocates tend to not be nearly as good at hacking as homebrew advocates.

"Not as good as X" and "Everyone Y Sucks!" are two entirely different positions. As a group, I would say your statement above is true, but that is very different from saying all pro-piracy advocates are crappy hackers.

I'm talking about operation. Things like not checking return values, not performing sanity checks on input, blindly overwriting system software in an unsafe sequence, not using APIs correctly, trusting network data without checks (and I'm not talking about potential network attacks, I'm talking about stuff like assuming a download completes successfully and attempting to install downloaded system software without checking that fact), ignoring whether your patches were applied correctly, etc. are all par for the course on the Wii piracy scene, and are the reason why hundreds of people have had their Wiis bricked by the popular piracy tools, as opposed to zero bricked by the popular homebrew tools. Piracy tools also have an unhealthy dose of typical code bugs (memory leaks, buffer overflows, etc.), especially for the ones that are used to modify system software and therefore should be thoroughly tested.

Ah, now we have a legitimate talking point. By this particular definition, your argument carries more weight. However, I would counter with the fact that piracy is, generally by it's very definition, a dangerous "occupation." I would not expect the piracy aspect of consoles to be as safe, sane or elegant as other forms of programming. Piracy, like it's sea going legacy, is a dirty business... expecting it to be clean or judging piracy against the standards of the Navy is a bit like comparing apples to oranges.

Maybe we just disagree on what is due diligence for a programmer, especially when hacking an embedded platform like the Wii with a huge potential for permanent brickage (the Wii has no recovery mode, you know).

Again, I ask you why should the pro-piracy advocates care? The very nature would seem to suggest that caring whether or not it bricks some idiots console is somewhat redundant in this case.

You make homebrew software because you want to make homebrew software - so the act of making it is a labor of love in and of itself. A pirate wants to pirate games - how that happens is secondary. The primary goal is a free game, if you can use a crow bar to get that game, why use a gold plated screw driver?

You fall into the trap a lot of programmers fall into (and I've done it myself) - you want to make a Cadillac when a Kia will do.

Hacking consoles is harder and piracy has been severely commoditized. The same people aren't doing the same things any more.

I agree with you here and it disappoints me greatly as well.

Re:Par for the course?

[marcansoft]

If the tools and know how are already there, it seems kind of illogical to throw that all away and start from scratch.

By that token, if homebrew hackers and piracy hackers were about on the same level, we should see about half of all consoles get hacked for piracy and then homebrew, and half get hacked for homebrew and then piracy. In fact, what we have seen is the latter in every case since the PS2, except for the only console where homebrew already existed in some officially supported form.

Well... by this logic then we can say Homebrew hackers suck at it as well, since I can produce for you lots of actions, code and consequences of poorly programmed homebrew as well.

There's a distinction between the people providing the hacks (code execution entry points for homebrew, game loading patches / modules for piracy, as well as the low-level hardware reverse engineering and frameworks) and the people using them (people who write homebrew apps, or people who write / modify game loaders that rely on those patches). Arguably the former need to be more skilled hackers than the latter, as you need knowledge of the system architecture, not just knowledge of an API and generic programming. Of course there's a lot of crap built on top of homebrew libs and piracy tools alike. What I'm saying is that the people responsible for homebrew, in my experience with the Wii, write much better code than the people responsible for piracy. In fact, I'm willing to say that the "core" people responsible for piracy are worse coders than many homebrew application coders. For example, there are some homebrew tools that perform some benign system modifications, and these have (some) proper safety checks, while the tools written by the piracy guys don't.

This reminds me of another benchmark: the contribution to homebrew libs (used for regular homebrew and piracy tools alike) by the guy responsible for most of the piracy tools amounts to precisely one trivial patch which added support for reading a few extra system settings (that I hadn't bothered to implement back when I wrote the original system setting code). Take that however you want, I'm just putting it out as an example of just how insignificantly little piracy has contributed to homebrew.

"Not as good as X" and "Everyone Y Sucks!" are two entirely different positions. As a group, I would say your statement above is true, but that is very different from saying all pro-piracy advocates are crappy hackers.

I never said that all pro-piracy console hackers are idiots. I'm saying that the vast majority of pro-piracy Wii hackers are idiots (which I know because I spent two years working with the Wii), and that is is my impression that, in general, pro-piracy hackers tend not to be as good as pro-homebrew hackers and, therefore, tend to rely and depend upon the latter to kickstart piracy on a console. This is a conclusion that I draw from the available data (Wii plus the general statistic as seen in the table above), as well as comments by other console hackers. I only make a strong statement that Wii piracy hackers suck, not that all piracy console hackers suck.

However, I would counter with the fact that piracy is, generally by it's very definition, a dangerous "occupation." I would not expect the piracy aspect of consoles to be as safe, sane or elegant as other forms of programming. Piracy, like it's sea going legacy, is a dirty business... expecting it to be clean or judging piracy against the standards of the Navy is a bit like comparing apples to oranges.

That's one way to see it. The way I see it is that piracy isn't inherently dangerous, or at least not any more so than homebrew. Instead, the danger is caused by the generally low quality of piracy tools, as a consequence of the lesser skill of the people producing them. Homebrew entry points and exploits aren't exactly the cleanest code ever, bu

Re:Par for the course?

[Rockoon]

You are in error again. It comes out to a lot more than 18%, considering that its already at 35.5% in adoptions. Your annual figure is pulled right out of your ass.

Just like every other FW update they do

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, every single system update brings out dozens of "complaints" how it bricked their system. You'll note the very low number of posts against each of these user in the forums too, creating their account to troll or complain is the question? You get the same thing when major games are released. Trolls or genuine reports has never been determined because no one ever follows up the complaints with real people to determine validity, but nevertheless, people write these problems "stories".

Re:Just like every other FW update they do

[X0563511]

I would wager that the false positive reports balance with the false negatives. (ie, your trolls vs the unreported angry people)

Re:Just like every other FW update they do

[gsslay]

So if I write stuff here about you that's untrue, on balance it becomes true because of stuff that other unspecified people haven't written here????

Rrrright...

Re:Just like every other FW update they do

[X0563511]

Er, no. but the vast majority of people who have problems just deal with it. Most don't go whining on the forum.

This balances out with the small percentage of people who go and lie about it.

Re:Just like every other FW update they do

[Anonymous Coward]

There's being skeptical, and then there's being in denial. Guess which one describes you.

Re:Just like every other FW update they do

[RogueyWon]

There's a degree of truth of this. I've noticed that if I research any purchase online, I always have to employ a mental "negativity filter" to reflect the fact that by and large, it's unhappy people who post on these forums. My "fat" PS3 has been updated (reluctantly) for several days and has had no problems (touch wood) - unless you count the loss of functionality that I had never used, but had liked knowing was there.

However, firmware updates do genuinely seem to have a habit of causing problems with the current console generation. I've had a 360 and a Wii both brick on me after firmware updates (the 360 booted up once, then RRODed within 60 seconds, the Wii just refused to give anything other than a blank screen) and looking around my immediate circle of friends (excluding myself), we've had a PS3, a PSP, a 360 and two Wiis brick immediately after firmware updates. There was a further 360 that RRODed without a firmware update.

There does seem to be a serious problem with the current console generation (and I do mean all three machines here). The failure rates are way above what I'd consider acceptable. I live in mortal terror of my PS3 dying, as it's an imported US original 60 gig model, so if it dies, I don't just need to get a new PS3, but also to import a new PS2 (or check out how good the emulation scene is these days, I guess). By contrast, there's an old Commodore 64 in my parents' attic which still more or less worked when I fired it up the Christmas before last (though the 2 missing keys on the keyboard make it difficult to use, and the tape drive was erratic at best) and a 286 which still works if you give it a smack on the side at boot-up to get the HDD spinning.

Re:Just like every other FW update they do

[EvilBudMan]

I saw a bricked PSP that wasn't hacked or anything. Sony just fubared a bunch for the hell of it.

Re:Just like every other FW update they do

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you fail to realise that people who are happy with a product usually don't care enough to join a community simply to let everyone know just how happy they are. I was not a member of Steam's forums either until I had my first problem, Neither was I a member of the Nikonian forums till my camera started mis-behaving.

Joining a manufacturer's forum to vent frustration is not Trolling. It's complaining, and it works in real life too.

When was the last time you walked into the Sony store just to shake the hand of the person who sold you the PS3 and congradulate them on a job well done? What would you do if it suddenly broke?

Re:Just like every other FW update they do

[gsslay]

But if all the evidence you have are the lies, then where's the proof that the problems, or the "vast majority", even exist?

Allow me to declare that you are the single and sole cause of global warming. That is a lie. But if I'm the small percentage lying about it, that means there's balancing vast majority of people just dealing with it. They don't come here to whine about it.

Re:Just like every other FW update they do

[X0563511]

Your second statement makes perfect sense to me. The 'proof' you ask about before that is not required (to me. perhaps it's just my way of looking at things)

Doorstop?

[bytethese]

Clearly the article said it turned it into an expensive brick!

Re:Doorstop?

[Anonymous Coward]

In college I used to have a brick as a doorstop. We would use household objects for anything! When combined, the value of the objects become greater than the sum it's parts (such as a funnel and rubber hose).

Re:Doorstop?

[Rob the Bold]

Clearly the article said it turned it into an expensive brick!

But a brick that can still contribute to your electric bill.

Re:Doorstop?

[sirlatrom]

The brick can easily be turned into two doorstops by slicing it diagonally. Easy!

Re:Doorstop?

[sharkey]

Cool! Dual-wield bricks! Now the Jehovah's Witness strategy of visiting my house in pairs has met its match, muahaha!!!

Re:Doorstop?

[Anonymous Coward]

if you knit a sock around the brick, it becomes a bit less harmful for your toes. I speak from experience.

Re:Doorstop?

[DiEx-15]

Yes! Just what I always wanted! A $599 USD door stop! I hear Lex Luthor now!

This always happens

[Anonymous Coward]

Over the life of my PS3, updates have commonly caused severe issues. I've had to reformat the hard drive several times and I even had to send it in to be "repaired" after updating. Sony really needs to work on not breaking their own system.

Re:This always happens

[elrous0]

The problem is that Sony cares way more about locking down and commoditizing their media content with DRM and "security meseasures" than they do about their customers (one of the inherent problems of having a hardware maker who is also a media producer). They're not alone on that (MS and Nintendo are hardly open themselves), but they do seem much more obsessed about it than just about anyone else--short of maybe Apple.

The problem is that Sony doesn't seem to be thinking much about the fact that their media is only worth something in the first place BECAUSE of their customers. And, if they're not careful, they could very easily lose their balance and fall. After all, the perfect way to produce a piracy-proof blu-ray of a movie or videogame is to simply release it as a blank disc. But no one is going to buy it then, are they?

Re:This always happens

[Pharmboy]

In this respect, even Microsoft does a better job. They have to update a more sophisticated operating system that runs on a HUGE variety of systems and processors. Sony knows 100% the exact software and hardware they are updating on, and 100% of the software that will run on the console, yet they can't manage an update without borking somebody's box. If they worried more about quality than piracy or someone running linux on their hardware, they might actually be able to produce a decent product some day.

Re:This always happens

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder why in the good old lawsuit happy usa nobody has yet brought up a case against sony for removing an advertised feature after the purchase.

Re:This always happens

[Logical Zebra]

Over the life of my PS3, updates have commonly caused severe issues. I've had to reformat the hard drive several times and I even had to send it in to be "repaired" after updating. Sony really needs to work on not breaking their own system.

I have owned a PS3 for years and have never once had a problem with their updates.

Out of curiosity, are you doing anything "weird" with your PS3, such as running other OSs or anything?

Re:This always happens

[Theoboley]

It's in the works.

Re:This always happens

[NeutronCowboy]

I'm still on my original Xbox360 (bought about 6 months after it came out). Does that mean that every other user with a dead Xbox is doing something weird or not covered by the TOS?

Hint: an anecdote is not data.

Re:This always happens

[cptnapalm]

I too have not had any problems, but I question whether using advertised functionality can, in any way, be classified as weird.

Re:This always happens

[Idiomatick]

Didn't MS recently brick a ton of XP machines?

Re:This always happens

[Leafheart]

Out of curiosity, are you doing anything "weird" with your PS3, such as running other OSs or anything?

I wouldn't call weird something that was part of the spec and a possibility. Bricking a console for doing what you allowed to do, is beyond ridiculous. Those who has one and got shafted, need to enter with a class action suit against Sony to fight this silliness.

Re:This always happens

[JavaBear]

Give it a few more days.

Sony released this the day before good Friday, so even if it's been almost a full week, we've had very few work days since.
Even lawyers need time, with the exception of Ambulance chasers of course, who seem to be able to file suits with almost preternatural speed.

Re:This always happens

[vegiVamp]

OtherOS isn't "weird", it was a vendor-provided feature. That being said, my own fat PS3 hasn't bricked from the update. Wasn't running OtherOS, though.

Re:This always happens

[Vanderhoth]

I use Ubuntu on my PS3 for development and testing and have never had any problems with updates. Until this one, but the problem I'm having is that I don't want to / not going to do the update.

Re:This always happens

[Skuld-Chan]

I had that update where you couldn't use your controllers without hooking the cable up. Considering I use the thing about 4 times a year I found that rather amusing.

I found the answer on their forums (using an error I discovered when trying to pair the bluetooth remote) and discovered they released a hotfix and to get it you just needed to update.

Doing a google search - there are a lot of people who have had a lot of hassle with firmware updates on the PS3. The wireless controller thing I thought was pretty amusing - it really showed a complete lack of quality assurance (you'd think that being able to control the thing was in the engineering "smoke test" list or something). So to me its not entirely unbelievable that firmware has broken certain model ps3's, or that other users have had similar experiences with past updates.

Re:This always happens

[Anonymous Coward]

No,
Brent Spiner is Data.

Re:This always happens

[Inconexo]

My bet is that the PS3 license agreements allows them to do this sort of wrongdoings. I have not one, so I can't say, but I think Sony won't do anything that can put them in a bad legal position against millions of customers.

Re:This always happens

[EvilBudMan]

Yeah, they want you to reformat that hard drive every once in a while so you can't sell your games and then still play them from your hard drive. That doesn't take much to do with a PS3.

Re:This always happens

[Pharmboy]

I was referring to MS Windows, but if they did, that would make sense: software engineers can only create updates that work properly if they are sure everyone has a completely different machine....

Re:This always happens

[apoc.famine]

The issue is that they once advertised that you could do "weird" things with your PS3, like "running other OSs". it was a SELLING POINT!!!

To not test an update against or to intentionally break something that you advertised to get sales is the issue. The updates should work as flawlessly for them as they do for you. Anything else is fraud.

Re:This always happens

[fredc97]

Over the life of both PS3 (original and slim), updates have never caused any issue. So far the only reformating I ever did was when I have upgraded the HDD, yearly for the launch model and once for the slim, they did not break, I just wanted more space. Sony really need to reconsider removing the Other OS feature because otherwise firmware updates over the last 3+ years just built new features.

Re:This always happens

[Anonymous Coward]

He could have actually tryed to play a game on it. Bizarre, I know.

Re:This always happens

[Anonymous Coward]

Release a blank disc? Are you mad?

I can pirate your release by simply buying a spindle of blank DVDs from BestBuy! No computer required.

Re:This always happens

[GasparGMSwordsman]

I'm still on my original Xbox360 (bought about 6 months after it came out).

I am not sure if I want to be happy for you, or mad at you. =P

I had a launch 360 that RRoD'd 5 times before the warranty went out (I had to pay for shipping twice too). I recently had to replace it with a second 360.

Either way, I wish you great success in having no issues!

Re:This always happens

[BikeHelmet]

Yes. They also messed up some Win7 machines. Bad updates broke stuff like DNS and Windows Update. Not being able to resolve hostnames is pretty bad.

But usually System Restore fixes it, and then you just reapply the updates. (now corrected on their second release)

Does the PS3 have a System Restore or rollback feature? I'm not aware of one...

Re:This always happens

[TheQuantumShift]

And I've never had any issues with any of the updates, only restored the drive because I wanted to start fresh (used system) my original 60GB survived a goddamn fire (and still works), and my new slim is utterly silent.

So really, as with all hardware that's not defective by design (intentional or not), your mileage may (and probably will) vary.

Re:This always happens

[fredc97]

Actually in the first year updates always required that you connect a controller with a cable in order to perform a firmware upgrade. My guess is that all the radios and networking were disabled with the firmware update boot loader, after all have you tried ever performing a windows, Linux or even OSX installation from scratch with a bluetooth keyboard? My guess is that it just won't work with a reduced OS.

Re:This always happens

[StikyPad]

Man, I *wish* I had it that good. The last 360 update not wiped my save games, it also stole my dog and gave me syphilis.

Re:This always happens

[DarwinSurvivor]

What, and stop getting paid $125+ to reflash a firmware chip each time? The bluray drive in my PS3 stopped working a while back and I'm REALLY dreading paying $150 (I want another fat, not a slim due to lack of "Other OS") to replace a drive that should cost $50.

The real problem is that console manufacturers are MAKING money each time a system "dies", even if "death" is nothing but a 5-minute reflash away from living!

Re:This always happens

[exomondo]

I'm still on my original Xbox360 (bought about 6 months after it came out). Does that mean that every other user with a dead Xbox is doing something weird or not covered by the TOS?

Hint: an anecdote is not data.

Im still on my first as well, and my PS3 has been repaired - at my expense - for YLOD and Bluray drive because of the shitty warranty, i wish my 360 had've gone instead, at least the 3 year warranty would've covered it.

That said my mate's xbox has RROD'd once and my other mate's PS3 has had the Bluray drive go so YMMV.

Re:This always happens

[Anonymous Coward]

How would using a(n at the time) supported feature be "weird"?

Re:This always happens

[jseale]

Kinda makes you wonder why their phones, cameras and other portable devices work so damn well. I've had a Webbie camcorder for a year and a half and have never had a problem with it. A friend of mine has a Sony-Ericsson phone and never complains about it. If Sony wants to pride themselves on gadgets like this, more power to 'em.

Re:This always happens

[Skuld-Chan]

This was a case of - it wouldn't pair the devices at all - or any other bluetooth devices. It gave a specific error when doing so.

Subsequent updates haven't broken my controllers - so I think it was a genuine bug.

Re:This always happens

[Anonymous Coward]

This shit happens to my ipod as well. I stopped upgrading about 6 months ago, since I kept losing functionality every update (about 4 in total).

It is their terrible update strategy that will prevent me from buying an apple product. Same for microsoft, after every single update screws with my XP installations (and my family member's).

Updating has become a fools move nowadays.

Shiny Doorstop

[CoolSilver]

I bet the shine will fade faster being a doorstop being kicked around than sitting on the shelf sucking up dust.

I hereby call the doorstop feature, the Sony Effect.

interesting...

[X0563511]

Sony shoots one foot while trying to shoot the other...

I don't really have much to add that doesn't get beaten-to-death any other time Sony is brought up.

Re:interesting...

[Vectormatic]

more like sony randomly blows their brain out while trying to shoot their own foot...

anyway, i agree with your second line, so i'll shut up now

Re:interesting...

[Xtravar]

There are tons of people who won't update now, and who consequentially won't buy stuff off PSN.

Seriously, how fucking stupid can Sony be?

Now I have a 360 and two PS3s that aren't going to get updated anytime soon... and consequentially won't be buying content on their networks. GOOD JOB, GUYS!!!

Time to build a gaming PC.

Re:interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony shoots one foot while trying to shoot the other...

At least they turned it into an art form ... at which they excel.

Re:interesting...

[Dogtanian]

Look, I hate to break this to you but people like you (i.e. typical Slashdotters) are a *much* smaller and less important proportion of the user base than you'd like to think.

The vast majority will probably upgrade sooner or later because there's some neat feature or new game they want that requires that. Even Slashdotters (not necessarily you, but in general) will often bleat about stuff like this endlessly, but when push comes to shove, they'll hand over their money- and principles- for whatever it is they're into.

So forced to choose between losing the business of a small number of genuinely principled geeks, or fixing a hole in their ability to make money off the mainstream masses, they'll go with the latter. That's why the PSP is an annoyingly locked down piece of hardware that I'm not interested in, despite the fact that it would be pretty spiffy- and I'd possibly have bought one- if it wasn't so closed. I'm under no illusions as to Sony's reasoning.

Haven't Installed it

[j33px0r]

I use the PS3 to play games so I typically don't mess with the online stuff or updates until I'm really bored of a game. Laziness pays off this time!

Re:Haven't Installed it

[somersault]

It's fine if you want to play games. And the update is required if you want to play online games.

Both my and my flatmate's PS3 went through the update with no problems. It only becomes a "very expensive doorstop" if you don't use it to play games, or watch DVDs and blu-rays, the article is a bit flamebaitish because we already knew this would happen, and the update has a page which specifically informs you about the removal of the Other OS feature and then confirms (I think twice) that you really want to go through with it.

Re:Haven't Installed it

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA

"Some users are reporting infinite loops where the installation routine never completes, others are complaining about the inability to use a variety of different controllers during the process."

this is not a case of 'it won't let me run linux any more' this is a case of 'it won't let me play games or watch DVDs and blu-rays'

Re:Haven't Installed it

[jimicus]

TFA didn't dwell on the "removes other OS" feature - that was already well known.

TFA explained that the update tended to stop the affected units from doing anything useful - eg. playing games, connecting to the Internet. Which I'm sure does have the side effect that installing an alternate OS will no longer work, but I don't think this is quite how most people interpreted Sony's original description.

Re:Haven't Installed it

[AntiNazi]

I know this is /. but you didn't even read the summary. You won't be using it to do those things if you have the issue the article is discussing because the device will be malfunctioning. I doubt that "we already knew this would happen."

Re:Haven't Installed it

[Andy Dodd]

It appears that you only lose the ability to play games (Online ones) and Blu-Rays if you DON'T install the upgrade.

The article doesn't indicate that anyone has lost this functionality as a result of the upgrade.

Re:Haven't Installed it

[MikeBabcock]

I'm sorry but you do realize that by "online stuff" people mean "playing games", right?

For example, my copies of Warhawk, SOCOM and MAG all very much appreciate being online.

PS my PS3, an original fat 60GB model (now a 320GB model not that its relevant) went through the update fine.

Re:Haven't Installed it

[somersault]

TFA explained that the update tended to stop the affected units from doing anything useful - eg. playing games, connecting to the Internet. Which I'm sure does have the side effect that installing an alternate OS will no longer work, but I don't think this is quite how most people interpreted Sony's original description.

The article says that is the case for people who have not installed the update. That has been the case every time Sony releases an update (apart from a couple of non essential updates such as the one that updated the slideshow facility). It is not news.

The only real bit of news in there is that some people are experiencing infinite loops in the update process, which does suck.

Re:Haven't Installed it

[somersault]

Will be malfunctioning? My PS3 and my flatmate's are both working fine. No doubt there is a very vocal minority who are experiencing problems, but it is definitely not breaking PS3s across the board. Both of our PS3s are still working fine at full res via HDMI to our HDTVs and hi-fi system.

We already knew that installing the update would cause Other OS to not function.

We already knew that not installing the update would disable online capabilities, including certain games.

Re:Haven't Installed it

[somersault]

Actually the first paragraph does. It is very poorly worded:

The 3.21 firmware upgrade, which removes the security hole provided by the 'Install Other OS' widget used by lots of educational institutions and hackers alike, also removes the console's ability to play games or connect to the Interweb according to forum posts, turning it into a very expensive doorstop.

Emphasis mine. There is no also about it. The two outcomes are mutually exclusive depending on whether or not you install the update.

It is always the case that if you don't install a required system updated, that you can no longer use online features. I've got no idea why some users are saying that their PS3 suddenly "refuses to play or eject blu-ray discs" though. With the standard of reporting in the article I wouldn't be surprised if one person has had a hardware failure in his optical drive and then has reported that this is a result of not installing the update, which is complete BS.

Re:Haven't Installed it

[idontgno]

But the thing NO ONE expected (asides from the Spanish Inquisition) is that legitimate Fat PS3s would be rendered non-functional (stuck in upgrade infinite loops, for instance). "Bricking" in the parlance. (And yes, there is a trollish minority that insists it's not really "bricked" unless it's utterly unrecoverable. We're aware of your position. We just understand that you're wrong.)

Anyway, only the most pessimistic would believe in advance that Sony would be so careless with a firmware update that it would effectively punish a vocal minority of those who would actually choose to toe the company line.

I'm inclined to attribute this outcome to Sony's incompetence, rather than some malicious and evil genius, because punishing those who choose to obey your dictates ("Upgrade OR BE DAMNED!") is stupid by any measure.

Re:Haven't Installed it

[somersault]

Indeed, this is no different to the problems with any of the earlier updates, but people love their insane conspiracy theories. I wonder if those stuck in infinite loops have tried the "hold the power button down for 10 seconds on boot up" trick, which resets a few things like switching from HDMI output to the default video output.

Sounds like Sony could be more thorough with testing, but what with all the different versions of the "fat" PS3 that they've had, or say people losing power midway through the installation etc there are bound to be some issues. I actually thought my PS3 had frozen during the upgrade the first time and had to power it down and on again, because it wouldn't respond to my remote and the background animation wasn't moving. After cycling the power I realised the background was meant to be a still image, and things probably would have been fine if I'd just tried my normal controller the first time.

Re:Haven't Installed it

[lethalwp]

It's fine if you want to play games. And the update is required if you want to play online games.

the update is not required to play online games, there are several ways to bypass the firmware check, and it's quite easy to do actually (mainly changing the dns server for the ps3)

just google for it if you need it

Re:Haven't Installed it

[BobMcD]

I'm not clear on how you're picking on the word 'also' but seem to have overlooked 'Interweb'.

Seems 'tongue-in-cheek' to me. Maybe I'm missing something.

Re:Haven't Installed it

[Vectormatic]

Sounds like Sony could be more thorough with testing, but what with all the different versions of the "fat" PS3 that they've had

Keeping a dozen or so machines of each revision for testing should be standard procedure, if there is enough reason to make an update version, i'm sure having to keep a few in the test-lab wont tip the balance back in favor of not making a new version.

Re:Haven't Installed it

[Anonymous Coward]

The famous anonymous coward here. I specifically bought a original fat PS3 so that I could play PS2 games and SD card reader, and Wireless, and Other OS. I (unfortunately) had to update to 3.21 because I wanted to play games, and besides losing YDL (can be considered good or bad) I have had no problems with the update. It sucks, yes, but the update was successful. I have had problems with my PS3 since it is so old(Refurb guy didnt put enough thermal paste on CPU so it freezes and Linux being an unholy slow sonofabitch to name a few) but I was happy with it. Losing Linux in theory sucks dick, but in practice I won't miss it terribly. I hate to defend a company in any case, but this isn't Sony's fault that people fucked up their updates. This is a flamebait article, no doubt about it. Its alarmist, and trying to rally people against Sony. I'd like a concrete example of people doing standard updating and out of the blue the fucker bricks, not this vague "on some forums..." bullshit. Cause that's what this article is, IMHO.

Re:Haven't Installed it

[somersault]

Interweb is just a common colloquialism for the internet, it doesn't excuse any logical fallacies in the sentence. I quite often communicate perfectly legitimate sentiments to my friends using lolcat style language.

Re:Haven't Installed it

[BobMcD]

I disagree. It clearly implies a willful ignorance of the topic.

Re:Haven't Installed it

[somersault]

That's pretty cool, but too late D: I'm one of the people that isn't affected by the update though. I love teh lunix, but I already have Ubuntu on my netbook and prefer to keep my PS3 for gaming and multimedia consumption.

Re:Haven't Installed it

[somersault]

There's some definite ignorance there for sure. Such as calling the Other OS option a "widget", it definitely doesn't fall anywhere near that category. The whole thing just seems to be a couple of steps above your average youtube comment when it comes to journalistic research. I expect it was written by someone who calls that thing under their desk a "hard drive".

Re:Haven't Installed it

[EvilBudMan]

It can also become a problem if there is a power failure or something like being cut off by your ISP while the said update is taking place which basically flashes the bios. Now do you see the issues?

Re:Haven't Installed it

[EvilBudMan]

--The only real bit of news in there is that some people are experiencing infinite loops in the update process, which does suck.--

Yeah, they don't have to mess with the bios every time but I bet they do. I would recommend having a PS3 on battery backup becuase if anything goes wrong during the update you are screwed and you are right, this goes back a long way with Sony. A PSP locked completely after one such update for no apparent reason. It had to be sent back to Sony with about a six month wait and then I think they finally got a new one.

They shouldn't futz with the bios so much during these updates to go after hackers because they are going to get some unhappy customers in the process.

Re:Haven't Installed it

[somersault]

Oh I accept the doorstop issue if it actually means the device isn't useful for anything. It's the way the article seemed to claim that the device would become a doorstop even if you do nothing that was pissing me off. It's always been the case that you can't get onto PSN if you don't install the latest updates. There's too much sensationalism going on.

Re:Haven't Installed it

[EvilBudMan]

No really there is not. Why so many updates? They will not stop real pirates but just piss off the hobbyists (early adopters).

It does work most of time but flashing the bios every time you go online kinda scares me away from something that would otherwise be very interesting. I guess I could stay off the net with it and play games like that but that's crap.

Re:Haven't Installed it

[somersault]

I don't think all of the updates are just for security issues, they also do stuff like add in completely new features, ie PS3 Home, and they also can add extra functionality to existing features - ie some recent-ish ones were adding movie rental into the PS3 Store, extra slideshow functionality to the picture viewer in the XMB, then you'll have stuff like blu-ray spec updates from time to time etc. It would be possible to store the updates on the HDD instead but they seem to want the updates to be non-reversible hence flashing the BIOS or whatever the equivalent is on the PS3..

Re:Haven't Installed it

[EvilBudMan]

It seems as if this BIOS thing may only be a PSP issue and that the real failure rate is indeed low for the PS3 because I have heard that they are NOT messing with this like they did with the PSP to prevent issues of anyone completely bricking their machine.

Maybe that's to harsh of a term.

Not Bricked But....

[p1r4t3]

Ever since the update I've had issues with games freezing up on me. I haven't noticed any real slow down of the net connection or any issues with PSN. But if this is a ploy by Sony to get me to give up my thick PS3 that has the ability to play PS2 games then they better add that functionality to the slim PS3 because I'm not about to go out and buy 2 consoles just to have the same functionality as the one I have now.

Re:Not Bricked But....

[commodore64_love]

This is why I kept my PS2. It has 99.9% compatibility with my older PS1 collection (since it's basically a PS1 inside a PS2).

The PS3's compatibility is nowhere near that high. And companies wonder why we turn to emulation..... the emulators work better than the actual paid-for product.

Re:Not Bricked But....

[SimonTheSoundMan]

My PS3 has been broken since the update. I cannot connect to PSN, Playstation Home, play online or watch a bluray. When I try to connect I get error "Z(7,-100)". I have told by some people that it is broken server side if I get that error, Sony support are clueless.

Re:Not Bricked But....

[Fallingcow]

Speaking of Playstations and emulators, why the hell isn't there a software PS2 emulator on all PS3s yet?

There's clearly not a valid technical reason. I know Sony has said they're having trouble emulating one specific bit of the machine, but there are at least two or three noncommercial (so, people donating spare time and with no access to inside info on the machine) PS2 emulators that seem to manage OK. There's no way Sony can't do it, with better access and resources. With access to the bare metal on the PS3, there shouldn't be any problems with insufficient horsepower. The PS3's no slouch in the processing department.

There's also not a business reason, as far as I can tell. I find it hard to believe they're making much money selling PS2s--hell, you could probably buy 100 or more of them here in one day without traveling more than 15 miles and without buying a single one new. About half would be slims, too. The used market is saturated with them. Decent software PS2 emulation on the PS3 would give holdouts a big reason to buy the new console, and it would let Sony start selling PS2 games over the network, which is practically free money for them.

WTF, Sony?

Re:Not Bricked But....

[interkin3tic]

I was under the impression that the PS2 compatibility on the fat PS3 was hardware, not software emulation. I'm basing that entirely on a gamestop employee telling me several years ago that the reason the 360 didn't support all XBOX games was that it was software emulation, wheras the PS3 basically had a PS2 stuck inside of it.

I suspect that the reason they don't put a software emulation out for all PS3s is that they don't want to spend the money to, or can't make it perfect. All else being equal, a lot of people would obviously choose a PS3 that could emulate -some- PS2 games rather than one that couldn't, but the console demographic being what it is, if it could play 85% of the PS2 games out there, the players who wanted games from that 15% would make a lot of noise about it. Another potential reason is of course selling ports of PS2 games.

Obviously, who knows the real reasons outside of sony, but my money would be on one or both of those reasons.

Re:Not Bricked But....

[Fallingcow]

The first gen fats have an entire PS2 in them, essentially.

The second gen with backward compatibility had only one component from the PS2 (the one they say they can't emulate in software for whatever reason) and did the rest in software. Later fats (IIRC) and slims don't have any. So, they already have a software emulator for everything but that bit. I want to know why a bunch of volunteers can overcome that hurdle without access to design specs and such, but Sony can't, even though they'll make a mountain of money if they do.

Re:Not Bricked But....

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a valid technical reason for no software PS2 emulation: the CERR PLOCESSOL isn't that powerful when it comes to real-world general workloads. In fact the PS3 architecture is laughably unsuitable for games development.

More trouble than its worth...

[mendred]

This is a "feature" that really wasn't neccessary..but requires effort to be coded in to be tested, because if that isn't done, things can horribly go wrong..all that to maintain a status quo and remove a feature.

But now something got borked..extra effort will have to go in to correct the problem..all for a "feature" which didn't really benefit anyone...other than a potential lock-in benefit that only marketing can conceive which had its share of bad PR as well.

Sigh...welcome to the real world..it sucks..

Re:More trouble than its worth...

[RCGodward]

What, playing games? It only does everything... that Sony wants it to...

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why you should never buy Sony, even MSFT is starting to look not so evil compared to them.

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder why they suddenly felt such a rush to "plug" this "hole".... did some new hack allowing pirated games to be played recently come out which utilized the "install other OS" function?

Yes, a few months ago. Its not phrased as such though. You'll have to find it yourself, I'm not going to point it out for the "l33t k1dd31s" to whine about not working.

not a stationary though, but

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_(console)

Re:not a stationary though, but

[PalmKiller]

He wasn't talking about the vapor-hardware gaming consoles called Pandora, I think he meant one you can actually use. Hey maybe Pandora will release with a copy of Duke Nukem Forever.

frist post?

[Anonymous Coward]

frist? Doubt it.

Well...

[Tsian]

At least if you keep in plugged in it can be a doorstop *and* space-heater.

Still, it will be interesting to see how Sony's handling of this will progress... it seems like an amazingly big hole to miss in QA testing.

I wonder why they suddenly felt such a rush to "plug" this "hole".... did some new hack allowing pirated games to be played recently come out which utilized the "install other OS" function?

Although I must say I can't see this as being done on purpose -- no matter how much Sony might like to see the "fat" PS3s be cycled out of use.

Definition of 'Brick'?

[derrickh]

The article doesnt describe bricking. It barely describes real problems. It describes (rather vaguely) sluggish internet and third party controllers not working. And it never actually shows or links to actual complaints. The only real information in the article is that people who dont install the update can't connect to PSN, which is standard for these updates.

D

Re:Definition of 'Brick'?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've only seen one report on the playstation blog of this update YLODing a console, which I can believe is coincidence (or possibly even user error).
The other report of trouble I saw was some game hanging every 10-20 minutes, which isn't a bricked machine.

That said, believing I'd just give up a feature I paid for and use because of management paranoia is preposterous. Sony threw this update out from fear, which is merely self-fulfilling, and it is an insult to every customer - even though some vehemently defend it, pointing fingers elsewhere. That the requirement of updating to access PSN is purely artificial is just adding injury to insult, and can (for the moment) be worked around with a proxy.

Re:Definition of 'Brick'?

[Mad Leper]

Without fail, every time there is a PS3 firmware update the forums light up with post about "bricked my PS3" or "Yellow light of death" or "Can't play games WTF?"

And it's the same people over and over again, making the same claims they did the last update and the ones before. I'm certain there is a rabid anti-PS3 community out there that's in a state of perpetual pissed off about the existence of the PS3 and their inability to crack& pirate PS3 games. They make outrageous claims about massive number of bricked consoles and an epidemic of the YLD, but it's all FUD and trolling.

The fact that this even became a Slashdot article is just sad, but deliberate trolling does generate page hits...

Re:Definition of 'Brick'?

[noidentity]

I think I've figured out the new definition:

brick (v. tr.) - Some action which reduces the functionality of a product in some undesired way, but which the person reporting wants to exaggerate as making the device no more useful than a brick.

Re:Definition of 'Brick'?

[chuckhriczko]

No, this article is not fully accurate. Well, the title isn't at least. Some consoles have been bricked as they won't turn on but who knows if they had a modchip or otherwise illegal modification to them. Most systems are not bricked but do have the above issues. All I know is I won't update mine until Geohot comes up with some type of workaround. Here's to hoping Geohot or someone else becomes the PS3 version of the great DarkAlex.

Re:Definition of 'Brick'?

[BobMcD]

That's actually pretty close...

brick (v. tr.) - A willful reduction of a product's features significant enough to make the product's user describe the device no more useful than a brick.

Whether or not this actually fits the definition of the word is another issue, but with this definition it likely does by both points of view.

Re:Definition of 'Brick'?

[plague3106]

Seems to be what its morphed into. I always thought it literally made the device 100% useless.. as in a phone that never gets past the boot screen or something, rendering simply an expensive piece of plastic.

Re:Definition of 'Brick'?

[Anonymous Coward]

Although you can still connect to PSN using a proxy tool or creating your own DNS zone and webserver to publish the update file.

3.15 here, OtherOS intact (ydl6.2) and PSN connection (for now).

What a rubbish article, its no conspiracy that Sony dont want people playing on Fats with OtherOS. They spent time and money making a slim without OtherOS, discontinued the fat and made the 3.21 update mandatory.

Re:Definition of 'Brick'?

[tlhIngan]

No, this article is not fully accurate. Well, the title isn't at least. Some consoles have been bricked as they won't turn on but who knows if they had a modchip or otherwise illegal modification to them. Most systems are not bricked but do have the above issues. All I know is I won't update mine until Geohot comes up with some type of workaround. Here's to hoping Geohot or someone else becomes the PS3 version of the great DarkAlex.

Were there even modchips for the PS3? As far as I could tell, it wasn't possible to run pirated games on the PS3, and the homebrew community pretty much went with the Linux stuff prior to 3.21, leading to the PS3 being relatively unbroken and modchip free.

But yeah, Sony pretty much opened a can of worms with this one - once the custom firmware stuff starts, piracy's pretty much around the corner (especially since you'll probably load the games off hard disks, rather than needing to burn a blu-ray).

Even if all geohot did was make an update that restored OtherOS, it's going to just be a hop, skip and a jump to add ISO loader support. And when homebrewers and pirates end up working towards the same goal, it's going to happen. It's why the Wii is pretty much broken (homebrew channel + USB loader), Xbox360 is less so (you can only run copied games - the only unsigned code you can run is via XNA), and PS3 hasn't needed homebrew hacks.

Especially since the fix is "easy" - just remove 3.21 support, relase a 3.22 with OtherOS, thus stemming the search for custom firmware. A partially broken homebrew is still better (for Sony) than one that's fully broken by people who have the means (homebrewers and pirates have access to very expensive tools), motive (homebrewers love this) and will (let's restore removed functionality) to do so.

In the meantime, I might just pick up another PS3, and instead of giving it to my friend (who'll buy games - $$$ for Sony), I probably will keep it for games, and see what interneting things happen on my launch PS3 - which may suddenly get very desirable very quickly.

Re:Definition of 'Brick'?

[EvilBudMan]

"The article doesnt describe bricking."

Why do we have to do that here? I think most people understand what a brick does. You fry that soldered in bios chip through updating and you will come to know what it is.

Re:Definition of 'Brick'?

[sjames]

Some of the reports are more brick like than others.

Infinite looping is as good as bricked (really, the classic bricking is sometimes an infinite loop before video is up). Some is more like constructive bricking. That is, it's broke and the brokenness would make applying a further update difficult or impossible. Other cases are just damaged.

Re:Definition of 'Brick'?

[noidentity]

Yeah, it's like a hard drive crashing. Used to, that meant the heads crashing into the disk and literally destroying data. Now it just means that the OS wrote some crap and corrupted a directory or something requiring a reinstall. I guess its meaning got corrupted because actual crashes are so rare with modern hard drives.

Sony is a shell company

[For a Free Internet]

It's a front for the Iraqi-Italian axis and this "bricking" is part of their war on the Christian American Family. What we need is Communism, and ham.

Re:Sony is a shell company

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn right! Democratic Socialism is NOT the same as Marxist Socialism or National Socialism.

No issues here

[Anonymous Coward]

Had zero issues with the update. Everything works the same as before. I wasn't using my linux partition but I dislike it not being there anymore.

Re:No issues here

[Neon Spiral Injector]

Your Linux partition is still there, you just can't make use of the space reserved for it anymore. The only way to recover the space is to do a back up, format, and restore.

Re:No issues here

[Vanderhoth]

I've read in the Sony forums the backup utility will save your saved games, but you lose your trophies if they aren't synced with the PSN.

Am I the only one?

[courteaudotbiz]

Am I the only one who has not had a single issue with my fat PS3? No clock problem, no update / bricking problem, no connectivity problem.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact the I never played around with "install other OS", never opened the hood to replace the hard drive, never tried to jailbreak it...

Still, I think it's sad that Sony is trying to prevent power users to exploit the full potential of this otherwise marvelous piece of technology!

Re:Am I the only one?

[courteaudotbiz]

And yes, I updated to the latest FW update yesterday and I have not had a single problem. I own it since april 2007, so 3 years without a single glitch!

Re:Am I the only one?

[Anonymous Coward]

4 years with my Wii an only one problem, the disk drive failed. I just hacked it and had it use a HDD instead.

Re:Am I the only one?

[SethraLavode]

If you didn't have the clock problem, then you also weren't using your PS3 on March 1st because that happened regardless of what changes you might have made to the system. (Actually, it's possible you don't use PSN and were playing non-online games; you were still affected, you just didn't realize it.)

Re:Am I the only one?

[HopefulIntern]

Had mine since april 2008. Havent applied the update yet (I always wait a few weeks just in case there are issues like now).

I DID have the clock problem, but it was just that: the clock was wrong. I could still get on the PSN.

My console did have a weird problem once, that the HDMI port broke (I think my ebuyer's-own brand tv shocked it, cuz it was the same time the tv itself broke). I phoned up Sony and after 5 mins of basic Q&A they told me to bring the console to work the next day, and someone would show up and give me a new one. I was impressed at such great service; kudos to Sony.

Re:Am I the only one?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mine had to be restored once and it had the clock problem. I've not changed the hard drive, installed linux or did any other tweaking. I have the original 40gb model.

I haven't updated to the newest firmware.

Re:Am I the only one?

[marcansoft]

The clock problem didn't affect all fat PS3s. I have a later model (a year or so old) and it worked fine on March 1st. I made a point to try to connect to PSN to see whether the bug would be triggered or not.

Re:Am I the only one?

[Anonymous Coward]

I never played around with "install other OS", never opened the hood to replace the hard drive, never tried to jailbreak it...

Turn in your geek license on your way out the door.

Re:Am I the only one?

[courteaudotbiz]

Yes, my PS3 was powered on on March 1st. It was connected to the PSN also without a glitch. My PS3 is ALWAYS on. If I remember, I played RB2 on that day.

Re:Am I the only one?

[Anonymous Coward]

I had no problems until I bought FFXIII. Made it to Ch 3, and it decided to stop listening for controller input. Squeenix and Sony are variously denying the problem exists and blaming it on one another. :-/

Re:Am I the only one?

[courteaudotbiz]

It' not because I'm not trying to mess my expensive stuff up that I'm not a geek! Just like hackers have different "hat colors", there are different levels of geekness. I tend to be more geeky with my virtual machines of which I have a snapshot. Not with the physical stuff that I may break, having to buy another one.

Just like having sex: I always use a condom with other forms of contraceptions. Oh WAIT! Maybe you're too geeky to understand this kind of reference...

Re:Am I the only one?

[Anonymous Coward]

The harddrive does not require opening the hood. It's designed to be user replaceable and the manual clearly explains how to do it. Regarding the clock issue, you obviously didn't turn the machine on that day, it affected everyone of us fat PS3 owners because the bug was in the hardware, and there is no fix available. It will happen again. Sony merely waited out the storm. Jailbreak? Come on, there is no jailbreaking going on. Just one person glictching a bus with a small custom circuit to cause a trigger that allows them to access protected memory. That's it, there is not hack scene, there is no CFW, there is no piracy.

Re:Am I the only one?

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW I have a fat PS3 and did have another OS installed. The update has not appeared to do any unexpected damage although I took steps to ensure that my PS3 was formatted to its original state before installing the update.

Re:Am I the only one?

[overlordofmu]

Another Fat PS3 owner here. Updating went smoothly for me, also.

I did get the March 1st PSN bug, however on 3/2 at 12:01 am it was working again so the impact of the bug was no online gaming from 5 pm on 3/1 to 11:59 pm the same day.

Now all my friends have Xboxes. I would not buy one for two reasons. First, I vote with my purchasing power. Microsoft gets as little of my cash as possible while still making a living with computers. (Meaning, I bought Windows XP Pro for my home built PC.) The second reason I didn't buy it was because I wanted the best console and Sony had it. A Cell! A fucking Cell processor!!! Why would anyone buy anything else? It would be like having the option of rocket shoes and regular shoes and I was the only one that wanted the rockets. The mind boggles . . .

Now, those Xbox friends have had nothing but troubles. Media servers that the Xbox stopped seeing. Batteries dying in the middle of a game and no fresh batteries in the house (PS3 comes with rechargable wireless controllers as standard and you can use them wired as they charge with a standard USB cable.) And don't get me started on DVD drive failures and the RRoD. I also love when I hear, "I cannot play online because I haven't paid my Xbox Live bill." I am so glad I don't have the mess that is the 360.

But they think I am a fool for getting the console that "no one else has" and that has fewer games. But both of those issues come down to marketing and the timing of the respective console releases and nothing to do with the quality of the hardware. That is the saddest part of it for me. The best console lost because everyone wanted to be able to play together and MS launched their console first. Some of us already has the 360 so the others "joined". Fuckin' joiners, I hate joiners like Indian Jones hates Nazis.

Besides 7 hours of lost online gaming time, during which I played offline but on the PS3, it has always just worked.

Now, I love me some Linux. I really do. It is one shining example of the goodness of mankind. I have a dedicated hardware firewall, a laptop, a server and a desktop in my home. They all run Linux. Yet, when I upgrade the hard drive in the PS3 (which was done with a phillips screwdriver and no other tools in 5 minutes and didn't void my warranty) I set aside 20 gigs for "Other OS". And you know, I never did install Linux. I didn't need it. Everything else is running it already and the PS3 had other duties (HD movies and gaming).

I am a Linux fanboy and I could care less for the loss of "Other OS". Sony has twice supported homebrew in their consoles and deserve thanks for that. It is being removed to protect the PS3 ecosystem for the developers of content for the PS3. Nothing hard to understand about that. If only they weren't alone in their open-mindedness (hint hint, MS and Nintendo).

This update did not brick my PS3. This article is FUD as far as I can tell. I continue to thank Sony for their fine product. I continue to enjoy it (almost) daily.

Re:Am I the only one?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you not even read the summary?

Or did you just want to pipe in with your "Not my problem, I'm not a jew!"

Re:Am I the only one?

[morose421]

I've never had a single problem on my fat PS3 either. Mine has been rock solid the entire time I've owned it and it gets used at least 10-15 hours a week for either watching movies or playing games.

Re:Am I the only one?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had zero issues with mine as well. I have a 60gb version with the hardware ps2 support. I had a linux partition for awhile but I removed it since I wasn't using it. I dislike them removing the option, but to be honest it doesn't really affect me.

Re:Am I the only one?

[Plekto]

Maybe it has something to do with the fact the I never played around with "install other OS", never opened the hood to replace the hard drive, never tried to jailbreak it...

This. The number of people who have tweaked, altered, hacked, or done things to their machines and games on the PS3 as well as their home PCs is enormous. My guess is that they have installed TVersity or some other media streaming application onto their machine and/or altered the machine in some way and well, big surprise... it gets confused and "breaks". Mine is a first generation "Fat" model - the 20GB one that can even play PS1 games(I've given it a much larger HD but that's all).

No issues, no glitches, no problems. Of course, the ones with software emulation have more issues to begin with with PS2 games, and that's also likely a cause. There's a reason the hardware-based PS3s are so coveted. They work and I've never had a problem, either, running any game.(aside from PS2 games from Japan - I really wish they would remove the region check for PS2 games)

Oh - hacking the region check/verification also will break the PS3 once it connects online. But that's kind of "duh" obvious.

Re:Am I the only one?

[BigSes]

I've had my fat 60gig PS3 since release day, and have always done every Sony update. The console is used almost daily, if not for PS3 gaming (both on an offline), then for PS2/1 and Blu-Ray/DVD movies. Sometimes hours and hours on end. I have never had a problem with any of their updates...as of yet. As with the parent, I have never replaced the HD, tried to jailbreak the unit, never tried the "Install other OS" option.

Re:Am I the only one?

[TuaAmin13]

I believe you mean "can even play PS2 games."

Anyhow, I also have a 60GB fat PS3. Never had any issues besides an occasional hard lock. Had a few graphics glitches but that was only in one game. However, I've been playing through FFXIII and that thing freezes on me all the time. I was able to get around it by copying game saves to a USB drive then copying back. Seriously that was the fix. Now I've gotten to the point where it freezes when a camera pans after a cutscene, so I can't skip that section of code. I expected a fix in 3.21 (they always seem to put those hidden "Improves playback quality of certain Playstation software titles" in the firmware updates) so I updated to that. Oh, and I'm also on the third copy of my disk and all of my other games play fine. Thought it might have been heat related and replaced the thermal paste since I've been out of warranty for at least 2 years--no luck. Probably going to rent God of War or Heavy Rain after finals and see if I get any more problems, particularly with dual layer disks.

I really think that the number of people complaining about firmware updates bricking fall into these categories (largest to smallest): 1) Trolls, 2) people who updated the firmware and had the power flicker or flipped the switch or something else stupid and are now trying to blame Sony and 3) legitimately had problems.

Re:Am I the only one?

[Osmosis_Garett]

Then its only a matter of time. The fat PS3 was manufactured with second-rate solder, so eventually the heating and cooling of your hardware will cause the connections on the mainboard to fail, and you'll be presented with the 'Yellow Light of Death'. I fix these things as a hobby, and let me tell you, old, fat PS3s die often. It takes me about 2 hours to strip one, "reflow" the solder, cool it and put it together, and I've got a few that I've had to fix multiple times. Sony didn't make the same mistake with the slim, and I haven't seen a single slim PS3 fail.

Re:Am I the only one?

[Tregelen]

I never had any problems with my fat one until one day the laser dropped and it no longer read disks. I called for repairs but because it was at that point 4 years old I would have to pay for it to be fixed. I instead decided to trade it in and buy a new slim one. Only problem with that is that I couldn't take any of my saves with me as they were all locked from copying.

Re:Am I the only one?

[Anonymous Coward]

[# of fat PS3 consoles * (% of users using Other OS and PSN/100)] x $150 for replacement machine to replace loss of Other OS = amount Sony robbed from their customers in a firmware update or about 3-4 days

"Maybe it has something to do with the fact the I never played around with "install other OS", never opened the hood to replace the hard drive, never tried to jailbreak it..."

Rather anecdotal. Me, I feel it has to do with Sony being run by jackasses, whose primary goals are to rip off (baut and switch), inconvenience, and make fools of their customers, particularly early adopters. In any case, are you then also sort of implying that:

--Sony is deliberately causing problems for customers with fat PS3s who used "install other OS", which is/was a supported PS3 function? (I say is, because if you don't upgrade to 3.21, you are still using legit Sony firmware on Sony's hardware, which makes it a legal system still to run other OS.)

--Sony frowns upon users who upgraded their hard drives instead of buying a newer released PS3 with a larger hard drive?

--Any user who has had issues may have done the previous two things or tried to jailbreak their PS3, knowing of course, that NO ONE has ever actually jailbroken a PS3, even to this day?

btw, I had no interest whatsoever in hacking a PS3 up until 3.21. I do now. I'm *pissed* as hell at Sony for dropping other OS. I'm also pissed at myself in believing Sony changed after the root kit. Phrackin moron I am in picking up this piece of shit console. Twice. PS4 comes out, it'll be the ipad for Sony--they'll have lots of sales, sure, but everyone else looks at the buyers like stupid morons who just buy shit to look cool. I should have listened and just stuck with the Wii.

I'm also starting to believe the argument people pirate shit because they don't want to support the parent companies. I sort of saw it with music, but never bought into it; now I'm hoping the PS3 gets thoroughly reamed and turns into the PSP (which I don't own). Apparently, Sony thinks stealling from their customers with feature removal is justified, but not if their "customers" steal from with pirated games.

I have 2 fat PS3s--60gb and 80gb, and now they're crippled: I either have to lose access to PSN and online gaming, or lose other OS. If I lose other OS, I've got to drop cash on picking up a replacement machine, since Sony's browser is too temperamental with its featureset between updates.

The only thing I'm "glad" about is this happened now. To Sony--this stunt you pulled costs you elsewhere. Always does. HDTVs? You lost 2 sales. You also lost a Dash sale and an ereader and a laptop. Sony = jackasses. Shame on me for buying their crap. I got off of Apple and Sony years ago, I was just stupid to think that Sony had gone the right way.

Re:Am I the only one?

[Plekto]

There also are a large number of people that are running some sort of media server/etc on their PC to the PS3(TVersity and the like) IME, they just make things a whole lot worse come patch-time.

Yeah FF13 is known to have a lot of glitches. I always wait for the "best hits" version to come out of any game. By then, it's pretty well stable.(and $20 usually - heh)

Re:Am I the only one?

[Tromad]

My original 1st run xbox It 360 is still working. Maybe our consoles should mate. The offspring could use Wii consoles as gaming cartridges.

Still waiting for the Slim to get hacked...

[MoldySpore]

I waited until the slim came out to buy my PS3. I was a little dismayed that it came without the option to install Linux on it but it didn't stop me from buying it because I figured somebody would figure out how to get it back on there.

Well it's several months later and I still have yet to see anything. Lots of speculation but nothing on getting Linux back on the PS3. And now they are removing it from the fat version? I was going to pick one up so I could play with Linux on it (I have no real need for it since I have a dedicated media center tower PC sitting next to my HDTV) but I guess I can't now.

This seems to be a growing trend lately. Companies try to open up their hardware in some kind of limiting fashion, only to wind up removing that functionality later instead of trying to fix whatever security holes or anything else that is wrong with it. And if those fixes are bricking legit user's hardware, that is even worse. Why don't these companies FIX their issues instead of just REMOVING them?

Re:Still waiting for the Slim to get hacked...

[__aardcx5948]

Because it's cheaper. Companies only exist to make money, really.

Re:Still waiting for the Slim to get hacked...

[tokul]

Why don't these companies FIX their issues instead of just REMOVING them?

Maybe ability to run custom code on gaming console is security issue by itself.

Is this even legal?

[Dialecticus]

I wonder whether the intentional removal of a major feature which was present at time of purchase, and which for many was the primary reason for said purchase, is in any way actionable.

Re:Is this even legal?

[Orga]

If you don't want the feature removed, don't do the update. If you do the update you agree to all that text that they show you that you hit right on your controller to bypass.

Re:Is this even legal?

[bluefoxlucid]

You mean like when Creative upgraded the firmware on their XM satellite radio receiver to remove the ability to record MP3s from the radio feed, which was advertised on the box as THE major feature?

Re:Is this even legal?

[brainiac ghost1991]

Well, then if you don't do the update they've removed another major feature (PSN connectivity)

Re:Is this even legal?

[blueZ3]

I think Sony would say that the EULA makes it so. I think a lawyer would/could argue that if they brick your system with an update, they owe you a new one. Unfortunately, you'd never get a lawyer to take this case as the value of a PS3 and "damages" aren't enough to cover one billable hour...

Morally (though that's so gauche to say these days) I think if you buy a product and the company borks it well after the purchase, they owe you a fix or new one. Using the classic /. car analogy, it's like taking your car in for an oil change and when you come to pick it up it's stopped running and they expect you to buy a new one.

Re:Is this even legal?

[jimicus]

I wonder whether the intentional removal of a major feature which was present at time of purchase, and which for many was the primary reason for said purchase, is in any way actionable.

That's an extremely good question.

IANAL, but AFAIK current consumer law in most countries was drafted when the idea that a manufacturer could change how the item you've bought works, months or even years after you bought it and force you to accept this change if you want to continue using the item was little more than fanciful dystopic science-fiction.

Complicating the issue further is that (certainly in the UK, YMMV) legally speaking, it's the retailer's problem to ensure you get what you paid for, not the manufacturers. So if I went into my local game shop and bought a PS/3 with the express intention of playing games online and running linux on one unit, it's the retailers problem if I can no longer do so through no fault of my own (obviously accounting for any statute of limitations).

Re:Is this even legal?

[Mad Leper]

In either case it's the PS3 owner that has to make that decision, keep the OtherOS functionality or use it for PSN/Games.

Technically the PS3 still does everything it could do before the update, just not at the same time.

Re:Is this even legal?

[david_thornley]

Technically, if I give you the choice of being shot in the left or right kneecap, you can walk with either leg, just not at the same time. I'd still get arrested and prosecuted, though.

Re:Is this even legal?

[Vanderhoth]

You forgot you'll no longer be able to play any new games, use the media server to play any legitimately bought DRMed movies or play any BluRay movies that require the new firmware.

Take your pick use it as a Linux box or everything else you bought it for except a Linux box.

I don't plan on doing the update until it's absolutely necessary. I'm also hoping they'll put the Other OS functionality back, but I'm not holding my breath. I won't be buying any new Sony products in the near future, even if they put the functionality back, but until l they put it back I won't even consider them.

Re:Is this even legal?

[paradigm82]

I think that is a pretty substantial difference from a legal point of view: I bought my PS3 to do A and B, now it only does A OR B.

Re:Is this even legal?

[Theaetetus]

I wonder whether the intentional removal of a major feature which was present at time of purchase, and which for many was the primary reason for said purchase, is in any way actionable.

Aside from what others have said regarding the EULA, which really does control here, if you wanted to go to the Uniform Commercial Code and sue the retailer for breach of an implied warranty as jimicus suggests, you'd have an additional problem:

2-315. Implied Warranty: Fitness for Particular Purpose.
Where the seller at the time of contracting has reason to know any particular purpose for which the goods are required and that the buyer is relying on the seller's skill or judgment to select or furnish suitable goods, there is unless excluded or modified under the next section an implied warranty that the goods shall be fit for such purpose.

Installing a secondary OS may have been your particular purpose, but a retailer wouldn't know that... It's something that less than 1% of purchasers would do. Furthermore, even if you told them expressly, "I'm purchasing this to install Linux," note that second clause - "buyer is relying on the seller's skill or judgment to select or furnish suitable goods." You most likely know a lot more about Linux and hacking PS3s than a sales mook at Best Buy or Gamestop. And finally, I guarantee that on the back of your receipt is a statement that the seller expressly excludes any implied warranties of fitness for a particular purpose.

/I'm not your lawyer, this isn't legal advice, and should not be relied on for any reason

Re:Is this even legal?

[Lostlander]

I agree I think it would fall under false advertising however as Sony employs battalions of lawyers I don't doubt they will find a legal technicality for this.

Re:Is this even legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought there was a way to bypass update yet still connect. Something to do with proxy.

Re:Is this even legal?

[westlake]

I wonder whether the intentional removal of a major feature which was present at time of purchase, and which for many was the primary reason for said purchase, is in any way actionable.

It was never a major feature in the console video game market, or in the home entertainment market, generally.

Which is where the PS3 properly belongs.

"If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck..." To the court, it is a duck.

Sony will be able to deliver a deliver a reliable head count of the users who routinely upgraded their firmware. Which is going to look like pretty much like the installed base of the PS3. That's the next boulder you have to climb.

   

Re:Is this even legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder whether the intentional removal of a major feature which was present at time of purchase, and which for many was the primary reason for said purchase, is in any way actionable.

Many?

Many?

MANY?

Really?

No, seriously: Really? "Many" is the qualifier you're using for the amount of people who bought a game console to run Linux on it?

Because I'd put it more in the range of "a statistically insignificant amount of people with very, VERY fringe uses, if they even have a use for it besides bragging and epeen". Yes, that includes the zomgawesome military use mentioned once or twice or SETI crap or whatever else.

Re:Is this even legal?

[Vanderhoth]

I've only read about the proxy work around, to my knowledge it only works if you want to connect to the PSN and buy content there. The fact is if you own a PS3 and want to do anything except use it as a Linux box you will have to eventually update it. Sony will find a way to block the proxy and even if they don't, not having the update will mean you can't play new BluRay movies or use the media server to play legit DRM movies.

That being said, to my knowledge I can still play PS1, PS2 and all the PS3 games I currently own without updating the firmware. I was also able to use the media server to play a TV series from my laptop that my younger sister had on a USB drive, so I assume pirated movies and music work with the media server. I started downloading a few things to test that theory, which I hope to do when I get home.

Re:Is this even legal?

[Sleepy]

I agree with YOU.. you can't take away an advertised feature.

You can not give the user a false choice... either consent to remove THIS feature (OtherOS), or else not doing so is a choice to disable PSN and new game titles.

Orga buys into that argument that this is a "choice" -- which is obtuse (by disingenuous choice on his part, or not, does not matter).

When this reaches class-action status, you can bet that loads of PS3 users will sign on, even if they weren't running OtherOS.

The sad thing is, this exploit isn't even usable for piracy. Some Sony suit out in Japan completely over-reacted to this. I really like the PS3 and it's the FIRST console I've bought since the Super Nintendo (mostly I run purchased games for the PC, although I routinely apply no-cd cracks because I *hate* swapping discs).

Re:Is this even legal?

[harl]

You agreed to that in the PSN contract you signed.

Re:Is this even legal?

[TubeSteak]

Installing a secondary OS may have been your particular purpose, but a retailer wouldn't know that... It's something that less than 1% of purchasers would do.

If the PS3 says anything on the box or internal documents about OtherOS being included, then there is a legitimate tension between what you bought and what Sony did when they made your PS3 useless without an update that removes the feature.

/not a lawyer, but still sound legal principle

Re:Is this even legal?

[EvilBudMan]

This happens to cell phones too like breaking OBEX compatibility or making it very hard to use so they can sell you more ring tones. It's BS that should be against the law or at the very least they shouldn't say it has Bluetooth compatibility if it doesn't meet the standard fully.

Re:Is this even legal?

[unix1]

Technically the PS3 still does everything it could do before the update, just not at the same time.

Here's a car analogy for you:

You buy a new car. Time comes for the service which only the authorized dealer can provide. You take the car to the dealer. Prior to performing the service the dealer informs you that they have to remove one of the following items from your car: the entertainment system (satellite radio, navigation, DVD, etc.), or the air conditioner. You say - hey, you can't do that, I bought this car because it had these features. To which they reply - well, technically this car can still have both of these features, just not at the same time.You get to pick.

I can't believe there are some people that believe this is even remotely legal.

Re:Is this even legal?

[sjames]

What if I send them a letter with an envelope that claims they accept the terms enclosed by opening it? :-)

Or are only first class citizens allowed to modify an agreement after the fact?

Re:Is this even legal?

[moniker]

IANAL

The FTC needs to step into this. I filed a complaint with the FTC earlier this week, it only takes a few minutes, so please do the same if you are a PS3 FAT owner unless you enjoy losing features you paid for. Judging that any post I make on the playstation blog containing the word FTC is instantly censored by string matching, I believe this is what Sony is afraid of.

From the FTC statement on unfairness, "To justify a finding of unfairness the injury must satisfy three tests."
source: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/policystmt/ad-unfair.htm

1. must be substantial - otheros was #2 reason why I purchased the PS3. #1 was bluray. Launch games for the PS3 pretty much sucked. I wanted an all-in-one media box. I figured if media didn't work well in PS3 os, Linux was my backup plan.

2. not be outweighed by other benefits - Prior to firmware 3.21, I could run Linux and connect to PSN. Today I cannot connect to PSN, play Warhawk, or be assured that future BD's or games will work. No benefits were added with firmware 3.21, much less benefits that would outweigh the loss of otheros. System security as a benefit is hypothetical. Hotz created a proof of concept, not a mod chip or a virus.

3. could not be avoided - Due to Sony's use of DRM, I cannot avoid losing features... either otheros or the use of current and future software and BDs. (I am still running 3.20, by the way.)

For more recent FTC statements regarding DRM....

"Mary Engle, an FTC Acting Deputy Director, .... referenced the Sony BMG rootkit debacle, saying that "sellers who use DRM technology to enforce the terms of bargains with consumers need to be particularly careful to disclose in advance" what those bargains are.

And just stuffing the disclosure into the fine print of an End User License Agreement (EULA) isn't good enough. "If your advertising giveth and your EULA taketh away," she said, "don't be surprised if the FTC comes calling."

She stressed that it was not permissible for companies to play Lucy to consumers' Charlie Brown, holding the football and promising that this time she won't yank it away at the last minute. "

source: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/03/ftc-well-come-calling-about-deceptive-drm.ars

Re:Is this even legal?

[HAKdragon]

..unless it weighs the same as a duck, then it's a witch!

Re:Is this even legal?

[Vanderhoth]

WOW, and AC off his meds.

Re:Is this even legal?

[jfredric]

Here is the URL - https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/

Re:Is this even legal?

[GasparGMSwordsman]

Installing a secondary OS may have been your particular purpose, but a retailer wouldn't know that... It's something that less than 1% of purchasers would do.

This item is actually very clear. Under Federal and (most) State laws, if you advertise something that the product does not have, you are guilty of false advertising.

To go into more detail, if the PS3 box says you have an option to install an "other" OS then it MUST allow you to do so. In this case Sony marketed the product as having this option. Why *YOU* bought it is irrelevant. The only issue you need to prove to win on this issue, is that Sony advertised a feature that was not there (or was removed in this case).

However, it does not seem to me that in this is the case in this instance. Here is why:

1) (To my knowledge) Sony only advertised that this option existed on the "fat" PS3. They stopped advertising this option on follow up models and prior to this current system update.

2) The "fat" PS3 can use the "other OS" option without the system update.

The weak point in my analysis is that you are put in a position where you have to pick which feature you want (I assume PSN is advertised as a selling point). It is not ridiculous to see a court ruling that the advertising implies (or did) that both features should be accessible at the same time.

Re:Is this even legal?

[BitZtream]

The PSN network wasn't there at launch, and if you bothered to read the agreements that you agreed to, they reserve the right to stop providing it to you, at any time, for any reason.

You get what you pay for with 'free' updates and 'free' networking. Not that its not the same way on xbox live mind you, but if you bought the PS3 because of the 'other os' functionality, you really were an idiot from the word go. There were, was and are better alternatives for anything other than 'just because'.

Re:Is this even legal?

[TheQuantumShift]

I'm sure proper verbiage was included in the eula that is agreed to upon the initial start up. So legal, yes. But still a dick-move by Sony.

Re:Is this even legal?

[Khyber]

"They stopped advertising this option on follow up models and prior to this current system update."

Nope, the current advertising campaign is "It only does everything" and that is a lie. The new slim PS3 cannot do what the fat PS3s were capable of. The advertising slogan "It only does everything" would lead hopeful customers to believe they finally made every single console BC with PS2/1 games. In fact, it does NOT do everything.

Re:Is this even legal?

[GasparGMSwordsman]

I do agree with your sentiments that the newer PS3s should have all of the options of the fat ones. However from a legal perspective I believe this would not qualify. It has been generally held that only specific claims can be enforceable (again I quote "all generalizations are false").

Example of enforceable statement:

"All models of the PS3 can run an 'Other OS'."

"Slim models of the PS3 have every feature that previous PS3's have had."

Both of these statements are non-vague. They have specific claims that state, if you by this product, you WILL have this feature. However vague statements are generally considered to be obviously propaganda and courts (Federal) have stated that it is generally understood that sales people exaggerate and consumers understand that.

The example you have given, "It only does everything" would most likely fall into the vague and unenforceable category. The average person should know it does not make toast and should reasonable assume that this is just sales-hype. Because there is no specific item a reasonable person can point to and say "this feature was claimed in that statement," it is likely that this would make for a weak case (for false advertising). That is not to say that they have not made other statements that would be in error, just that your example seems unlikely to stand up in court.

I could always be wrong however. I took all of 10 minutes evaluating the situation based on comments by other people. If you feel strongly that this is wrong I would encourage you to fill a complaint with the FTC. Possibly even contact an attorney (possibly the consumer protection agency or DA's office) and discuss this issue in more detail.

Re:Is this even legal?

[Khyber]

Already been done, and it's agreed that it appears to be false advertising. 'It' specifies the PS3, 'only' specifies that it can perform those functions and no others, 'does' means that it performs those functions, and 'everything' means the functions a PS3 has been known to have.

Oh yes, Sony's going to get reamed.

Re:Is this even legal?

[GasparGMSwordsman]

I am not disputing what you say, but do you have any source material on this? I would love to see a news article about Sony having to apologize or put the feature back.

I know that Amazon has announced that they will be offering a 20% refund to EU customers due to this change (not sure if this is because Amazon is very customer-friendly or due to UK/EU sales law). Unfortunately in that case it sounds like Amazon is just eating the cost and that it will not be passed back to Sony.

Re:Is this even legal?

[Khyber]

"I am not disputing what you say, but do you have any source material on this? I would love to see a news article about Sony having to apologize or put the feature back."

It's what a couple of firms I have talked to have said. Pretty hard to cite a lawyer unless it's through a court transcript or news interview.

Consoles?

[wisnoskij]

I understand how MS could sometimes release updates that are harmful to some computers, they control on the hardware and the other programs installed on their customers machines.

But in the case of consoles and Sony they know exactly what they will encounter, one of a few versions of the Playstation 3.
And I believe this is the second of their updates to brick PS 3s.

So my questions is, do they not even test their updates on the PS 3s?

Or are PS 3s of the same version radically different enough to brick or not brick with the same update?
Or are these network issues, the patch is not fully being installed (they did not makes a robust enough updating system)?

Re:Consoles?

[drinkypoo]

There's really only ONE report of a bricking. Meanwhile my Microsoft console is doing a mandatory, 26 minute update before I can use Xbox Live this morning. I don't know whether I should be more scared that the update should fail, or that it will RROD before the update finishes. And all I want is to play Forza 3... (I'm throwing rocks at Gran Turismo now, wewp)

Re:Consoles?

[flitty]

"Meanwhile my Microsoft console is doing a mandatory, 26 minute update before I can use Xbox Live this morning." Holy crap. Even my NXE installation only took 15 minutes. Something is seriously borked with your connection to your XBOX. The USB Update yesterday took me perhaps 5 minutes.

Re:Consoles?

[twidarkling]

26 minute update? If you mean the update to let you use USB-connected storage, that's not a 26 minute update. It took my 360 less than 5 minutes. I won't accuse you of shilling for Sony, since that's retarded, I'll just accuse you of being an exaggerating twit. :p

Re:Consoles?

[GasparGMSwordsman]

Are you sure your xbox is not just mad at you for wanting to play Forza and is giving you a 26 minute time out?

Re:Consoles?

[GasparGMSwordsman]

I am willing to bet your internet connection is faster/more stable than his. I would also be that you are both using a different version of the 360. (There are how many different motherboards now?)

I have had "two" 360's. A launch and one built in the last year. The launch "one" (it was replaced several times do to RRoD) was significantly slower when installing updates or pretty much anything. I even measured the delay between action sent to the console (like hitting a button) and display on an output device (TV, computer, timing device). The old system had a consistent 40% larger delay on average.

Re:Consoles?

[drinkypoo]

"Meanwhile my Microsoft console is doing a mandatory, 26 minute update before I can use Xbox Live this morning." Holy crap. Even my NXE installation only took 15 minutes. Something is seriously borked with your connection to your XBOX. The USB Update yesterday took me perhaps 5 minutes.

My connection maxes out at 512kbps. So yes, something is seriously wrong. I live in the boonies.

Will Sony replace bricked PS3s caused by update?

[Quick Reply]

Does anyone know if Sony would replace bricked PS3s caused by this update, even if they are out of warranty?

My $0.02

[Pojut]

Our 250GB PS3 Slim has been fine after the latest update...no freezing or game launching problems. I can't RTFA due to work filters, but I would imagine that this update wouldn't cause problems with Slim PS3s anyway, since out of the box you already can't install Linux on there.

Can anyone tell me if TFA says anything about Slim PS3s?

Re:My $0.02

[epdp14]

From TFA (death to filters): "Tin-hatted conspiracy theorists are suggesting that Sony wants to get old fat PS3s out of circulation as it seems to be the portly version which is having the most problems."

Re:My $0.02

[Pojut]

it seems to be the portly version which is having the most problems.

This is yet another update that PS3 fat owners are reporting widespread problems, with nary a hiccup for PS3 slim owners. Tin foil or no, that's just a fact.

Thanks!

Re:My $0.02

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is the full article. Its rather short anyway...

A controversial update which was seeded by Sony in order to remove the ability to run Linux on the Playstation 3 games console has caused a storm of complaints.

The 3.21 firmware upgrade, which removes the security hole provided by the 'Install Other OS' widget used by lots of educational institutions and hackers alike, also removes the console's ability to play games or connect to the Interweb according to forum posts, turning it into a very expensive doorstop.

Some users are reporting infinite loops where the installation routine never completes, others are complaining about the inability to use a variety of different controllers during the process.

Plenty of people who have been lucky enough to get the install to work are saying that Internet connectivity after the upgrade is sluggish, non-existent or subject to frequent unexplained disconnections.

Others are reporting problems with random screen resolutions and HDMI connections no longer working.

Many users who have elected not to install the obviously broken update are complaining that they cannot connect to the Playstation Network or play online games. Some are even saying that the consoles will no longer play or eject Blu-ray disks.

Tin-hatted conspiracy theorists are suggesting that Sony wants to get old fat PS3s out of circulation as it seems to be the portly version which is having the most problems.

Re:My $0.02

[Narishma]

I don't consider a few posts in a forum somewhere complaining about PS3s bricking a widespread problem.

Re:My $0.02

[Daniel Phillips]

I have not installed 3.21, however I can state state that after installing 3.10 or 3.15 (I forget which and will need to check later) my PS slim suddenly got wifi problems as described in the article ("Internet connectivity after the upgrade is sluggish, non-existent or subject to frequent unexplained disconnections"). Investigation on the LAN side shows 90%+ packet loss. The packet loss is moderate when the PS3 is powered on then increases to an unusable level after an hour or two.

I have had bad luck with Sony and PS3. If I return this machine it will be my fourth return. The first was a launch model that got the infamous blu-ray death shortly after a firmware update. That machine was returned to me completely busted - it powered on for about 15 minutes then died with video garbage on the screen, never to function again. This "repair" cost me $150, as my machine was out of warranty. I returned that machine and received a refurbished replacement that bricked itself in about six weeks. Having invested a ridiculous number of hours in going through Sony's horribly broken RMA procedures up to this point, I invested $300 in a slim, thus no longer being able to play the PS2 titles I had purchased. Now this machine has developed network problems as I mentioned. Color me very unimpressed.

Each time around this kooky loop, I lost all my downloaded content, much of which is no longer available, all my game saves and all the games I purchased online, with no recourse. Color me livid.

The worst thing about this whole experience is the stonewalling from Sony where they pretend there is no systematic problem.

Re:My $0.02

[Pojut]

I had a huge number of issues with my PS2, but so far my PS3 slim has ::knock on wood:: been running with only the occasional lock up. I've had one 360 red ring on me, but it was a launch console...my Jasper 360 is ::again, knock on wood:: solid as a rock.

You know what pisses me off about that? I still have a fully functional Atari 2600, SNES, Game Gear, AND Game Boy. They just don't make em like they used to -_-;;

Re:My $0.02

[Dhalka226]

I have an oldschool (non-slim) PS3 and I didn't have any problem with the update. That said, I also hadn't used the "Install Other OS" feature. Maybe the bug involves people who have, or maybe it's not as simple as people like to think.

Re:My $0.02

[jseale]

I imagine that Sony was HOPING that people that had a legacy model PS3 would trade it in on a Slim and avoid having to deal with this shit in the first place. The devices are pretty much the same except for the form factor, the fact that you can't run 'other OS'es on it. and the Slim does seem to be much more stable.

Bitter Xbox Fanboys Over The RRoD Fiasco

[Anonymous Coward]

"You'll note the very low number of posts against each of these user in the forums too"

Every major PS3 firmware update and game release has pathetic and desperate Xbox fanboys racing to console forums creating dummy accounts making up inane stories about bricked PS3s.

Owning the worst console in history, the Xbox 360 and its unprecedented garbage hardware, has created a bunch of foaming at the mouth nutcases desperate to smear other consoles in hopes it will somehow salvage the reputation of their piece of crap Xbox 360s.

Re:Bitter Xbox Fanboys Over The RRoD Fiasco

[wjousts]

a bunch of foaming at the mouth nutcases desperate to smear other consoles.

Pot calling kettle, come in kettle.

Re:Bitter Xbox Fanboys Over The RRoD Fiasco

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe, maybe not.
I've noticed that xbox owners are usually much more rabid about their precious systems then other console owners. Go to any gaming sit you like and read some of the posts. The xbox owners appear a lot more vicious and petty, much like liberals who don't get their way. I do admit there are exceptions.

Personally when I made the choice to buy a gaming console I decided to buy from a HARDWARE company instead of a software company.

Re:Bitter Xbox Fanboys Over The RRoD Fiasco

[Oldstench]

What's that you fucking faggot? A cocksucking Xbot trying to talk shit about console reliability?

Get the fuck off this site you piece of garbage. The gaming world hates you and your piece of shit console.

AHHH hahah hahah. That made my morning. Thanks. Tool.

Re:Bitter Xbox Fanboys Over The RRoD Fiasco

[Anonymous Coward]

360? I thought they were renamed to XBox 54.8

Re:Bitter Xbox Fanboys Over The RRoD Fiasco

[Amarantine]

maybe, maybe not. I've noticed that xbox owners are usually much more rabid about their precious systems then other console owners. Go to any gaming sit you like and read some of the posts. The xbox owners appear a lot more vicious and petty, much like liberals who don't get their way. I do admit there are exceptions.

Personally when I made the choice to buy a gaming console I decided to buy from a HARDWARE company instead of a software company.

Yes, as the AC above you has demonstrated.

But this me a little of people complaining about all the Apple fanboys and everything, while the page is filled with bash after bash at Apple.

And for the record, with all the mice, keyboards, Zunes, Xboxes, controllers, headsets and whatnot, i think it's hard to see MS as a software-only company. And so what, isn't a company allowed to make such a change? As if Sony never made any f*ckups in their history?

Re:Bitter Xbox Fanboys Over The RRoD Fiasco

[wjousts]

And for the record, with all the mice, keyboards, Zunes, Xboxes, controllers, headsets and whatnot, i think it's hard to see MS as a software-only company.

And with all the music, movies, TV shows, software, etc., it's hard to see Sony as a hardware company.

Re:Bitter Xbox Fanboys Over The RRoD Fiasco

[wjousts]

I shouldn't feed the troll, but for the record, I do not own an XBox, a PS3, a Wii or any other console. But thanks for playing moron.

You did a bang up job of proving my point.

Re:Bitter Xbox Fanboys Over The RRoD Fiasco

[twidarkling]

Personally, when I went to buy a console, I decided to buy the console that actually had games I was interested in purchasing. To date, I own about a dozen 360 games, and have rented even more. However, I own about TWO dozen Wii games, and rented more. I don't own a PS3, since the majority of games are cross-platform, and those that aren't have simply failed to pique my interest in any significant way. The first game to come close was Heavy Rain, but reviews cooled me towards it.

However, my decision was based on actual personal preferences for available software. No pedagogical concerns, no proselytizing, nothing like that.

In my decision-making process, I've noted that about the only system owners that aren't rabid fanboy assholes are Wii owners, or multi-system owners. PS3 people are capable of being just as fucktarded as 360 people. It's just there's fewer of them overall, so there's fewer assholes, even though proportionally, they're the same.

Re:Bitter Xbox Fanboys Over The RRoD Fiasco

[Anonymous Coward]

You talk like a fag, and your shits all retarded.

Re:Bitter Xbox Fanboys Over The RRoD Fiasco

[Anonymous Coward]

Pot calling kettle, come in kettle.

Kettle here, I told you to stop calling you black bastard.

Re:Bitter Xbox Fanboys Over The RRoD Fiasco

[Anonymous Coward]

360? I thought they were renamed to XBox 54.8

Nah. it was Xbox 361 for Workgroups.

Re:Bitter Xbox Fanboys Over The RRoD Fiasco

[Anonymous Coward]

Are people like you actually for real? I mean do people actually get angry over this? Or is this some weird kind of kabuki?

Re:Bitter Xbox Fanboys Over The RRoD Fiasco

[Anonymous Coward]

vicious and petty, much like liberals who don't get their way.

apparently, you haven't hear of these new "Tea Party" protesters they have now

Re:Bitter Xbox Fanboys Over The RRoD Fiasco

[Anonymous Coward]

Drooling half-wits like this are why I stick to single player games. To think that the PS3 network is likely full of people like this.. yikes.

Re:Bitter Xbox Fanboys Over The RRoD Fiasco

[exomondo]

Are people like you actually for real? I mean do people actually get angry over this? Or is this some weird kind of kabuki?

it's kinda hard to believe there are people so insecure that they actually get angry when people don't agree with their opinion on a product.

Re:Will Sony replace bricked PS3s caused by update

[snsr]

No, but I believe they'll repair one for $150.

Re:Will Sony replace bricked PS3s caused by update

[HopefulIntern]

If you are in the UK you don't need to worry about warranty; I have recently discovered the Sale of Goods Act, which means with or without warranty they would have to replace it because it is less than 6 years old.

Well yeah...

[FatSean]

If you never use your power windows, the regulators will never fail!

Is it bricked bricked or...

[Duradin]

It is archaic definition bricked or "inconvenient to repair" bricked, as is the new usage.

Given that "literally" is the new figuratively it's hard to tell what people mean these days.

Re:Is it bricked bricked or...

[sharkey]

It's a virtual certainty that the problems are literally figurative.

Re:Is it bricked bricked or...

[GrumblyStuff]

Literally bricked! I sold mine to my neighbor who's putting in a paving stone walkway.

Re:Is it bricked bricked or...

[dissy]

It is archaic definition bricked or "inconvenient to repair" bricked, as is the new usage.

I think in this situation that is still a fair and correct assertion.

The true definition of bricked is totally unrecoverable.
The pop/current definition in media seems to be 'broken but fixable if one has the knowledge how to do so'

In this case, a video game console in the hands of a normal consumer, I would say 'bricked' is correct if the system becomes non-functional and you can't simply perform the same steps to re-flash it.

In our hands, that is not bricked but just broken.
We know the secret button holding processes to get to that lower boot loader, or where the JTAG pins are on the main board to solder to and reprogram the flash chips directly, etc etc.

But a normal consumer will most likely not have the knowledge that is even possible. Even if they do, they wouldn't be a normal consumer if they had the hardware and skills required.

To them, the only solution is to return it to Sony, or toss it in the trash. That is bricked, even by our definition.

Re:Is it bricked bricked or...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you referenced the latest xkcd! http://xkcd.com/725/ Well, aren't you just SO SMART!

Oh God - Shut The Fuck Up

[Anonymous Coward]

Tens of millions of people updated to this firmware days ago with no problems at all like every other PS3 firmware in the past.

Do you have any clue what a fucking moron you sound like babbling about 'So my questions is, do they not even test their updates on the PS 3s?' because some dimwit in the media writes a blog post linking to a few forum posts?

Honestly, shut the fuck up idiot.

Re:Oh God - Shut The Fuck Up

[GasparGMSwordsman]

Tens of millions of people updated to this firmware days ago with no problems at all like every other PS3 firmware in the past.

Do you have any clue what a fucking moron you sound like babbling about 'So my questions is, do they not even test their updates on the PS 3s?' because some dimwit in the media writes a blog post linking to a few forum posts?

Honestly, shut the fuck up idiot.

I agree, so many people don't realize what complete fools they sound like when they post things on /. ... *cough*

Re:Will Sony replace bricked PS3s caused by update

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe Sony's exact words are, "Helllllz naw, nigga. You be trippin'."

Re:Lawsuit?

[PhongUK]

She the founder?

Sony - The Toyota of the computer industry

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it's all the user's fault, see...

Glad I didn't install the update

[HalAtWork]

Really glad I didn't install this one. I wanted to keep the "Other OS" feature so I skipped it. I was going to pick up a slim anyway, so I guess I'll do that and save my "Other OS" feature on my current console. My only problem is if I can continue hunting trophies when I move all my data over to the slim :/

Re:Glad I didn't install the update

[plague3106]

Trophies are synced to PSN, so if you synced before the update came out I'd think they'd come back to your slim.

Re:Glad I didn't install the update

[rworne]

I have several PS3's all of which share the same account.

Back up your old one and restore on the new one. All non-DRM items and non OtherOS items will copy over. Many, but not all, of your saved games in progress will also copy over, but some game companies slap DRM restrictions on the saved games as well and you will lose those.

When you sign up for PSN, tell it you have an existing account and use your info from the other PS3, all your trophies will come over and you can then sign in to the PS3 store and re-download nearly all of your DRM'd purchases. Some purchases like Warhawk and Singstar content need a call to Sony support to re-download.

Re:Glad I didn't install the update

[HalAtWork]

True, but can I continue getting trophies using an old save that's part-way through the game? I'm more than halfway through Final Fantasy XIII and I'd like to progress in the game and continue getting trophies on my new system.

If you download a savegame from GameFAQs, for example, I don't think you can get any trophies if you play on your system using that save file, you will have to start a new game or use a save that originated on your system.

No problems here

[jockeys]

I ran the update when it dropped, have been playing games and connecting to PSN, NetFlix and various web browsing with zero symptoms... maybe it only affects certain models? I have the last gen "phat" ps3

Re:No problems here

[Rallion]

I don't think there's a real problem at all. Sometimes stuff breaks. When there's a real problem with a firmware update, as has happened several times so far this gen, you have people talking about it all over the internet. Not here.

At least..

[Anonymous Coward]

.. they are quite clear about that you will not be able to run "other OSes" afterward in the update description.

Yeah, and you can go to jail for it

[davidwr]

Do NOT fight fraud with fraud.

Far better to sue.

If you are lucky some major government-funded school or other institution will own a ton of these and your state's attorney general will file a suit. If you are lucky.

Re:Yeah, and you can go to jail for it

[commodore64_love]

>>>Far better to sue.

Yeah that will go well. I'll spend a couple thousand dollars fighting Sony for the next ~8 years over a $300 console. And most likely - lose.

I prefer to not put myself through that hell. I prefer to take the easy route of going through my Credit card's protection program (if the item does not work, and customer has proof-of-return, the retailer's agreement REQUIRES a refund).

Re:Yeah, and you can go to jail for it

[crashumbc]

Not that I agree with OP, but Sue really>?

What do attorny fees run now? 100-200 dollars and hour?

so just getting them to right a legal "request" is going to amount to buying a NEW PS3...

you didn't do well in math, I guess

Re:Yeah, and you can go to jail for it

[Anonymous Coward]

The legal system is fucked. Anyone who thinks they're going to get a fair shake against a billion dollar corp like Sony is deluded.

Screw 'em like they screwed you and be done with it. Don't waste days, weeks, or months of your life plus a bunch of money gambling with the crooked court system.

Gaming Media Still Trying To Fabricate A PS3 RRoD

[Anonymous Coward]

Clowns like the idiot who wrote this latest garbage have been frantically scanning forums in hopes of finding something, anything, to deflect the massive negative publicity Microsoft has gotten over the 1.1 billion dollar Xbox 360 RRoD fiasco.

Every firmware update the dimwits in the media try the same crap and every time it goes nowhere because the tens of millions of actual PS3 owners obviously aren't having problems.

 

The issue is between the chair and keyboard

[Assassin_for_Atari]

I enjoy the fact, with every PS3 update, there seems to be a "UPDATE IS BRICKING CONSOLES!" article.Yet myself and my friends I have done installed every update on our FAT PS3's and have 0 issues.

IMHO, the update isn't bricking systems, its dumb moves by users!

Version

[dandart]

3.2 1 Gone!

Shocked!

[ilsaloving]

I'm utterly shocked that Sony would do such a terrible thing! Sony has always been so consumer conscious and a good corporate citizen...

Well, except for the few other times they bricked the PS3... and continually stripping out features from the PS3 post-purchase which rightfully should be illegal... oh and the long history of Sony screwing people in the past such as selling audio CDs that destroyed people's computers...

Happy PS3 owner???!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, My PS3 has been working fine since the update. It has never bricked on any update, and I still play all of my games. I just don't get all the anti-PS3 setiment on the web, lately. Yes... I know Sony has gone down hill since the Walkman, and could be doing way cooler things if they actually stuck to putting out fewer, GOOD itmes; instead of a massive amount of "OK" ones... but I must be the ONLY happy PS3 owner in existence.

No Issues

[kenp2002]

Installed the update.
Still can stream by TV shows from my media server to the PS3 no problems.
My online purchased Burnout Paradise works just fine.
Watched Ironman on Blu-Ray, no issues.
Bayonetta works just fine as does Eternal Sonata, Guitar Hero 3, Disegia, and Soul Calibur.

Not one issue. Since I have not had a problem with mine, and as the FUD article clearly states 'since I as a small minority of millions of units out there must clearly speak for all units' and as such there are no problems with bricking as a result of this patch.

Or as reality indicates: The bricked units fall within the norm of bricked units without the patch. Units die all the time as a % of the existing units. NOTHING in the article nor any other outlet indicates that there is an increased number of functional units suddenly becoming bricked as a result of the patch itself. I don't dispute that may be the case, but this garbage posing as news doesn't indicate that. THE FUD Factory (aka the poster) says a STORM of complains but the linked article only states a few but doesn't cite a source, forum, anything...

Some users are reporting infinite loops where the installation routine never completes, others are complaining about the inability to use a variety of different controllers during the process.

Reporting where? Forums, Sony, Phone, Telepathy? SOME USERS IS NOT A STORM. Why can't we start banning people from slashdot that just make shit up that has nothing to do with the article and fire some of these deadbeat FUD artists (You still here Kdawson? WTF!) for posting this crap. I get enough bullshit from my politicians I don't need it from moderators and editors too...

Standard: Correlation != to Causation disclaimer.

The question is:
did the new firmware break something thus bricking the unit (No otherwise we would have a substantial % of units bricked and 1up, Gamespy, etc would by inindated with Forums 300 pages and 4000 posts in length bitching about their PS3s dying...)

Did the firmware update expose an already existing problem that unit and now, with the patch, bricks the unit (likely if the % of units reporting problems doesn't change, this would prompt Sony to respond rather quickly and shift into damage control real fast)

Did the firmware conflict with some existing software or configuration that now with the patch exposes a conflict rendering the unit a brick? (Possible and most likely but we need to compare the configuration of the bricked units to see what the bricked units have in common with one another but do not have in common with non-bricked units.)

e.g.

Sample A (Working) has AABBAA
Sample B (Bricks) has ACCBBA
Sample C (Working) has ACBAA

We could determine that possibly the firmware conflicts with having CC in the mix (whatever CC may be) in contrast to a single C. But privacy concerns would limit a company from auditing (even anonymously) the inventory of a game console.

A: Taco... READ THE ARTICLE THE POSTER IS CITING AND IF THEY DON'T MATCH UP, DON'T POST FUD!

B: Stoobalou QUIT MAKING SHIT UP IN YOUR SUMMARY. A STORM != SOME USERS. It's called FACT CHECKING. TRY IT

Re:No Issues

[Stoobalou]

There's a link in the original article which points to the forum from which the information was taken. There are pages upon pages of complaints all relating to issues encountered after the update.

Re:No Issues

[feepness]

A: Taco... READ THE ARTICLE THE POSTER IS CITING AND IF THEY DON'T MATCH UP, DON'T POST FUD!

B: Stoobalou QUIT MAKING SHIT UP IN YOUR SUMMARY. A STORM != SOME USERS. It's called FACT CHECKING. TRY IT

It's amazing that editors could be so eager to push a position they'd jeopardize their credibility to do so.

Re:No Issues

[schm0]

The article links to the PS3 forums, where this thread lists 673 posts: http://boardsus.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-3-Updates/Users-with-3-21-technical-problems/td-p/45470549

Re:No Issues

[Anonymous Coward]

A: Taco... READ THE ARTICLE THE POSTER IS CITING AND IF THEY DON'T MATCH UP, DON'T POST FUD!

Dude, relax. Do you really have to believe everything you read? If you see something that looks interesting, use Google to verify or disprove what TFA says. Slashdot is kind of like Wikipedia in that it gives you a convenient place to start (and some entertaining comments to read).

B: Stoobalou QUIT MAKING SHIT UP IN YOUR SUMMARY. A STORM != SOME USERS. It's called FACT CHECKING. TRY IT

Depending on who the users are, I'd argue that "some users" could == "a storm".

Also, I'd argue that the summary is an instance of "sensationalist journalism", and has been a commonly accepted practice in journalism since before you were born.

Further, it's foolish to rely on other people to fact-check your information for you.

Also, imho, Sony's version of damage control is "Either go buy a PS3 slim or pay us $150 to fix your console." If they admit to a problem, they have to pay a great deal of money to fix it. If they wait for a class action or equivalent, a few thousand users *might* get certificates for a free repair.

Re:No Issues

[Theoboley]

...I dont know what the hell board you're lookin at, but as of 11:20 AM CST there are 144 Posts. i didnt look through all of them but i can imagine that 1/4 of them are "OMG I HATE SONY" and of the likes.

Re:No Issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Is anyone actually reading this retards wall of useless crap? Jump off a bridge.

Re:No Issues

[kenp2002]

Yep 340 as 8:49 PM CST total. So out of more then 2,000,000+ units AND assuming that all of them are correct that comes out to... well.... far from a storm. Read through the first thread of 160, 18 posts of people actually claiming to have a problem. I'm honestly not going to bother with the other thread. I'll give you 100% of those as users with a problem.

In short: Quit making shit up.

OH!

[Anonymous Coward]

a brick that can still contribute to your electric bill.

I need one of those!

Re:Will Sony replace bricked PS3s caused by update

[Anonymous Coward]

It really isn't that black and white. They only have to replace it if there is a reasonable expectation that it was not at the end of its MTBF. Whining that something is broken after 6 years will not get you a replacement.

This update. It's

[Trelane]

Worst. April. Fools. Joke. Evar.

Interweb?

[fwr]

I refuse to continue reading any article that uses the term Interweb

Re:Will Sony replace bricked PS3s caused by update

[HopefulIntern]

These guys seem to put it pretty much black and white, especially with electronics/electrical goods.

Oblig

[Theoboley]

And then there's Spam spam spam eggs and spam

UGH I DON like SPAM

Descent into Irrelevance

[BoRegardless]

Break up Sony into units that MUST cater to customers and MUST innovate & MUST beat the competition (as opposed to matching the Zune).

Then you get your free day in court

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you get your free day in court. If they accuse YO U of fraud, they can't refuse to hear evidence you have to counter it.

What percent are getting bricked

[Reapman]

Can't check out the article from here, but what's the percent of failure rate? 10? 20? 50? Can't be 100, mine's running fine. As are several reports here in Slashdot. Or is this just standard wear and tear numbers?

It seems like this sort of thing always turns into a damn holy war, same thing happened with the 360, and until I started seeing consistant numbers reported from several sources I doubted just how high those were, too. As someone who's had no problems, maybe this is the usual "squeeky wheel gets the grease" scenario. I know it's cool to hate Sony and everything, but yesh.

PS3 games

[Anonymous Coward]

But... the PS3...

Re:Will Sony replace bricked PS3s caused by update

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Does anyone know if Sony would replace bricked PS3s caused by this update, even if they are out of warranty?

Article author uses a very broad definition of "bricked" which seems to consist mostly of "some people had some problems with the update". This is perhaps to be expected -- as a look at his profile page shows that he spews out from 4-7 "articles" in a day. Given that, it doesn't seem surprising that he's not able to do any real research (or even provide sources).

Re:Will Sony replace bricked PS3s caused by update

[Andy Smith]

More info please?

And why do you care?

[gillbates]

Honestly. It's their hardware.

Look I understand that you "thought" you became the owner when you forked over the cash. But that's not how corporate America works these days. For a given amount of green, you get to place a Sony-owned piece of hardware in your living room, and play it until Sony decides it's obsolete. You then get to put it in the garbage, give Sony some more money, and replace it with another box with even less features. And to top it off, you rebuy all of the games you liked to play.

I know it sounds cynical, but this is how the console market works. Unless you're using FOSS on open hardware, you don't really own it anymore. There are EULAs to contend with, the DMCA and DRM, and the ever-increasing term of copyright.

If you don't want the pitfalls of proprietary hardware, don't buy it.

Re:And why do you care?

[Dan667]

If you buy a device it becomes your hardware, that is why I never buy sony products.

Re:And why do you care?

[plague3106]

Its not their hardware, but it is their network, which is what you lose if you don't install the update. I see nothing wrong with a min. version to access their network, anymore than I don't have to support IE5 anymore either on my website.

If your ISP requires AV before you can connect, are you going to say its not your hardware? If a game requires DX11 and your card only does DX10, does it somehow not become your hardware?

Re:And why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't want the pitfalls of proprietary hardware, don't buy it.

I.e. don't buy anything again. New HDTVs have media players, network stacks, "apps", they have OS and application updates. Likewise with probably all but the cheapest disc players. Receivers and amps likewise. Whether we like it or not, consumer electronics are running real OSes and they're prone to bugs and feature updates. Updates can also disable support, or prevent media playback if you're not up to date.

The world of analog devices is a distant memory in most cases. The more cases we get like this, the more Joe Average is going to get hit it see something relating to what they buy. Eventually the masses may start to voice their concerns, or we'll be facing renting our media in the not so distant future.

Re:And why do you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly. It's their hardware.

By your logic, Levi's can take back the pockets in your pants, and it's contents, whenever they want.
The truth is, I bought it, that means it's mine to do with what I please! Sony has no right to remove features from the system I *OWN*.

I didn't lease my PS3, I BOUGHT IT! BIG DIFFERENCE.

LET THE LAWSUITS BEGIN! SUE SONY TODAY!

Re:And why do you care?

[brkello]

I'd normally agree with you, but this is a different case. You lose PSN access if you decide you want to keep a feature that Sony advertised. It's fine, they can do what they want on their network. If they want to ban hackers or pirates, I have little pity. But you can either update and lose a feature that was advertised or not update and lost a major functionality of the PS3. Neither is a good option for the consumer and Sony should have the crap sued out of them for this.

Re:And why do you care?

[plague3106]

And if your ISP suddenly starts requiring AV where it didn't before, you also lose access to a feature... really the ONLY feaure of an ISP connection. Contrast that with this feature, which I've never actually seen advertised. mentioned in the manual. I never even heard of it until I got my PS3 and saw it in the menu.

I don't see any reason to sue sony; people bought a gaming machine / media center for a niche feature (which I've NEVER seen advertised by sony) and then complain when said feature is removed. Ya your cell phone might be able to play monopoly today, but are you going to be really pissed if it can't, when you know the main purpose of the device is NOT game playing? Doesn't seem rational to me.

Working fine

[ShortKut]

I updated my fat PS3 to 3.21 the other day and has since been working fine with no issues whatsoever.

Don't update

[Anonymous Coward]

There are some workarounds out there for those of us who still want to be able to use the PS3 as we bought it. Google is your friend.

how many does this really affect?

[Anonymous Coward]

How many PS3 users actually used the "Other OS" feature? I'm willing to bet less than 5%. You slashdoters can get as pissed as you want, but I strongly disagree with the "Sony shooting themselves in the foot" comments. Rather, they are dropping a marble on their foot. They don't care, and a majority of PS3 users won't care either.

You guys have fun trying to hack your PS3s. I'll be getting back to KillZone 2 and Uncharted.

You will be violating....

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

United States Code:
Title 18 Sec. 1029
Title 18 Sec. 1030

As long as....

[hesaigo999ca]

They designed it to do a b and c, if you go add stuff that you should not that makes it a cheaters haven, then they have the right to disable your ps live connection in order to not allow you to play games with others and get ranked for it....
However, I do think they are not allowed to modify your machine after the fact, if you decide use it as your toaster, that is up to you.
I just hope that if I buy a ps3 that I do not get widgets installed by sony, that bricks it on purpose.

Here's a fix for you then!

[King_TJ]

You can go to customize your network settings from XMB, and get to the part about DNS nameservers. Select custom, and enter the following IP as your Primary DNS:
67.202.81.137

Aaron at RVLution.net is hosting this customized DNS server that hands your PS3 back info tricking it into believing it's already running the latest firmware revision. It can then connect happily to PSN, @Home and whatever else without requiring this garbage firmware "downgrade" they released.

Not Updating Breaks Games

[HannethCom]

Some games require access to the PSN. In my case Warhawk, I'm sure Unreal Tournament 3 does as well. Either way is a partial bricking of your machine, either you loose access to parts, or full games if you don't upgrade, or you loose the option for Other OS. The PS3 was marketed as a computer, Sony was very adamant about this and now they have made these claims false advertising.

Class-action lawsuit

[guspasho]

Selling a console that does X and Y and then removing X, post-sale, sounds like very reasonable grounds for a lawsuit. Has no one filed for one yet? Or is it too soon, this being the first day since they posted the update?

Sony deserved to be smacked down for this behavior, I hope I hear more about legal action against them that I can join in order to get my functionality back. Or, barring that, a hack that restores the functionality that Sony thinks they have the right to take away.

Re:Class-action lawsuit

[BitZtream]

How did they remove it? Did you click OK and agree to the update?

I'm pretty sure Sony is reasonably safe when they say 'here, take this update if you want but it turns off X' and then you come back the next day and say 'this update turned off X, now I'm pissed off!@!$!@'.

You can hope, but I definitely wouldn't hold my breath.

Re:Will Sony replace bricked PS3s caused by update

[Geeky]

If you are in the UK you don't need to worry about warranty; I have recently discovered the Sale of Goods Act, which means with or without warranty they would have to replace it because it is less than 6 years old.

Er, no, no exactly.

Not sure where you get the six years from. It will depend on what is considered to be a normal, expected life span for the item. Only if it breaks down in less time than would be expected as normal are you possibly covered by the act. I would suspect that six years would be considered excessive for an electronic device.

Likely Sony Response

[KwKSilver]

Most of our customers don't even know what bricks and doorstops are. Why should they care if we turn their boxes into them?

Re:Will Sony replace bricked PS3s caused by update

[Caetel]

Under the Sale of Goods act your contract is with the retailer, it has nothing to do with Sony.

Odd...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been to many geek stores and some less-than-scrupulous computer salesmen would sell their own mother, or their own mother's body, if the price was right....

Uncle Sam might get mad

[pbrooks100]

I know people who administer Linux clusters of PS3s. If these devices get bricked, I'm sure Sony will hear about it...

http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/12/09/military-purchases-2200-ps3s/

I didn't see this here anywhere...

[mace9984]

I didn't see this in any of the comments, if it's there please excuse this post... http://geohotps3.blogspot.com/

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Found this on the internet the poster claimed its the IPL ROM key that starts the supervisor. Maybe it can be used to unbrick the PS3.

pastebay.com/91827

Please verify ...

PEOPLE, PEOPLE! - BEHOLD!

[AlgorithMan]

PEOPLE, PEOPLE! - BEHOLD!
IT'S THE CHOSEN ONE!

wait, I'll be right over at your place, I just have to go to the pharmacy and get a red and a blue pill...

Re:Will Sony replace bricked PS3s caused by update

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? With the notable exception of the Xbox360 many consoles last much longer than 6 years. I think the 6 years might be the maximum as defined by the Sale of Goods Act, but depending on the nature of the fault, (I wouldn't necessarily expect the drives to last 6 years) it could be reasonable. I should think the fact that you lose Other OS functionality with this update if you have a fat PS3 and PSN functionality if you don't update to be sufficient reason to return the device under the Sale of Goods Act.