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?

[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?

[tagno25]

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

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 Check out this table (slightly outdated, it's a year old or so) by console hacker Michael Steil (or watch him talk about it on any of his talks).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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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]

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

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

[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.

Doorstop?

[bytethese]

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

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

[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?

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.

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

[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

[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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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?

[brainiac ghost1991]

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

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?

[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: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: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.

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?

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

[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: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.

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:Lawsuit?

[PhongUK]

She the founder?

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

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: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).