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Why Sony Cannot Stop PS3 Pirates

Posted by Soulskill on from the of-pots-and-kettles dept.

Sam writes "A former Ubisoft exec believes that Sony will not be able to combat piracy on the PlayStation 3, which was recently hacked. Martin Walfisz, former CEO of Ubisoft subsidiary Ubisoft Massive, was a key player in developing Ubisoft's new DRM technologies. Since playing pirated games doesn't require a modchip, his argument is that Sony won't be able to easily detect hacked consoles. Sony's only possible solution is to revise the PS3 hardware itself, which would be a very costly process. Changing the hardware could possibly work for new console sales, though there would be the problem of backwards compatibility with the already-released games. Furthermore, current users would still be able to run pirated copies on current hardware." An anonymous reader adds commentary from PS3 hacker Mathieu Hervais about Sony's legal posturing.

5 of 378 comments (clear)

  1. Enough with the "Evil" hyperbole by Viol8 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Real evil is children being massacred in tribal wars, real evil is people being tortured in prison cells. Real evil is NOT a company trying to protect its profits no matter how much you dislike it.

    A PS3 is hardly a critical item to 21st century life. If you didn't like the way SOny played ball you shouldn't have bought one - vote with your wallet. I get tired of kids whining about how unfair it is that they can't do [some hacker thing] with [insert name of expensive consumer kit here]. Life is unfair - deal. That doesn't make it evil.

  2. Piracy..? by bhunachchicken · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What's all this talk about piracy? As far as I understood it, people were cracking the PS3 so that they could install Linux and run homebrew...

    --
    THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
  3. Re:Evil commenting on evil by pspahn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't think it's really ethical to force a firmware update on someone without giving them the chance to accept it or not. For whatever reasons there are, you should always allow the user to avoid a potential brick by letting them choose when to update.

    --
    Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
  4. Enough with one dimensional views of Evil by manekineko2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Goldman Sachs, Monsanto, BP, and many others thank you for your strict limitation on what "real" evil is.

    After all, they're just companies trying to protect their profits.

  5. Re:Evil commenting on evil by hjf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The noble response here would be to take your business elsewhere.

    Yeah? Where? All console makers charge the same price. I should just NOT play games? Should I resort to a Balero (Cup-and-ball) only because that's the "noble" thing to do?

    Perhaps that's considered too passive or cowardly where you are from. Maybe your culture expects a more active response.

    You, as an american, don't have the moral authority to say that. America is all about suing your way through life. You don't like something? Sue away!