Sony Taking Down PSP Titles In Response To Vita Hackers

Carlos Rodriguez writes "The hacker community has found a way to make the Vita run unsigned code by exploiting weaknesses in PSP games available for download in the PSN store. In response, Sony has made the affected games unavailable for download for all platforms — PSP and Vita both — even if you had already paid for it and hadn't had the chance to download it yet. In the case of 'Everybody's Tennis', the game was removed from the PSN worldwide after the modder community bragged about the game being exploitable but before any exploit was released for it. Is Sony being too overzealous in its fight against piracy?"

Comments

This is Sony

[crazyjj]

For those not familiar with this company, who may ask "But won't they lose money if they take down the games?", let me give you some background. This is a company that would rather pull EVERY game on PSN than to lose even the slightest bit of control over their locked-down system. This is a company that will infect their CD's with viruses to prevent copying, a company that repeatedly kills its own platforms with its insistence on proprietary formats, a company that doesn't care if your old blu-ray player plays the latest blu-rays or not--a company that will remove any feature, cripple any platform, pull any game, destroy any product line--all to maintain control. If Sony were faced tomorrow morning with the choice between risking people copying even one of their movies and bulldozing the entire PSP line into a landfill, they would have that landfill full before the sun went down.

This is what happens when you allow a media producer to mix in the same company with the producer of the hardware that plays said media.

Re:This is Sony

[Anonymous Coward]

What always confuses me is why anybody ever buys anything from Sony. They started to go mental in the mid-90's, and then went full retard in the early '00's. At this point surely you'd have to be a masochist to willingly purchase a Sony product and subject yourself to such treatment?

Re:This is Sony

[LordLimecat]

For the record, it was a rootkit, not a virus. The terms are already muddy as all getout, but there IS a difference.

Re:This is Sony

[Dhalka226]

Not that I am defending their actions, but I do wonder if there is something cultural going on. Is there something in particular about Japanese culture that encourages that degree of control (or perhaps "order")?

The extents to which they are willing to go seem extreme, even compared to other companies who are charter members aboard the DRM bandwagon. Is there something more to it than just "Sony = teh sux?"

Re:This is Sony

[crazyjj]

You're the guy at the office who goes apeshit whenever someone plays Alanis Morissette's "Ironic" aren't you?

Re:This is Sony

[jythie]

Money is just tokenized power, control is another. Powerful people seek, well, power, and being able to control how people use what you sell gives just as much of a high has making lots of money off of it. That power then translates to respect within your community, which results in promotions and options at other companies.

In other words, once you realize that the motivations are not corporate profit but instead individual advancement and status, such behavior seems a lot less insane. This is also the core of the MPAA/RIAA's behavior, both are industries where careers are made or broken by reputation, so control/power are more important to the individual then group profit.

Re:This is Sony

[crazyjj]

At least we no longer have to face the disturbing prospect of Steve Jobs taking over as Sony CEO. Surely that would have produced a future that would make Mad Max seem charming by comparison.

Re:This is Sony

[Anonymous Coward]

really? i find their TV's to be over priced for what is delivered. The quality is good, but samsung makes comprable displays for 60-70% the cost.

Re:This is Sony

[Lonewolf666]

Well, I would not trust Sony with anything that has a processor and might need a firmware update at some point.

They have, however, made some pretty decent analog equipment in the past. I still have an old set of walkman headphones that works fine and sounds good after 20 years. The only thing I had to replace at some point were the ear pads.

Re:This is Sony

[Anrego]

The group of people who understand the nature of Sony, the relevance of this kind of behavior, or care at all is relatively small.

Lest we forget, after the PSN hack and all that personal info got stolen, the absolute loudest cry was from gamers who wanted the PSN back up ASAP. The people who understood the nature of Sony's fuckup and that a huge chunk of their personal info just got stolen make up a very tiny portion of Sony's customer base.

In addition to that, people are just plain used to companies being evil. It just happens that Sony is evil in a way that is particularily relevant to us. It's important to remind ourselves that the rest of the world really doesn't care about this stuff.

Re:This is Sony

[Nerdfest]

You buy from Sony *and* Apple and say you're not a masochist? They're the two biggest offenders when it comes to control of content, proprietary formats and connectors and abuse of customers. You may be in denial.

Re:This is Sony

[gman003]

Note, however, that Nintendo is from a different region of Japan (Kyoto), with a significantly different culture.

Think of the difference between a New York City company, and a Boston company, or perhaps a New Orleans company. It's... something like that.

From what I can tell, Kyoto is much more conservative and traditional, but also more rural and more... relaxed, I suppose. They have a different accent (kansai-ben), which loosely corresponds to either a southern accent, or a boston accent, at least culturally.

There's also the fact that Nintendo is now effectively run by the game developers - Miyamoto is still a Senior Managing Director, and Iwata (the President) worked on Earthbound and Kirby as a programmer. Sony, meanwhile, is run by businessmen, for business.

Re:This is Sony

[Anrego]

The OtherOS is actually a perfect example.

In this community we heard about it non-stop for what feels like years. Outside this community, no one really cared. Yes Sony lost some business, but even if everyone who could explain in a sentence what the OtherOS thing was about stopped buying Sony, it would probably be a tiny blip on the profit statement.

Same with the geohotz thing. Huge deal to us, non-issue for most. The rootkit thing is the closest Sony ever came to doing something that actually pissed of a large chunk of their users with an issue (outside the PSN thing, but again, people were upset for the wrong reason).. and even that most people wern't mad enough to swear of Sony products forever.. it was more of an amused "well that was naughty of them" response from the vast majority of people.

Re:This is Sony

[Kohath]

Funny - I have a Sony clock radio and when I put my iPod in there, it plays music. It also wakes me up in the morning at the time I set on the alarm.

It secretly hates you. It's just biding it's time. It's probably playing subliminal messages to you while you sleep, to hypnotize you into buying a new one in 5 or 6 years because the old one seemed to work correctly for that entire time. It's unbelievably insidious.

Re:This is Sony

[tlhIngan]

The OtherOS is actually a perfect example.

In this community we heard about it non-stop for what feels like years. Outside this community, no one really cared. Yes Sony lost some business, but even if everyone who could explain in a sentence what the OtherOS thing was about stopped buying Sony, it would probably be a tiny blip on the profit statement.

Same with the geohotz thing. Huge deal to us, non-issue for most. The rootkit thing is the closest Sony ever came to doing something that actually pissed of a large chunk of their users with an issue (outside the PSN thing, but again, people were upset for the wrong reason).. and even that most people wern't mad enough to swear of Sony products forever.. it was more of an amused "well that was naughty of them" response from the vast majority of people.

OtherOS was perfect. Microsoft learned with their Xbox what happens when hackers and pirates share a common goal - one inevitably helps the other. In that case, the Xbox-Linux folks found vulnerabilities that they told Microsoft about, in exchange for a legit way of running Linux. Microsoft rebuffed them, and Xbox Linux released their installation tools. The pirates siezed upon that and Xbox piracy was born.

OtherOS was the same - those who wanted homebrew had a perfect outlet for it, and busy playing there meant the pirates really didn't have much they could do since homebrew in OtherOS was restricted.

But remove OtherOS and all of a sudden those hackers had to break into GameOS to run Linux... and now that GameOS was broken, pirates could come in with ISO loaders. And then researchers came in and studied the hacks and realized what else they could do until ti cascaded to the point where the keys were discovered.

The Xbox360 has suffered piracy attacks, but also has a homebrew avenue (XNA studio). The interesting thing is while there's piracy on the Xbox, the integrity of the system hasn't been compromised - you cannot plug a modded Xbox into Xbox Live because the dashboard is signed and reports back to Microsoft, and unsigned dashboards don't really run.

PSN though is another story - with the master keys available, the whole "trust the client" part of PSN doesn't exist anymore, and you can get CFW's for PS3 that let you play ISOs AND get on PSN.

And all of it happened within a year of Sony removing OtherOS. Hell, the PSN hack was just over a year later (April 1, 2010 - OtherOS was removed. Aprile 2011 - PSN hacked).

You know, if Sony continually does this, one could make the Vita's PSN ability worthless if games keep getting removed.

I understand Sony's reluctance about piracy, given it helped speed the demise of the PSP, but perhaps if Sony wasn't so greedy on the PSP on the first place. Like how UMD videos could get full 60fps video decode, while memory stick videos could only do 30fps (later fixed). Or how an "install to memory stick" feature wasn't implemented to allow loading UMD games off faster memory stick. (Sony could use MagicGate to lock the UMD image to one PSP and require the UMD to be present to play the game, negating piracy fears a la the Xbox 360). But they didn't, and CFW made the whole PSP experience far better - the benefits of loading games from memory stick meant less loading screens to wait through, full res full framerate videos, etc.

Too overzealous?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean overzealous? Or Too zealous?

Re:Too overzealous?

[gman003]

Sony goes so far as to require *two* modifiers saying "they're going too far". Just "overzealous" doesn't cut it - they're too overzealous.

Are they going to repost after fixing?

[Anonymous Coward]

If so.....then they did the right thing and I don't see the problem here.

If, on the other hand, they just never put them back up and don't refund the people who purchased these games.....then there's a problem.

Oh boy...

[JustAnotherIdiot]

Here come all the OMG SONY SUCKS people.
Guys, they're a company out to make profit, and they're going to put the game back up in time.
ANY company would do the same thing if suddenly they're product they were expecting revenue from was suddenly able to be accessed for free.
I'm not discounting that Sony does a lot of scummy stuff, but is not one of them in my eyes.

I'm going to take such a huge karma hit for this comment, how dare I go against the flow.

Re:Oh boy...

[betterunixthanunix]

Guys, they're a company out to make profit, and they're going to put the game back up in time.

Kind of like how Apple still has all those pornography apps in its app store? Sometimes companies think that can realize greater profits by basically screwing their customers, and there is every reason to think that Sony is such a company.

I'm not discounting that Sony does a lot of scummy stuff, but is not one of them in my eyes.

So just hearing a rumor that a particular game might have a bug that could be exploited is now enough to pull the game? Interesting definition of "not scummy..."

Thanks for educating people Sony

[RichMan]

Sony is educating millions on the power of Digital Rights Management (DRM). The more educated, informed and angry people we have the better.

I am sure Sony's licensing agreement says "Sony does not have to provide anything for your money". I would love to see the lawsuits flame up over this. Of course the agreement will also say "contests to the agreement must happen in East Texas(or whichever jurisdiction is most favorable to Sony)" and that that the customer waives the right to class actions lawsuits.

If you are being shafted by Sony on this sorry, see if you can get a class action lawsuit going and buts that "customer (dis)agreement. If you are not being shafted by Sony, lets thank Sony for the education on DRM it is providing to a wide range of the public.

I can't imagine...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't imagine why Sony would possibly have a corporate culture of paranoia regarding security issues.

And yet again

[Pi1grim]

Way to go Sony, that ought to teach those pesky customers of yours!

Actually, I think Stallman should thank Sony for reenacting every scary story he is telling when explaining horrors of verdor lock-ins and proprietary format traps. This ought to stick it to those, who kept saying that no company would be suicidal enough to treat their customers this way.

Sony used to be a respected company

[mrpacmanjel]

Wow! Back in the day (70s-80s) Sony made some cool stuff - I'm talking about Trinitron tvs, open-reel tape machines and awesome stereos. The quality was amazing. A popular "rule-of-thumb" was you can gauge the quality of a CRT-based telly was how heavy it was - Sony was always heaviest!!!! Until some competitors were caught adding lead(?) weights into the tv box!!

Sony is a sad shadow of it's former self.

Well done Sony you are on the road to utter irrelevance.

Re:DoS idea

[gman003]

Brilliant plan.

*ahem* Personally, I've found exploits in the following games:
Army Corps of Hell
Asphalt Injection
BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend
Disgaea 3: Absence of Detention
Dream Club Zero Portable
Dungeon Hunter: Alliance
Everybody's Golf 6
F1 2011
Little Deviants
Lord of Apocalypse
Michael Jackson: The Experience
Ridge Racer
Shinobido 2: Tales of the Ninja
Touch My Katamari
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3
Uncharted: Golden Abyss
Virtua Tennis 4: World Tour Edition
Wipeout 2048
Tales of Innocence R
A-men
Ragnarok Odyssey
Gravity Rush
Sumioni: Demon Arts
FIFA Football
Rayman Origins
ModNation Racers: Road Trip
Lumines Electronic Symphony
Hustle Kings
Escape Plan
Dynasty Warriors Next
Super Stardust Delta
Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward
Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack
Ben 10: Galactic Racing
Reality Fighters
Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus
MotorStorm: RC
Plants vs. Zombie
Top Darts
MLB 12: The Show
Lego Harry Potter: Years 5–7
Unit 13
Little Busters! Converted Edition

Your move, Sony

I won't touch their hardware, either

[KingSkippus]

I'm not a fan of their hardware, either. In 2000, I bought a Sony home theater system, thinking I was getting good quality with the "good" brand. Within a few months, the DVD changer got jammed and I couldn't watch any DVDs on it. It was under warranty so I sent it in to be repaired. They kept it for almost two months. I was absolutely livid. When they finally sent it back, it had a nasty scratch down the left side, and the icing on the cake was that it STILL didn't work! So I unplugged the thing, stuck it right back in the box that I had just gotten it out of, and sent it back. I waited a few more weeks, finally got it back, and this time it worked, though I was still pissed off at the scratch.

Within a month after the anniversary date of my purchase, all of a sudden, the center channel speaker started making this hideous noise. It wasn't the speaker, it was the port on the system the speaker was plugged into. If I swapped it out with a different speaker, the different speaker made the noise. I couldn't hear crap, so I called them back up. They said they'd be happy to repair it--for a few hundred bucks. I explained that although more than a calendar year had passed since I bought the thing, it had been in their repair facilities for over two of those twelve months, and I felt that they should give me credit for that time and repair the thing for free. They refused to budge.

So I unplugged the damn thing, hauled it to an electronics recycling center, and swore never to knowingly buy another piece of Sony hardware again. I had such a bitter taste in my mouth from the experience that I didn't even buy a replacement component; to this day, I just use the speakers on my television. Wow, things sure have changed since the days I wrote a script to hit Amazon's site and page me when a PS2 was available so that I could get one on launch day. After all of the other crap that's gone down, the root kit, the other OS option, the PSN hackage, the filesharing lawsuits, stories like this hitting WAY too often... I used to be a Sony fan, but for ten years now, and for the foreseeable future, I wouldn't use their stuff even if someone gave it to me for free. Which is a shame for Sony, since in the past ten years I've finally gotten enough disposable income to afford fancy electronics. And as the techno-geek in my family and circle of friends, I've also advised many consumers with money in hand to avoid their stuff.

Re:I won't touch their hardware, either

[Hatta]

I'm still using a Sony amp from the 80s. Goes to show you what a decade or two of corporate greed can do.

Re:It hurts

[GameboyRMH]

People said the same thing about MS and Apple, the problem is that most consumers have a nasty case of beaten wife syndrome.

Re:How is Apple a bigger offender than Nintendo?

[gorzek]

To explore this a little bit, consider that Nintendo is a gaming company. Everything they do is centered around producing video game consoles and games to play on them. As long as the devices they sell can do that, I imagine most people don't care that they are locked down. Plus, it's not like you can do homebrew/hacking any more easily on the Sony or Microsoft systems.

Apple, on the other hand, sells more general "lifestyle" devices. The iPhone isn't just a phone--it's a media device, it's a portable game console, it's a web client, etc. etc. And given that it is advertised to have those capabilities, I think it's fair for some to cry foul at the fact that even though the device can do a lot of things (and is advertised thusly by Apple), it can only do them Apple's way, for no good reason except that Apple wants to maintain strict control over the platform.

Granted, most people don't care how hackable and open a particular device is, and I just avoid this whole issue by not purchasing Apple products. But I don't think the comparison to Nintendo is valid, because Nintendo sells devices for very specific purposes, and Apple's control of the iPhone is criticized because it is a more general-purpose device, intentionally crippled to serve Apple's interests.