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

[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.

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.

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.

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.