Rumor: Sony Fighting PS3 Piracy With Install Keys

[Weaver]

you what? guessing you haven't bought anything for pc lately. we get boned with a 10-20% rrp increase.

[small]of course we can always get that five finger discount from bittorrent. [/small]

I only buy games on sale, generally on steam. I find within 6 months of release games have appreciable discounts. On consoles even 2 years after release on plenty of games the price is the same or only a few dollars cheaper.

 

[milkkart]

you what? guessing you haven't bought anything for pc lately. we get boned with a 10-20% rrp increase.

[small]of course we can always get that five finger discount from bittorrent. [/small]

I only buy games on sale, generally on steam. I find within 6 months of release games have appreciable discounts. On consoles even 2 years after release on plenty of games the price is the same or only a few dollars cheaper.

afaik thats generally to steer you towards that big shelf marked 'pre-owned' heaving with massive juicy profit margins for the shop. also maybe its different where you are but here a year from release you're looking at at least £10-15 off a new copy, which is still a bit of a rip off compared to the £20-30 off a second hand copy.

 

[Stormz]

If it's true, I won't be buying a ps3 that's for sure. After 5 installs your 70$ game becomes unplayable? interesting idea.

 

[Adzma]

The funny thing is, none of this would have happened had they not overreacted and removed OtherOS. Removing that one feature pissed off a lot of people, as will this key system if it turns out to be true.

 

[Dys]

[HEADING=1]*repeated face desks*[/HEADING]

SONY, JUST LET IT GO!

They won't, this is the company that destroyed their flagship mobile phone (the xperia x10) because they were so afraid of people discovering exploits in the bootloader they refused to make the promised updates publicly available. Sony are their own worst enemy.

....It's a real shame, too....I rather like my ps3.

That is an absolutely incredible idea . . . . . to effectively kill the sale of PS3 games. I understand Sony is still butt hurt the only reason anyone bought a PSP was to play emulators and other means of free games but the PS3 is in no danger of seeing any kind of real piracy on the level of the PC, PSP, Xbox 360 or even the Wii for that matter. I've looked into modding a PS3 due to ummmm "my deep love of linux" *snicker* and it's just not worth the effort.

They are obviously idiots for considering this DRM, but with the root key, it's going to be just as easy to pirate for the PS3 as anything else (except probably computer).

I disagree. Unless you have a Blu Ray burner or the technical know how to transfer files from your PC to your PS3

The PS3 has a standard 2.5" HDD in it. It can be easily taken out and connected to a SATA port, or even an E-sata port if you had an adapter. It would be a trivial matter to store games on it, a 500gb HDD costs less than the cost of a single game[footnote]In Australia....$110au (~$110US) for a PS3 game, really puts the absurd cost in perspective.[/footnote]. Also, PS3 games don't take up the full space on bluray disc (except for a select few), so would could fit a huge number of games on a HDD (they would also load faster than games that aren't installed to the hdd).

 

[Danpascooch]

Let's look at the things these annoying as fuck registration codes don't cover (as in, offer ZERO DEFENSE AGAINST).

Method 1: Custom Firmware.

Not quite as simple. If they really do this, the code checks are likely going to be on the game disks. Which means that, just like on the PC, each game needs to be cracked separately. Someone has to do the work, and right now, the number of people willing to do that is much, much smaller than the number of active crackers on the PC. And any users would have to download a modified package from the crackers, which are criminals and may steal your PSN ID. Which has your credit card data stored in it. It does have a chance of slowing down casual pirates. But, of course, other checks done by the games themselves would do the same thing. Like, call undocumented syscalls with random data. The real firmware does nothing on that (well, future firmware shouldn't, at least), but the CFW has poke functions added there somewhere, and random pokes are not something a system survives for too long.

I think the rumor is half true. They'll definitely do something extra outside of firmware updates. Something that only targets piracy. I hope they're smart enough not to do exactly what the rumor claims, but yeah, it's Sony, masters of the worst April Fools prank ever. But one thing is use: fail0verflow and geohot would certainly not help working around systems like that.

It's impossible to have the checks be on the disc, if a database of the correct serials were on the disc to check against, the whole endeavor would be pointless, perhaps even more pointless than it is now.

The most that could possibly be on the disc is a piece of code that waits for the system to say "yep, serial checks out" which can be done with (drumroll please) custom firmware! Which could just automatically send the approval notice every time you insert anything.

 

[Sandytimeman]

Wow I'm really glad I don't own a PS3. DS? Yes, DS3D YES PLEASE! PS3, I'll pass thank you very much. I mean seriously, after hearing about them removing 3rd party OS support, and then having a cow over the protection hack...just makes me shy away from the company as a whole.

 

[RicoADF]

I was kind of thinking about getting the PS3 because of the free online dealio. No, getting an Xbox Sony.

How about waiting to confirm this is true? Its a rumor, and not even from a reliable source.
If true then Sony is just shooting itself in the foot, its having enough trouble getting players from the 360 and they know pulling a stunt like this that would be so universally hated would set them back to where they started.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

It better not be one key for each user or I'm fucked.

 

[Darth_Dude]

Can't you pirate 360 games? How did Microsoft deal with it?

 

[Asehujiko]

This kind of move would be akin to a person, who tried to destroy a tank with a handgun, running out of bullets and instead thinking that throwing rocks will work.

Heh...I mean...damn.

...and is killing people with the ricochets. And the tank is basically doing it's own thing completely disconnected from the actual customers despite persistent rumors that it eats babies when nobody is looking.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

Hah, if this happens and becomes widespread enough to leak over to platforms I own, I guess I'll only be buying budget releases. I can't afford new game prices and think they're massively inflated. Since I do so much of my buying used (wait a month and you can usually get a game for half off-it's just good business for $60 big releases where you know the dev doesn't NEED the money to stay afloat), implementation of this strategy now or at any later date could affect my purchasing habits quite a bit.

And you know, PC game developers don't have to care as much, but while places like GS are putrid cesspools, many game developers benefit by having GS carry their products. Distribution is a big part of making a profit. GS has chased almost everyone out of the business, so it's often them or nobody. If game developers aren't willing to treat the used game market decently (it IS where game stores make most of their profit), then why would the store want to carry those products? GS has serious leverage here, which sucks because I hate them so much.

Used games also create and circulate interest in new games. Did you ever hear about an expensive new game that was coming out, and it was a sequel or prequel to another game people said was good? Did you ever, maybe, go pick that original game up (used, because you can't buy it new) based on the fact the new one was coming out and you figured you'd see if the first one was good? The used game costs less, so for many people it makes an attractive entry into the series. If it's good, that game dev may have won a loyal customer for future new products along the same line.

There will always be a used market for anything that has value. Actively trying to hurt customers is not the way to handle this. In fact, given the technical issues of current-gen consoles, limited installs would be about the worst feature I can think of. Imagine a 3-install limit on the 360. How freaking insane would that be?

 

[Deathlyphil]

Can't you pirate 360 games? How did Microsoft deal with it?

As far as I know, MS ban players accounts and/or consoles from using live. You can still run games on them and watch dvds, but you don't get any of the online stuff at all. You usually hear about this just before a big release, like a Halo or Gears game.

OT - the only way to reduce piracy is to offer a service that they can't get. Like enter this code and get the first 2 DLCs for free (on a per game case). No internet connection? Then simply send a copy of the code and we'll send you a disc with the DLC.

Or what about the Devs releasing a gimped version "by accident" to flood the torrents. Arkum Asylum did something very similar. In the torrented version Batman couldn't jump, so most of the game was inaccessable. It worked more as demo than anything else.

There are many ways we can deal with piracy. It's such a same that Sony is acting like a baby and throwing all it's toys out of it's pram.

 

[Deathlyphil]

Total sidenote here.

I have a launch PS3 that hasn't been updated since the removal of Other OS was announced, and the last game I bought was FFXIII. What features am I actually missing out on by not updating? Not counting new games, of course. From what I can see, my un-upgraded (and PS2 compatible) PS3 can do so much more than newer ones.

 

[Baneat]

I don't think the population that have the incentive to pirate a 40GB game , having hacked the shit out of their console is large enough to justify this. Also, keygen?

 

[Kaymish]

i think that consoles have and advantage when looking at copy protection schemes used in the PC that might make them a little more effective on the PC you have to dick around with key generators and or cracked .exe's and what not and all of that is more difficult on a console
however im not convinced that Sony is even going to bother not enough PS3's are on the net to justify it and i doubt the piracy is bad enough to risk the up roar it will cause and the piracy that is there are hardcore pirates that cant be stopped short of writing in a flag for the software that tracks them for lawsuit or console ban

 

[zmanu]

It's impossible to have the checks be on the disc, ... The most that could possibly be on the disc is a piece of code that waits for the system to say "yep, serial checks out"

No. How do you think the PC games handle this? There's no builtin serial firmware check there. Instead, the code on the disk first does some checksum algorithm on the serial to check it's in the right format (that's the part that can be circumvented by keygens), then uses OS functions to communicate with a central server, passes the key and receives the 'go' signal from there if the key is in the valid key database. All that is encrypted with game-specific keys and again using code on the disk, so your ability to intercept the communication is useless because you can neither read nor modify it to generate the correct 'ok' signal yourself if everything is done right. You need to crack the game itself then.

Things do start to fall apart if the whole system is supposed to also work offline. On the PC, they read your exact configuration and things like MAC addresses so you can't just move an installation from one PC to the other. The configuration is mostly useless on the PS3 because there are so many identical systems out there, and reading out serial numbers... Well, yeah, it may be possible to have the code on the disk read that directly from the hardware without calling firmware functions, but direct hardware access is one of the things the PS3 security architecture prevents, so it's probably not. And I bet modifying the firmware so it can report different serial numbers to anyone who asks (PSN, specifically) than your console actually has is something that will be worked on sooner or later anyway.

 

[Piflik]

The second Sony introduces Online Activation to their games, I start pirating...

 

[blind_dead_mcjones]

wait, so not only is everyone getting their knickers in a twist over an unsubstansiated rumour, but rather than blame the pirates for creating the kind of situation where this might happen, everyone decides to bash the company instead

good to see where everyones priorities are /sarcasm.

 

[Macgyvercas]

Anyone got the Darth Vader "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" button.

I think it is required in this instance...

Here ya go, man [http://nooooooooooooooo.com/]

OT: Seriously, these "you can only install X times" things are fucking stupid.