Rumor: Sony Fighting PS3 Piracy With Install Keys

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Anyone here remember Sony's rootkit virus they smuggled on to their products a couple years back? It was an anti piracy measure too, that turned out well for them. After they bought off the court trying the case that is.

This will only end very badly for them.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Any chances of me being interested in the PS3 has now sunk to 0%.

Give me one good reason to put up with this shit as a legitimate paying customer.
Just one.

 

[Paragon Fury]

No more rents or used?
"Wave goodbye to the PS3 kids."

The PS# is already dead.

Do you think people are really going to want keep playing on a game where every single game is likely to wind up like JTAG'd MW2?

 

[thepyrethatburns]

Dammit, Sony. This is why so many people take the side of the pirates or are willing to believe the EFF when they make blatently false scare-tactic claims.

Look, unless a game is a Must Buy (Example: Dissidia was so surprisingly good that I've preordered Duodecim), I rent or play a demo before I buy. You are already anti-demo for just about everything on PSN. (I was considering Dead Nation and Flower. Dead Nation doesn't have a demo. Flower does. Guess which one I bought.) Now, you're going to cut off the rental market in the hopes that I'll just buy your games blindly.

Seriously, it's like you don't even want to be in the console business anymore.

 

[DaHero]

This is the BEST IDEA EVAR! There is no possible way that this could be cracked!

Yeah anyone else detecting a hint of sarcasm in my alter-ego?

Seriously though, I'm waiting for Microsoft to try this, then Nintendo...all they need is the Piracy excuse and zip, out goes second hand games sales. Ultimately (and I am not elitist when I say this, I have reasons) everything will funnel back to where it started: The PC. PCs have third party digital distribution that also has sales constantly (Steam, Gamers Gate, GoGamer, Heck even Amazon is doing it now) which might...just maybe...mean better games? I don't think so, but if it's all being made for one singular device...

That or everyone turns to OnLive, in which case we're all doubly screwed.

 

[joshuaayt]

Hey, brilliant! I never expected such a savvy move.

These guys aren't fucking around- you see, first they taunt pirates with a ridiculous, paper thin defense that HAS PROVEN ITSELF TO BE USELESS on the PC, a platform known and even often avoided by publishers due to piracy issues, and then, just as the pirates are getting complacent- bam, phase 2!

I can't wait to see what their actual defense will be. Maybe, like, inbuilt lasers, or something.

 

[zmanu]

So the approval system is specific to each game? That's a hell of a system to implement.

Yep. Of course, developers would still be able to use static libraries provided by Sony, basically copy/pasting the bulk of the code. Just like there are off-the-shelf DRM solutions for PCs available. There is the obvious tradeoff: the more copy/pasted code you use for your security, the easier it is to crack; crackers just need to look for those well known bits of code.

Anyway, it still means every game made to date will be incredibly easy to pirate

Yes. That train is long gone, however. Nothing they can do would protect a disk pressed 2009 made for firmwares of 2009.

and even the ones released WITH this system will probably be cracked just like PC games

Very true. But the work still has to be done per game and the crack has to be distributed per game. The goal here is not to stop hardcore pirates; they will always find a way. It's the casuals they would be after with this hypothetical system. Right now, the state is that with the right CFW and an application you can go to your local store, rent any PS3 game for a day, copy it to your HD and play it as long as you like. If, on top of that, you also need to run a patch on the data on the HD, which needs to be either done by getting the patch code to run on the PS3 directly or moving the data to your PC, doing the work there, then moving everything back... I guess those are steps that drive some people away. Torrents can be pre-patched, but they are HUGE.

The big risk with this move, apart from the obvious customer alienation, is that it would effectively breed the game cracker culture on the PS3. And while you're at cracking a game, why not add cheats as well? Or unlock all the items you'd usually have to purchase? Sony may think they can sue them into non-existence, but yeah, that's another lesson to be learned from the PC side. Those guys are pretty good at keeping their cover.

 

[Waaghpowa]

For all those saying it will affect sales, I disagree. No matter how bad something gets there's always going to be some fanboys who'll defend it. Please refer to Zero Punctuation: Fable 3 where yahtzee commented on xbox fanboys. Also when the Xbox 360's were breaking down left and right multiple times a year, people still went out and bought a new one every time.

I personally stopped dealing with consoles in general once my xbox broke the second time in a year.

 

[Danpascooch]

So the approval system is specific to each game? That's a hell of a system to implement.

Yep. Of course, developers would still be able to use static libraries provided by Sony, basically copy/pasting the bulk of the code. Just like there are off-the-shelf DRM solutions for PCs available. There is the obvious tradeoff: the more copy/pasted code you use for your security, the easier it is to crack; crackers just need to look for those well known bits of code.

Anyway, it still means every game made to date will be incredibly easy to pirate

Yes. That train is long gone, however. Nothing they can do would protect a disk pressed 2009 made for firmwares of 2009.

and even the ones released WITH this system will probably be cracked just like PC games

Very true. But the work still has to be done per game and the crack has to be distributed per game. The goal here is not to stop hardcore pirates; they will always find a way. It's the casuals they would be after with this hypothetical system. Right now, the state is that with the right CFW and an application you can go to your local store, rent any PS3 game for a day, copy it to your HD and play it as long as you like. If, on top of that, you also need to run a patch on the data on the HD, which needs to be either done by getting the patch code to run on the PS3 directly or moving the data to your PC, doing the work there, then moving everything back... I guess those are steps that drive some people away. Torrents can be pre-patched, but they are HUGE.

The big risk with this move, apart from the obvious customer alienation, is that it would effectively breed the game cracker culture on the PS3. And while you're at cracking a game, why not add cheats as well? Or unlock all the items you'd usually have to purchase? Sony may think they can sue them into non-existence, but yeah, that's another lesson to be learned from the PC side. Those guys are pretty good at keeping their cover.

I think it's not worth it, considering it's going to get so many people so pissed at Sony that they will pirate when they might not have otherwise, plus, every game made before this system (which is the majority assuming the PS3 is past the halfway mark of its lifetime) will be still completely unprotected.

I think people will be getting the custom firmware in order to easily pirate all games to date, and once they have that, and the majority of the work is already done why wouldn't they seek out cracked copies of new releases? I'm sure they won't be hard to find.

 

[Saelune]

Hopefully these rumors were leaked by sony to gauge reactions and will thus realize the excessive stupidity of such a move and not do it. Otherwise the PS3 will actually lose the war of the consoles, no ifs ands or buts. Currently its just preference, but that would actually spell their official death.

 

[Saelune]

This is the BEST IDEA EVAR! There is no possible way that this could be cracked!

Yeah anyone else detecting a hint of sarcasm in my alter-ego?

Seriously though, I'm waiting for Microsoft to try this, then Nintendo...all they need is the Piracy excuse and zip, out goes second hand games sales. Ultimately (and I am not elitist when I say this, I have reasons) everything will funnel back to where it started: The PC. PCs have third party digital distribution that also has sales constantly (Steam, Gamers Gate, GoGamer, Heck even Amazon is doing it now) which might...just maybe...mean better games? I don't think so, but if it's all being made for one singular device...

That or everyone turns to OnLive, in which case we're all doubly screwed.

Well, Id bet Microsoft wont because if Sony does it and fails, they will realize they should not do it, not only because its stupid, but because they would already have the advantage of the downfall of Sony. Who do you think all the disgruntled PS3 gamers are going to reluctantly go to?

 

[Asuka Soryu]

So, does this mean I'd have to go online to register the game first, before I could load it?

 

[Asuka Soryu]

Why do consoles become more and more inconvenient?
The point of consoles is that you just stuff games into them and just play without all the bullshit PC users have to put up with.
If this becomes the status quo then we'll see how much "pc gaming is dying".

To quote, Pain:

"People are stupid".