Sony Threatens to Ban PS3 Hackers Forever

[Baresark]

How about you stop bitching about the ps3 and look at it from sony's point of view. Sure you may prefer the other options and not play hacked games, but how are they to know that? Piracy is gonna be costing them thousands if not millions of dollars and they are taking measures to minimise those losses. If your so pissed about the ps3 features and/or games get a PC or 360.

Actually, from Sony's point of view, they are not going to be losing much money at all. No one will stop producing games for them because no one suffers any real discernible losses from piracy. At very least they can only speculate losses and have no means of realizing any real numbers.

OT: In the firmware hacking I support the hackers all the way. 'Tis a little thing called freedom

I am sick of hackers trying to hide behind this bullshit.

Hackers are not some brave freedom fighters trying to overthrow the evil corporate forces that prevent people around the world from having fun, they are just some self entitled dipshits that use lame excuses like "freedom" to do as they please no matter how many rules or laws they brake.

Yes, there are a handful of people that only use stuff like homebrew for home made games and some other ok software, but those are in the minority.

You have no way of knowing the numbers of people who use CFW to enhance their gaming experience without actually stealing anything. Every CFW that has shown up for the PS3 has always started without having the ability to play backup games. Then others come along and change that. But you shouldn't support kindergarten politics, it hurts everyone.

OT: Realistically, I don't think anyone didn't see this coming. I am frankly surprised that it took so long. By doing this they will actually bolster sales though, so you can't blame them. There are a bunch of people who will go out and buy a second system just to safely play the handful of titles that are worth it.

I honestly wish these companies would stop attacking the people they that buy their products.

As a side note: This isn't about cheating and working your way up on the game boards, it's about custom firmware. It's not even about PIRACY. Sony isn't going to lose money if a game gets pirated. Every game ripping group out there says the same thing, if you like the game buy it.

And what if you already own a legitimate copy of the game? Why isn't it like emulation where you are allowed to do it as long as you own a physical copy of the game? Too hard I guess.

 

[Natdaprat]

This war with pirates is rather amusing. Sony will not win, pirates are here to stay, just adapt is the best you can do.

 

[Unrulyhandbag]

What about my ability to use any harddrive I want?

what? I pulled a bigger hard drive out of my laptop and put it in my PS3 on the day I bought the damn thing.
Probably the single most painless hardware install I've ever done: pull cover, remove screw, pull hard drive, insert hard drive, replace cover, power on and wait for the format to finish. When did they change that?

Losing Linux was a blow, not getting the PS\PS2 emulator properly fixed was a blow but if the slims have none standard hard drives as well, as all the other bits they had lopped off, then the consumer has really been shafted by Sony.

OT: So long as the ban is done on a visit to the PSN and doesn't affect normal use then who gives a damn.
Having an update brick your machine ( or steal your other OS! ) would be horrific regardless what you did to it but access to the PSN is not needed to get enjoyment from the machine. Personally it won't affect me, false positives aside, so crack on Sony.

 

[Jumplion]

People don't seem to get the big picture, and that picture is nobody wins.

I'll keep saying it as long as I have to, Sony releases a firmware update to combat pirates. Hackers circumvent them, making Sony paranoid and then releasing another firmware. Hackers circumvent that, and Sony releases another firmware. Again and again and again, ad nausem.

And who's in the center of all this? The consumer, getting screwed with with firmware, and getting slapped with DRM.

Know what I propose? A hackers license or something. There is a distinct difference between Hackers and Pirates that people always point out in these articles. You've got the hackers who just want to customize their hardware to a certain extent, and that's reasonable to an extent. Then you've got the pirates who want to pirate games because they're too much of a cheapass and don't know the concept of saving. Maybe hackers could provide some information and purchase a license from Sony for, say $20, $50, that would mark their PSN account in their system as "LEGITIMATE HACKER" or something like that.

It's idealistic, and probably wouldn't work, but still.

 

[Bloodstain]

Well here's a suggestion.

How about, anyone who doesn't like being told what they are allowed to do with their $300 product they purchased in good faith with expectations of being able to do with it what they want simply not BUY your system Sony?

Well, this. To an extend, it's Sony's own fault. Don't remove loved features, Sony.
But oh well, doesn't affect me anyway, I don't own a PS3.

 

[Antari]

Ya this is going to go over well. I wonder how many innocent users are going to get caught up in this massive amount of stupidity.

 

[Baresark]

So up until now pirated games could still be played online?
Well then Sony you are a bit slow to the party...

Not exclusively. As soon as a game could be played online, they would release a new OFW, which stopped it for a while. But there is a method now that lets you get past (subjectively) every future OFW.

I have taken to long on the post, for cats must be fed, needy little buggers.

My final thoughts are this, no one customer, no 1000 customers are hurt by piracy. It doesn't drive up the cost of the games. And how much damage it does to a publisher is actually up to debate. For instance, if a game is pirated 20k times, that isn't 20k less sales, but it's also not 20k sales. You can take the bad with the good and enjoy yourself, or you can get really pissed off and rage every time you hear about piracy. No matter how much people hate it, it's not going away. So we should simply not worry about it. I am glad that so many people honestly buy the games that are our there, but you hurt only yourself by getting mad about it. It doesn't stop pirates, it doesn't increase sales, it only raises your blood pressure.

 

[UbarElite]

It'll be interesting as soon as they get their first false-positive.

Yeah...Whether you believe in the death penalty or not, I think the argument of accidentally killing an innocent person has significant weight.

Now Sony is going to permanently ban those they suspect of piracy...I suppose in this case it could at least be appealed, but, if it comes down to that, they probably already view you as a pirate anyway, and I don't see them having much sympathy.

 

[sosolidshoe]

Why wouldn't you give hackers a life-time ban? Why is this even a threat and not just obvious statements? Just do it. Nao.

Don't be so naive, this has nothing to do with preserving the quality of the online experience, this is Sony covering their extremely exposed arse before the lawsuit against them for removing "OtherOS" gets to court. They've had the ability to do this since the launch of the console, but we're supposed to buy into the idea that only now, with a court case right around the corner, has hacking online games or piracy become enough of a problem that Sony needs to bring out the banhammer? Bullshit.

 

[Cherry Cola]

Why wouldn't you give hackers a life-time ban? Why is this even a threat and not just obvious statements? Just do it. Nao.

Don't be so naive, this has nothing to do with preserving the quality of the online experience, this is Sony covering their extremely exposed arse before the lawsuit against them for removing "OtherOS" gets to court. They've had the ability to do this since the launch of the console, but we're supposed to buy into the idea that only now, with a court case right around the corner, has hacking online games or piracy become enough of a problem that Sony needs to bring out the banhammer? Bullshit.

How would an acknowledgment that hacking is getting out of hand help their case in any way? "Oops, we're sorry, it turns out that taking away the OtherOS feature didn't stop people hacking... Do we win now?"

Your logic totally makes sense.

 

[tautologico]

Actually, from Sony's point of view, they are not going to be losing much money at all. No one will stop producing games for them because no one suffers any real discernible losses from piracy. At very least they can only speculate losses and have no means of realizing any real numbers.

I honestly wish these companies would stop attacking the people they that buy their products.

As a side note: This isn't about cheating and working your way up on the game boards, it's about custom firmware. It's not even about PIRACY. Sony isn't going to lose money if a game gets pirated. Every game ripping group out there says the same thing, if you like the game buy it.

Saying that there are no losses and no one loses money from piracy is as naive as saying that each pirated copy means a lost sale. Ripping groups saying to people to buy the game won't make them do so. And remember that this is a global affair. Anyone, anywhere in the world, can jailbreak their PS3 and play pirated games. While in developed markets where people have more money, it may not cause all that much trouble, in other markets, where people have less money or are more used to pirate stuff, it will mean huge losses.

I know, because where I live most people are quite used to piracy and rarely buy an original copy, even if they can afford it. Here, the PS3 was the only console people couldn't buy pirated games for, so they bought original games. Now the PS3 jailbreak is all the craze here.

Yes, companies do lose money because of piracy. In some cases, it may not affect legit sales very much, but in others, it can really hamper sales of the original games.

 

[Artorius]

Why wouldn't you give hackers a life-time ban? Why is this even a threat and not just obvious statements? Just do it. Nao.

well it seems sony is giving them a second chance. to format the hd and revert to ofw. and play fair xD. they are not bad as microsoft it seems.

 

[Iglock]

How about you stop bitching about the ps3 and look at it from sony's point of view. Sure you may prefer the other options and not play hacked games, but how are they to know that? Piracy is gonna be costing them thousands if not millions of dollars and they are taking measures to minimise those losses. If your so pissed about the ps3 features and/or games get a PC or 360.

Technically, piracy doesn't "cost" them anything. Pirated games are available for free- no money is involved.
You could argue that they're losing "potential" sales, but then what percentage of people who pirate games would have actually bought those games if they weren't able to pirate them for free? It definitely wouldn't be 100%. Probably not even 50%.

Anyway, that's kind of irrelevant.
The point is I feel that Sony are concentrating far too much on punishing anyone who looks even remotely like they might be a "pirate".
What they should be doing is offering a better service and rewards for buying the official products. That way, not only would they have happier customers, they'd also be able to get some percentage of "pirates" buying their official products. A win-win situation.

For example.
I have CFW on my PSP. I do not play pirated games on it. I mainly use it to play ripped, digital copies of my old (legally bought) ps1 games.
At the moment the only way I can play most of these games is through CFW (most of the games aren't available on the European PSN store and those that are I'm reluctant to buy for a second time, considering I already legally own the games).
If Sony could offer me an official way of ripping my old games for use on my PSP- I would.
Even if I could just get, say a 50% discount on the digital versions for already owning physical copies of the games- I would still be willing to pay for them!

If Sony offered this, I would definitely stop using CFW, make a PSN account and start buying their games.

Sony needs to stop viewing all "pirates" or modders as a deadly threat, and start viewing them more as potential customers.

Oh and I don't own a PS3, just a PSP and PC.

 

[Madman123456]

Sony removed the "other OS" Option, which might have been one of the Reasons People bought this thing. Because they could screw with this thing *without* "hacking". You could play around with it perfectly legally and play your ps3 games. But now that you bought the console, Sony wants you to get rid of the OS you like better then the normal one, otherwise they will ban you.
And some of you People even want to ban them directly without even informing them that they don't like their OS.
I have a Friend who bought the PS3 because it was the cheapest Bluray player at the time. After awhile, he bought some games because his bluray player also plays games, might as well use that.

He didn't hack it, which is lucky i guess. Now he plays some more PS3 games. He doesn't keep up with the news much, so its entirely possible that he would have started up a game once only to discover that he had been banned from PSN.

Quite a lot of People bought the PS3 as a bluray player because when it started, it really was the cheapest blu ray player around.
The Interface is somewhat questionable and i can understand why one would get another OS for the thing.

The alternative OS is not only for pirating. Sony doesn't care much apparently, because in order to make a vain attempt to stop piracy, they will attack paying customers.
This will probably turn out to be another attack against customers while doing little to nothing to pirates.

 

[hansari]

How about you stop bitching about the ps3 and look at it from sony's point of view. Sure you may prefer the other options and not play hacked games, but how are they to know that? Piracy is gonna be costing them thousands if not millions of dollars and they are taking measures to minimise those losses. If your so pissed about the ps3 features and/or games get a PC or 360.

If that happens Sony will lose more money.

Lets play devils advocate and look at the picture without the blinders.

Pirates and hackers are AT LEAST paying for the purchase of the console. How many legit game purchases they make is up in the air but they have to at least make a large initial payment to Sony.

Assuming no pirates or hackers bother getting Sony's next console, how much greater of a loss do you think the comopany will face then?

Good for Sony, ban every last one of them.

SO anyone who wants to use it as a linux box can't use it to play games online as well... I thought Sony would reintroduce the other operating system feature once they stopped selling PS3s at a loss, but I guess not.

Sure they can, it's called a PC.

Troll harder.

 

[Something Amyss]

Pirates and hackers are AT LEAST paying for the purchase of the console. How many legit game purchases they make is up in the air but they have to at least make a large initial payment to Sony.

Except consoles are generally sold at a loss. I'm pretty sure the PS3 now makes a slight profit off every one sold, but Sony took large hits with the promise that the sale of games would make up for it. The so-called "large initial payment" to Sony is at best a few bucks and at worst COSTS them.

It appears the next PSP will not go for this formula of "sold at a loss," and Kinect didn't get sold at a loss, either. But the PS3 certainly did for years and still might.

The console market is heavily reliant on the number of legit games purchased as a result.

 

[Nikki_Viper]

Why wouldn't you give hackers a life-time ban? Why is this even a threat and not just obvious statements? Just do it. Nao.

Release an update. Fry shut down the entire system. Don't ban them from online. Make a software update that will stop the PS3's ability to run if there's piracy involved (if you can dot that) don't just take the online away. Take it all

 

[Cherry Cola]

Why wouldn't you give hackers a life-time ban? Why is this even a threat and not just obvious statements? Just do it. Nao.

Release an update. Fry shut down the entire system. Don't ban them from online. Make a software update that will stop the PS3's ability to run if there's piracy involved (if you can dot that) don't just take the online away. Take it all

No, make that shit explode. Make it transform into a giant cock and then have it unload a nuclear bomb in their face. In their face. Do it

 

[Something Amyss]

Saying that there are no losses and no one loses money from piracy is as naive as saying that each pirated copy means a lost sale.

Thank you for saying that. I hate both messages, as they are extreme and illogical.

It's hard to quantify the impact, but "all" or "nothing" are still not options.