With the news that infamous iPhone hacker George Hotz has enabled homebrew via a custom firmware patch, speculation is now moving on to what Sony will do to stop unauthorised code running on the PlayStation Network. What exactly can the platform holder monitor from your machine and what steps can Sony take in banning you from the PlayStation Network?

First of all there's an important distinction in the unofficial hacker's "code of conduct" to be aware of: these guys believe that once you buy a machine, you own it and you have the right to run your own programs on it, even if the inevitable consequence of this (by their own admission) is that piracy becomes possible on what was previously a "backup"-proof system. However, hackers are equally adamant that the PlayStation Network, or Xbox Live for that matter, is a service that users subscribe to and for which they have no ownership rights at all. In short, if you do decide to run your own code on a system connected to such a service, you're on your own and should be prepared for the consequences.

Thus far, educated estimates put the amount of Xbox Live bans at well over one million consoles, accounting mostly for users who modified their DVD drive firmwares to run games burned onto DVD. However, Sony has been remarkably restrained in its response to the Jailbreak even though PSN has been vulnerable for some weeks over the last few months. Does the company have the tools to track Jailbroken consoles and if so, why haven't we seen the banhammer fall already?

First up, what does Sony know about what's going on with your console? It is true that when the PS3 boots up - whether you have a PSN account or now - the machine itself communicates with a string of Sony servers, as recently posted on NeoGAF, and a log of applications run on the system is almost certainly transmitted. Similarly, the game you're running at any given point also shows up on your PSN profile, and the chances are that if you run a game from within a "backup manager", then the manager - not the game - will be displayed attached to your PSN account.

According to the terms and conditions of the PlayStation Network, this effectively makes you fair game for a PSN ban of which many variations exist - a timed suspension or even a lifelong ban. The amount of access Sony has to your machine is greater than you probably suspect: the company even has the means to irrevocably disable your console should it so wish, and if that happens, it will remain non-functional whether you're online or offline.

However, despite the options Sony has available, to date there have been no ban waves that we've been aware of, despite Jailbroken consoles being easily detectable. Sony's approach has been very responsible - issuing security updates via new firmwares that automatically lock Jailbreakers out of the PlayStation Network as opposed to issuing outright bans. Sony effectively offers PS3 jailbreakers the opportunity to "go legit" in order to preserve their PSN access.

It was the right solution for its time: a system update is inconvenient for the end-user but for Sony it would be far more of an issue in dealing with the unwelcome publicity of a ban wave. Just the logistics of the customer relations element also makes this the most reasonable approach: why deal with thousands of emails, requests for info from the press and - yes - potentially banning a small amount of innocent users when a new firmware prevents any of this from happening?

Microsoft went the nuclear option with its various ban waves of course, but there is a difference between modifying DVD firmware and running a PS3 jailbreak: opening up your 360, re-flashing the drive and reassembling the machine demonstrates a singular purpose in running burned games. With the USB jailbreaks, all machines were vulnerable and any one could run the dongle on any machine whether they owned it or not. Sony may well have a list of "suspect" consoles, but arbitrarily suspending PSN access without a proof of sustained usage would be an over-reaction. As a knock-on effect, it would obviously stop these people spending money in the PlayStation Store. Updating new firmware and locking out the compromised systems while offering offenders the chance to "go legit" has clearly been the platform holder's MO thus far.

In the short term, expect to see Sony do exactly the same thing. Firmwares 3.42 and 3.5 worked in locking out Jailbroken consoles with the minimum of fuss. Hacks to get compromised consoles onto PSN were neutralised relatively quickly and you can expect the current access Jailbreakers have to PSN with Geohot's hacked software to be revoked imminently with a new system update.

In future firmwares, expect internal checks to be carried out during run-time and on boot to ensure the integrity of GameOS - these are trivial for Sony to code, invisible to the legitimate end-user and much more difficult to reverse-engineer. However, the long term challenge facing the platform holder is ...

Importers and globetrotting gamers suffered a blow today after it emerged that Nintendo 3DS software will be region-locked.

Confirmation comes from an email from Nintendo of Japan support, translated by user farnham on forum NeoGAF.

This means that software specifically created for the Nintendo 3DS will be region-locked: European software will only work on European consoles, and more importantly US and Japanese software won't.

While the move is sure to disappoint importers, it comes as no surprise. Although previous DS handhelds - and GameBoys before them - had been region-free, the DSi and the DSi XL are region-locked.

Nintendo was undecided on the matter as late as E3 2010 in June, when Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said the company had yet to make a decision.

The 3DS is due out in Europe and the US in March, and in Japan on 26th February.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-region-locked ...

To celebrate Castle Crashers reaching over 2 million players on Xbox Live Arcade, developer The Behemoth is giving away a pretty mental prize to the slash-em-up's best player.

"With all these people playing Castle Crashers many have claimed to have the unparalleled skillz, the bestest combos, the most awesome attacks," the developer wrote on its blog. "Finally, once and for all we shall know: Who is the best Castle Crashers Arena Fighter in all the world?"


The first prize of the 'Tournament of Champions' is a Gold Xbox. Yes - a functional Xbox plated in 24k GOLD. It looks fantastic.


"Imagine playing on a golden Xbox. Envision the look on your friend's faces. Kings and Queens would come over to your house to play BattleBlock Theater," Behemoth gags.

Second prize wins a Castle Crashers themed Xbox 360 Elite (not gold) and third place is unfortunate enough to receive 250 squishy chickens.

To be eligible for the tournament you have to be in the top 100 Weekly Ranked Arena players on the Castle Crashers leaderboards at noon (PST) on January 28. You will have all that week to battle for those spots.

The top 100 will compete in 1 on 1 Arena matches, in a single elimination tournament format on Saturday February 5, says Beth.

If only we were good (or excitable) enough...

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS ...

One week after Sony's PlayStation 3 private cryptography key was obtained, FreeBSD is up and running on the PS3. Nathan Whitehorn writes: 'Yesterday, I imported support for the Sony Playstation 3 into our 64-bit PowerPC port, expanding our game console support into the current generation. There are still a few rough edges due to missing hardware support, but the machine boots and runs FreeBSD stably. These rough edges should be smoothed out in time for the 9.0 release.

http://bsd.slashdot.org/story/11/01/...Running-On-PS3 ...

Well, the leaks have been flying fast and furious: the presumed PlayStation Phone has been in the hands of folks for a hot minute, and now a video has popped up showing one lucky hombre playing Resident Evil 2 and Rage Racer on the device. The hardware is apparently on the up and up, although the fact that the titles had to be loaded through ROM Buddy (a third-party Android app for running ROMs) suggests that the software is still being tinkered with. Or that this is all a terrible hoax. That said, it looks like this thing is pretty much a done deal.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/10/p...wild-on-video/ ...

If you've managed to use any piece of technology for ten years, it's safe to say that said piece has some serious lasting power in an era filled with flavors-of-the-week. It's a bit startling to think that Apple's iTunes has now fallen into that category, but sure enough, the music-turned-media-application is now a decade old. Fittingly enough, it just hit version 10.0 a few months ago, and it may very well be tweaked to play nice with an all new device later this week. Head on past the break for a look at the very first iTunes introduction at Macworld 2001, and then think about how many times you've hated your life as you watched that sync progress bar crawl along at glacial speeds. No, seriously, think about it.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/10/i...o-long-to-syn/ ...

If you've managed to use any piece of technology for ten years, it's safe to say that said piece has some serious lasting power in an era filled with flavors-of-the-week. It's a bit startling to think that Apple's iTunes has now fallen into that category, but sure enough, the music-turned-media-application is now a decade old. Fittingly enough, it just hit version 10.0 a few months ago, and it may very well be tweaked to play nice with an all new device later this week. Head on past the break for a look at the very first iTunes introduction at Macworld 2001, and then think about how many times you've hated your life as you watched that sync progress bar crawl along at glacial speeds. No, seriously, think about it.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/10/i...o-long-to-syn/ ...

We've been begging Microsoft to somehow add Mac compatibility to the Zune for years, and it looks like there's a tiny little ray of hope buried in Redmond's Windows Phone 7 Connector for OS X: a simple plist modification will let it sync the Zune HD as well. That really shouldn't be any big surprise, since WP7's media interface is built on top of Zune, but at least it's something -- although we're still hoping and wishing for the full Zune suite (and Zune Pass) to make its way to the Mac someday.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/10/z...e-7-connecter/ ...

Worried about your Windows Phone 7 handset chomping down megabytes of 3G data when it should be asleep or utilizing WiFi instead? Microsoft hears your telegraphed fears, and has pledged to sleuth such suspicions of "phantom data" immediately. While Redmond wouldn't confirm whether its operating system was misbehaving to the tune of 2MB per hour like we've heard, the company told BBC News it would find out soon: "We are investigating this issue to determine the root cause and will update with information and guidance as it becomes available," reads Microsoft's statement on the matter. If it's all true, here's hoping we see some refunds or credits for the extra data usage, too.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/10/m...ne-7-data-use/ ...