Sony Must Embrace PSP Hackers

Source - Insert25

The same way Apple made sure to let anyone who owns an MP3 play it on their iPod, Sony must embrace the fact that people will download movies and television shows from their P2P software and will want to watch it on their PSP. Without doing so will only push to further increase the marketshare of Apple’s latest iPod with video and god forbid Apple come out with a portable media player with a bigger screen.

In their article, Attack of the Playstation Hackers, BusinessWeek writes about a man who was able to put his hundreds of movies and TV shows he his 1GB memory cards. That’s cool and all, but still way too complicated. Not to worry though because hackers will find a way and create programs that will make the device even more easy to use and useful in the future and you know this won’t sit well with Sony who will probably think of ways they can shutdown hackers because the free stuff they do doesn’t help out their profits.

A month later, it followed with similar upgrades for U.S. users. Sony officials won’t say whether they are considering suing hackers. “We cannot guarantee PSP hardware that has been modified,” says SCEI spokeswoman Nanako Kato.

If profits are made from games and videos sold, why not let the device prosper amongst the hacker community so it becomes even more enticing to the mainstream community. Isn’t it better to have people buying 1M PSPs because they think they can do cool stuff with it and buy games and movies, instead of 1,000 people buying them because they know they can just play games and watch movies with it?

Would the first Playstation been as successful without the ability to add a modchip and therefore play burnt games? How about the XBOX? We all know Linux wouldn’t even be close to where it is without the ability for people to dig in and hack it to death so why aren’t larger companies pushing aside their old mentalities and embracing the hackers?

David Prochnow, a technology writer, says the PSP had all the potential of a powerful multimedia device but was “crippled” by its software. Using a soldering iron and a screwdriver, he tore open his PSP — and now it prints photographs, shares music with other portable players, and runs all types of converted video files. “Any, and every, PSP owner can become a hacker,” says Prochnow, whose book, PSP Hacks, Mods and Expansions, goes on sale in December.

To me that is so cool and if I didn’t have a PSP already, reading that would definitely entice me further to get one. Instead I get to read this paragraph next:

Sony says it can stay ahead of the hackers. With recent updates, the PSP can now play a variety of music formats and podcasts, as well as digital video clips downloaded form the Net. In October, Sony added its newest option — a LocationFree program that lets users stream videos to the PSP by tapping into a PC or DVD player at home over Wi-Fi or broadband connections.

You can stay ahead of 1000s of hackers just like Microsoft can keep their Operating Systems secure. If anything use the hacker community as a radar for what might be popular and then develop programs and functionality around that. Make it official and you have just added a couple more customers. Doesn’t it make sense?

Exactly. Sums up what most of us homebrewers have been thinking, but haven't said. ;)

but for every person who wants to use it legitimately, there are five who want to find the latest warez to run pirated games.

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Originally Posted by zackforbing

but for every person who wants to use it legitimately, there are five who want to find the latest warez to run pirated games.

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yes, this forum is for the most part loaded with people that "get it" sadly thats not the way the rest of the world thinks....

isnt this what we've all been saying since the begining?

guys uthink sony compine is dum godam man they make psps for people to buy them to download homebrew and emulators they can make bullions if they let us play homebrew on all versions

Videogame system sales 101:

Sell expensive hardware below cost, lose some money, break even and profit off the software. When you have all out homebrew, just because someone buys a PSP doesn't mean they will buy software as well (i.e. me). Something for people to do on their PSP without handing Sony a buck is something Sony does not want to be done with their product. What they did do, which is pretty genius, is start the PSP running unsigned code when they had the security available (1.0). Then all the homebrew crowd buys one too, and then they beef up security. I believe the term is, getting played.

Also, staying ahead of "hackers" really means coming out with useful software for the psp before hombrew developers while updating security. The Microsoft comparison is a terrible one. Sorry guys, but swing and a miss.

-Taco

Taco is absolutely right. Sony's only problem presently is that they aren't putting out games worth upgrading for (with the exception of GTA LCS.) If they can step up their quality, I would say that they are being very smart. But as it is, the benefits of homebrew outweigh the benefits of upgrading, so we're at an impasse of sorts. I just hope Sony doesn't bog down the OS with so much security that it negatively affects performance (ahem anything Microsoft).

We'll see what happens when Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core comes out.

sony...... YOU ****ED ME!!!

Well lets I'll just say what I think. Most people don't give a shit about all the dumb things Sony is trying to implement into the PSP. The people want emulation and something we can fiddle with. Open source platforms are wicked, the people behind the GP2X were genius.


..and on another note if no one could download music for free I don't think Ipods would have sold even a tenth of what they did. Its much more profitable if Sony would just open the PSP up a little to us. The majority of PSP owners (casual folk) would still buy the official mediocre games (madden and the like) and everyone is happy.

I have homebrew apps on my PSP, but I still buy games. In fact, if I didn't have homebrew, I probably would've become bored of my PSP altogether ages ago and just let it collect dust. Emulation kept me interested in my PSP, thus keeping me interested in new PSP games that come along. I think it'd be interesting to compare game purchases between hackers and mainstreamers and see who's actually buying more PSP games and accessories, instead of just assuming everyone with emulators on their PSP's won't buy new games.

I had an interesting situation with my PSP. I bought it first with Wipeout Pure, which kept me going for a full week. Yes, that's right, a week. Then, when I was about to sell it, OS 2.0 came out with the AVC codec, which amused me for a month or two afterwards. That finally died down, and just in time, a 1.5 downgrader came out and I was able to emulate SNES. (Hell yeah.) But, even that has now faded away, and my PSP just sits around again. There's nothing for it but to come out with new, good games... I'm really only waiting for FFVII Crisis Core, and things like Devil May Cry... all of which are far off. Sony is torturing us with halfassed games. Thank god for Rockstar.

Until then... I'll play my brand new Nintendo DS.

I think that the homebrew scene has attracted many people to buy a psp. I know a few of my friends that are just into the psp for the NES, SNES and Gameboy roms. Yeah, so what that people use iso's or whatever the hell. 90% of the other systems you can use pirated games too. Who gives a crap? It will always exist and Sony needs to get over it and try to please the viewers out there. When someone hears from someone that the hacking is trying to be stopped wouldnt that turn you off as a consumer if you were going to buy it? Take away the iso thing for one second and bear with me. Sony is being stupid. I guarantee you if they weren't so stupid it would actually sky rocket there sales this holiday season and attract more people. Or what they should do is come up with an emulator of there own sort of speak that plays Atari, gameboy, nes and snes roms for example. Like the program reads from an entirely different folder maybe caled "All Roms" and it plays .nes, .smc and whatever the gameboy files are and NOTHING else. If sony has enough knowledge to stop us than they have enough brain power to come up with something like that.

Stupid ****ing Sony so queer

Oh and Kaiser-Good to hear from you man. Long time no see!

Agreed

that post sums up just about everything...

i own a psp1000 with v1.0 firmware still intact. the only game ive bought so far is everybody's golf, not because im happy with just playin homebrew but because im too paranoid about buying a game thats gonna update my psp.

if sony hadnt brought out the stupid firmware updates i'd have purchased a good 200+ quid worth of games by now, i can think of atleast 10 games i want. :(

silly sony! :p

Sony has to embrace hackers as much as we have to embrace ISOs.

i just want my psp to print pictures. thats ill.

Sony is the wrong company to bring us an open source/commercial game system. I mean, let's face it. What we gamers want is a powerful handheld with commercial game support, homebrew, emus, WiFi, and 3D acceleration. Basically, a combo of the PSP and GP2x.

Problem is, Sony will never go for it. Sony is a media company. They own a music label. They own a movie studio. They're not going to embrace the use of non-aurthorized music and video. They just aren't. They're going to fight it as long as they can.

Even Microsoft, though not a media company, is a big player in the DRM world. They couldn't do it either.

Honestly, I think only Nintendo can bring this to us. We'll see if they're interested when we learn more about the Gameboy 3D.

it really is sony's own fault

catch me if you can.

...

hold on the FBI is at the door.

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Originally Posted by YourStillWithMe

Or what they should do is come up with an emulator of there own sort of speak that plays Atari, gameboy, nes and snes roms for example. Like the program reads from an entirely different folder maybe caled "All Roms" and it plays .nes, .smc and whatever the gameboy files are and NOTHING else. If sony has enough knowledge to stop us than they have enough brain power to come up with something like that.

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Of course Sony's developers are technically capable of writing such an emulator only it would instigate a console nuclear war of which the likes have never been seen. The amount of layers that would be employed by Nintendo to stop such an act would drain every law school in the world. Regardless of what kind of defense team Sony might have the case will be settled swiftly in Nintendo’s favor – leaving Sony severely wounded if not dead.

This also one of the reasons why the PSP will not turn into an open source platform. As a company you want to have control. Not only do you want to control what’s available for the machine (because what’s happening in the scene of your machine reflects your image as a company).
For example, if it was an open source platform and a PSP virus would strike the community again that bricks PSPs the majority will be all over Sony demanding tighter security and a replacement unit.

Piracy is an issue as well, of course. Though personally I don’t believe that is the biggest issue. Unless they (and all the other large media-content distributors) have really started to believe in their own propaganda…Not every pirated title/album would have been sold a game or album. They (=the public) get the pirated version because it’s available to them for next to no money (internet subscription + blank media). But as soon as they have to pay full price for the same title they won’t bother. Simply because the title is not worth the full price (in their eyes).
But naturally the tighter your anti-piracy-security is the more likely you are to sell your software.

At any rate you can abandon all hope about Nintendo giving you an open platform cause that is not going to happen, ever. At least not as long as their interest is expressible in monetary units. And Nintendo even explicitly said so on numerous occasions “we’re a company and we will follow the money”, and by rights they should. It’s impossible for one (big) company to release control. It would result in being slaughtered by competition.

the hackin and homebrew scene is the minority. the original post asked would the PS1 still have been successful without bein able to burn games? HELL YEAH!!! the mainstream public dont know about all of that. and most of them dont know how to start. u might see 5, 10, maybe 20-30,000 people with modded PSP's. but thats nothin compared to the unhacked millions of PSPs in the world. dont get it twisted.

da relic

I never even knew the psone was hackable until like a few months ago. . . I enjoyed that system for like 5 months and than dropped it like Geometry class (that was a joke. . .)

If homebrew was the way to concrete a units sales - why did the DC fail?

There have been some good points. But the way i see it is sony has to stop homebrew on the iso end because the more people steal material. the more game devlopers wont invest time or money into createing games, movies. because if it can be stolen as easy as it can be bought, the game devlopers will not release games on this platform. and it will to die, sadly to become an item in the free box at a garage sale. I have home brew snes, megadrive, and nes. I also have a few programs written for the psp by open source coders. but i also have 3 movies, and 6 games. sony needs to find a way to keep legit open source homebrew alive because that will spark sales. but keep out the iso theft. this is the road we seem to be going down as of currently. lets hope we can keep it like this.

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Originally Posted by stormuk

If homebrew was the way to concrete a units sales - why did the DC fail?

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that is a subject that we have never really figured out... though its been discussed MANY TIMES! The common idea is that warez killed it... which we think is wrong. (not going into that.)

Also the nice homebrew and porting tools we have today were not nearly as advanced in the days that DC was alive and kicking... Alot of people think Sega killed it themselves just because they "felt like it".

Upon rethinking that question... In that point of view IT DIDNT STOP SELLING! Sure it was out of production, but a DC is still a common thing being sold on Ebay and probably will be for a few more years.

Also you dont really want to sell 10000000000000 units... they loose more money producing the machines then they earn selling them. It is the software they hope to sell to make money. I suppose that they figure their games are so crappy... If people will upgrade they will have no choice but to either sell their psp or buy their games.. And selling their psp actually does Sony a favor because thats one more PSP they didnt have to waste money producing for.

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Originally Posted by stormuk

If homebrew was the way to concrete a units sales - why did the DC fail?

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Bad timing.

Much like the Atari 5200, 7800, and Jaguar, Dreamcast died because it was released too soon after the previous itteration, and was buried alive by technically superior consoles apearing roughly a year later.

Hmm, I've always thought it to be because of the crappy games that were coming out for it. It had a strong launch and then... no good (comercial) games really came out for it. And yes, also because it came out too early.

"Isn’t it better to have people buying 1M PSPs because they think they can do cool stuff with it and buy games and movies, instead of 1,000 people buying them because they know they can just play games and watch movies with it?"

Is it better to have those 1M people downloading pirate games instead of buying UMDs? No? Oh well, guess we'll live with hard copy protection and forced upgrades.

"Would the first Playstation been as successful without the ability to add a modchip and therefore play burnt games?"

Yes. That's my opinion. Yours varies, obviously. But without a time machine, who knows? My professional (yup) opinion says that, if the modchip had been easier, and cd burners more commonplace, most of the companies writing games would have gone bust due to rampant piracy. See: 'the pc'

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Originally Posted by stormuk

If homebrew was the way to concrete a units sales - why did the DC fail?

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1) Sony lied about how much better then PS2 was going to be
2) EA didn't support it

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Originally Posted by JoeMH

Hmm, I've always thought it to be because of the crappy games that were coming out for it. It had a strong launch and then... no good (comercial) games really came out for it. And yes, also because it came out too early.

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:p most of us would disagree :D

Metropolis Street Racer = Crap? I dont think so.

For me it was that the copy protection was so easily removed, which did whats happening to the PSP, opens up homebrew, and removes revenue to some extent - thus why they will keep on patching it as such. Just my opinion however.

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Originally Posted by 1timeuser

:p most of us would disagree :D

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What The "to early part" or the "crappy games" part?

While I wouldn't go so far as saying the PSP has crappy games I could easily argue that it needs a killer app BADLY. Sure there are some good games but most of us are fishing for a "great" game not some port or another sports title.

The "to early part" I completely disagree. High-tech gadgetry at unreasonable prices is about the best thing you could be selling now. Ipods and the like are everywhere despite there high prices.

The Sony Aibo is another piece of Sony Hardware that has responded well to the Hacker community. There are tons of programs and a huge following for this "toy" simply because people are able to program it. Do you think the Aibo would be such a success if people were only allowed to purchase and run official Sony Software on it?