Why the PS3 isn't hacked

[Mister Klownes]

I would think a history of the PSP homebrew scene would teach this sort of thing? I mean, the custom firmware now is long descended from the work of many people over many years. And what happens when one asshole tries to claim the glory? He's ruined. The controversy over M33CFW and PS3News should prove that. Now the site shows is labeled as harmful even by Google.

Though I agree entirely. You can't just start tossing out progress for all to see, because the Sony execs can read these things for the same reasons we want them to read them. Official progress has followed the homebrew scene on many occasions. The Official PSX emulator, custom themes. It's a give and take. So clearly the only way is to establish some manner of underground developer's community, which cannot be spoken of and cannot be accessed, save by those necessary to its function. I suppose what it boils down to is, to use an old cliche, there must be honor among thieves.

[mcdougall57]

when would a homebrew developer use all that power?

[F9zDark]

You can save yourself reading a highly inaccurate article by just knowing one thing:

The Cell Processor is not a standard processor.

While the Wii and Xbox 360 run on a PowerPC processors, the Cell is an altogether different beast. Something which takes even mature, professional developers by surprise. A lot of code for PS3 games is probably highly unoptimised for the console, unlike the PPC processors which the 360 and Wii use, the Cell has it's own CBEA (Cell Broadband Engine Architecture) which developers must code around.
Since a lot of homebrew developers are hobbyists who are just writing programs for the sake of it, they're not really in the most advantageous position to try and write for an architecture which has hardly any public documentation.

Also, for those of you confused by the article by thinking "Well, the PSP is hacked, why not the PS3?", well... The PSP runs on a MIPS processor (which is the same architecture which was used in the Playstation and Playstation 2 (yes, the Emotion Engine had a MIPS core)), which is a well documented architecture, hence easier to code for. The MIPS architecture and the CBEA architecture have worlds of difference between the two, making it easy to write for the PSP, so you can confidently tweak the firmware knowing that it SHOULD work. Where as if you modify the PS3 firmware and load it back onto the PS3, you could ultimately brick your PS3 and have next to NO certainties that the code should work or not. And that's one expensive paper weight you'd have.

IBM has publicly available documentation on the Cell; however its not so simple as learning how to code for the Cell directly (yes that helps a lot). Programmers also need to know how to program for the PS3, which isn't publicly available, yet (Sony's PhyreEngine, which is free, may change this, if it ever is permitted to be used by the masses).

Coding for the Cell directly is useful in Linux, as one could, possibly, make optimized code that way. However, coding for the PS3 firmware would be entirely another matter, and sadly the only Hacker team that worked on the PS3, is now a 3rd party developer for Sony; so they would be in serious trouble for "helping" us along. (Personally, I think Sony saw what they did and made them an offer they couldn't refuse...)

But Sony gave us Linux and Sony has been reported as hiring TerraSoft (the makers of YDL) to make a developer environment for the PS3 (probably for use within Linux).

So I don't see why Sony won't allow us to use homebrew in the future; I think its just a matter of how Sony can make it so that the system is secure even when using officially endorsed Homebrew.

Added:

Reason being, is that if Sony gave us full access to the RAM, RSX and Cell within Linux, it wouldn't be very long until a hacker wrote a PS3 "Emulator" (which could potentially run great within Linux ON A PS3...). Said emulator could potentially run pirated games, which wouldn't help Sony any. If people had the option of paying 60 dollars and playing games online, using the store, etc, or getting them for free and having to deal with using Linux, I think most pirates would choose the latter.

[davidapple]

Good article. Thanks Wraggster.

I have a PS3 but it's just soooo good, it doesn't need to be hacked!