To PSjailbreak, or Not to PSjailbreak
PSJailbreak has my attention. The device has gone from fiction to fact in a short time since the original details surfaced yesterday. PSJailbreak distributed test units too – Each reviewer echoing the same thing: It’s easy and it works.
After running around in a circle like Eric Cartman trying to get cake from his mom, the geek in me settled down — When that happened I asked myself a question:
Do I need the PSJailbreak?
That question is one that I struggle with. Consoles are more social in nature now than they were even a few years ago. Online multi-player is a crucial aspect of titles for most gamers…and it increases replay value. Voice chat during gameplay, video conferencing, and even messaging are integrated into the way we play our games. The explosion of Downloadable Content (DLC) continues to keep titles from becoming obsolete and allows us to return to a familiar experience in a new and exciting way.
Something like the PSJailbreak immediately puts those things in jeopardy – Being online with the jailbreak could result in a ban. Even if doesn’t, its good practice not to get on the PSN anyway just in case. Pulling the RJ45 or disabling the wireless results in the loss of the social environment. Maybe it won’t happen, or maybe I have a little of that Jerry Fletcher syndrome (which is possible). Personally, that aspect of gaming I don’t want to lose.
My PS3 aggregates most of the media content in my home. Sure, the PS3 doesn’t play everything I want it too natively (hooray for ps3mediaserver) and I still use a Home Theater PC (love Boxee). The Cell powered wonder is getting their though. The utopian future I dream of where I have single box that does everything is coming extremely close to a reality. The PS3 needs to add more video services, more music services, and bridge the PC gap. I still don’t have Pandora on my PS3 and I don’t know why. I believe these services will come through the PSN ultimately. This is where the argument could be made for the PSJailbreak: homebrew. Users generating the applications they want, and accelerating the evolution of the console. To add those services requires sacrifice. Sacrifice your PSN/Gaming sociability for homebrew? Tough choice – I really don’t want two units in my living room.
To date, the mod (as far as I am aware) still requires the original physical media to copy your games to the hard drive. A departure from the current scene ability to secure an ISO or ROM and either burn it or load it depending on your platform. For ease of use, tinkering and to protect your original’s ISO/ROM acquisition makes sense. But with online places like BlockBuster and GameFly, and more recently Redbox getting titles for evaluation is much easier than it was before — The days of going in to a Blockuster or Hollywood video and hoping you could find the title you want are gone. Which made me ask myself: if I am already going to need the physical media, why not just play it? If I love it I am going to buy it anyway — If I hate it, I might catch the mail-person before they leave my neighborhood.
Even with the disclaimer PSJailbreak puts on the device, they know it will be used for piracy. Peruse the forums and you read person after person stating they can’t wait to increase their library by renting games and dumping them. I won’t comment on piracy, but I will say that Sony read’s those comments too. When they read those types of statements, Sony immediately (I imagine) gears up for an Enemy at the Gate’s style of engagement as they prep a firmware release. I can understand their logic: games and DLC sales make money, consoles don’t. If it were truly just for homebrew, if the dominating comments centered around that, they might engage the community more, and open things up a bit. Wishful thinking? Quite possibly.
What’s the solution? I think if you identify a problem, try and find a solution. I am not sure I have a solution — I do have an idea though. Hiroaki Kobayashi, Marketing Director for Sony Ericsson mobile talked about Apple’s business strategies. Kobayashi-san made the point that one of Apple’s three sources of income is their market for applications — Sony Ericsson is now looking to generate profits from those three sources. I think of that and wonder how would a PS3 eco-system look if Sony Computer Entertainment did that? If they opened up the system, allowed anyone to build applications based on the PS3 SDK, approved or denied it, and then let us choose what we wanted. Sure, it could still end up in a PSJailbreak exploit just like the iPhone. At least then users would have more choice and content providers would have a better outlet of getting their content on the PS3.
When it’s all said I done, I think there is more to lose than to gain from the PSJailbreak. You might agree or think I am an idiot. In either case, you’re probably right.
38 Responses to “To PSjailbreak, or Not to PSjailbreak”
I said when the SONY removed the other OS feature, the PS3 will be hacked within 6-8 months. Yeah, I was right. Removing that other OS feature to “STOP PIRACY” really other the hacking community pissed and today we saw the result. GOOD JOB SONY!
What Sony going to do now? release a firmware that disable the USB ports?
Even though it would be nice to at least back up games onto the HDD, I’d rather support the industry I enjoy so much.
PSJailbreak is also a softmod, so there has to be something Sony can do to block it. :\
Mhm the hackers were overtaken with rage that Other OS was removed from PS3 so they finally decided 4 years later to hack it…..please.
I think it’s all going to come down to what gamers value, the ability to play online, or the ability to back-up their games which inevitably leads to the “P” word. As I usually say, this is gonna be interesting to watch. Additionally, this is problem gonna mean more bad than good for legit PS3 owners, just like how we got screwed and lost OtherOS support.
One question was running through my head as I read this article: WTF is PSjailbreak? WTF dioes it do? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
@jumper
If you are still unclear about what PSJailbreak. PSJailbreak are selling a USB device that you plug into the front of your Playstation. It allows you to back up your PS3 games to your HDD and play them without having the game in the ps3.
All you need to have is any game disc in the PS3 and than load up the “Backup Manager” and than pick from any game you have backed up on your HDD. There are 2 videos of a mod company reviewing it.
So like what Allen said people will probably start renting games rip them to their HDDs and send them back or people will go the much longer route and just download games even tho most are around 15+GB.
This device is also said to allow you to play online, ignore firmware updates you don’t want, and it also doesn’t void your warranty because you don’t have to open your PS3 since it is just a USB.
It wont work, just watch.
Honestly, the reason why some numbers of 360′s are sold is because you can rip games and play them.
If people really found a way to do that for the PS3, it does help SONY somewhat in terms of sales for their console.
That might sound weird, but when you think about it. No matter how much piracy there is available on the 360, people still buy games on it, you see it month after month in the NPD’s the software sales numbers.
So this won’t really hurt Playstation or SONY. In the end there will just be more people owning PS3 because they have the option to “P-word” it’s games. Sales won’t be affected much.
I must be missing something – I thought the PS3 HD was FAT32? Does it copy the ISO in pieces or something? The info on GoW3 was supposed to be around 40GB – why the hell would I want that monstrous thing on my HD even if FAT32 could handle it?
I don’t really believe this, we hear nothing in the hacking community then this?
And this is a horrible idea and over-priced, it’s about $150 USD, who wants to spend that to POSSIBLY ruin their $300 PS3? Really?
And the firmware updates get me, these drives won’t be able to stop Sony from re-writing some check of firmware no?
Buy a game if it’s good. That way you don’t worry about getting in trouble and you also support the economy and the developers.
Nothing good can come from this.
@Xael
Moving consoles isn’t going to help Sony or Microsoft when people are pirating games, which is where the money comes from. It’s partly the reason why Dreamcast put Sega out of business. This isn’t good for anybody.
If Sony did this right they could add value to the PS3. By giving gamers the “OPTION” do backup games to the HDD it would make it better for game play. I said on Tawken and will say here, that Sony should hire this guy and work with him to make this a part of the firmware and then they can control the “P”iracy on their terms. This is how M$ does it when they see a third party do what M$ software engineers have trouble with they either buy the company or by the software. That is how they got their database software to work, they bought a company from Massachusetts that created a program called Foxbase, they turned that into Access 2.0 and they have not turned back since.
If Sony did that they would be in control instead of out of control running around trying to keep ahead of some software engineer that has a half to full step ahead of the company engineers.
And Sony doesn’t have the same profit margin to rely on to disregard piracy as much as Microsoft might be able to.
hello..
jailbreaking my beloved console is an aberration, i even buy movies, music & PC games, why would i want to feed the wrong mouths.
I wish SONY do find a solution as from next week, i don’t think they will remove USB support, it’s impossible considering a lot of other functionalities depend on this, but a new scanner / security implementation on the FW could help.
Yet i don’t think this USB P-word device really works as said, for a lot of reasons & there are still ways to counter it just before going in-deep with PS3 Hardware/Software architecture. BR are still too expensive & BD-Writers are just slow, most PS3 games can’t be read on PC & it will be hard to download & copy large games like 4GB+ as external devices with ONLY FAT32 partitions are recognized by the machine. The jailbreak sellers didn’t say anything about allowing people to do homebrew, just plain play copy of a game & i’m not even sure of their tests for the games showcased are also available as downloadable ones, so yes i can put a game disc in & play any PSN games
If SONY would come up with some scanner to those going on PSN, will slow down the use of such device, if you need it to play a copy of a game, then you just can’t use same to play online, what’s the use? The ONLY possibility for a full exploitation of the PS3 hardware would be a USB device that has it’s own OS, forcing the machine to boot into it, then it will open doors to far better features than piracy, like having other platform games launched on the PS3 (Xbox360 or PC games (legit!) anyone LOL!) & with this not even tampering with the PS3 XMB & not stealing PS3 games. I was thinking of an extender / upgrader for the console, like a RAM extension (like readyboost) device. but as usual people don’t do devices to enhance the capabilities or extend the use, they don’t go for side use, they just want to borrow/rent & copy …
Game renting will become illegal & even those doing the business would prefer stop before being the 1st major distributor of ‘legal-P-word material’.
It’s not about console sales, but software, SONY do make a little money of the number of console sold, but it would cause a bigger issue for game developers. just ask yourself 1 question, if you know by giving your best effort & investing large sum of money & be conscious that with no jailbreak, you could sell up to 1 million but with potential up to 30 million, but with jailbreak you may finally sell up to 1 million, what will you do? there will be less & less 3rd party involved in exclusive content, some games would suffer more quality-wise & worst, small developers would go bankrupt, for even if their games being downloadable ones won’t be easily copied, there will be less console on legal services to buy their great little masterpieces.
like some i would really love that SONY instead of removing some features, do go in releasing more & more options for legit owners, i was one of those who posted an NTFS or EXTFS for external drive, but with this i will say SONY was right not adding such support & hope they never do, instead please give us a PS3 FS on external drive but with strict access control.
the appstore like services will be a plus.
I just hope that a solution is found & FAST, for not all want to break open a console for good reasons, most would go for theft, even now the PS3 do support a lot of illegal stuff, as long as games aren’t concerned it help. It is also too early for the console to still succeed like the PS2 even when MODded, the developers just discovered their new love for the beast.
Now if it is some weird strategy in letting people release or believe in some modding possibilities & come out with a timely solution just to raise the machine sales, i will say ‘chapeau’ but yet i’m not scared but really annoyed by this.
if you love your console & games, you won’t even think about going this way …
sorry for the very long post.
cheers!
ahhhh justice is swift!
karma thank you, you have made my day!
sony removed linux to prevent piracy. and here we are now with the ps3 hacked!
revenge is o so bitter sweet!!!!!!!
only problem being ps3 games are not exactly small, i mean most ps3 games are single layer so there 25GBs, MGS4 is the only game i can think of thats dual layer.
but with that said 25GBs is still pretty dam large!
i cant see anyone using this to be honest, ill stick to my good old originals thank you!
as long as my ps3 does not scratch the crap out of my disks every time i turn it on!
M$ should be sued and thrown in jail for that! its been proven and still there releasing consoles that do it!
i was stupid enough to buy the new 360S thinking i wont have the issue, popped crackdown 2 in, played it for not even 20 minutes, took it out and it looked like a cat had attacked my disk!
no i did not move the system, and no it was not scratched in the first place.
tis why i dont buy 360 games anymore, i dont have enough money to spend on coasters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I would like to be able to install my games to HDD!
BTW: You do NOT have to buy the USB jailbreak, you can just download the files on it and put it on you’re own USB stick…
@name
funny how karma only seems to attack the people who are in the right isn’t it? Sony went around it the wrong way that time but what else could they do? Someone was breaking into their console and using something they put on there to increase the entertainment value of their product to steal from them.
Sony had every right to take away linux, we had something good then hackers abused it so we lose it just like continous play. I don’t like it but that’s the way it works. I’m betting most of you only use linux to hack the PS3 in the first place, funny little world where you can steal and still think you have the moral high ground.
I guess now we gonna need those annoying piracy ads on games as well.
looks like its time for Sony to start streaming all digital content. the future is here and its digital, a trend Sony once again started and will back to the end. no physical disc will mean less publishing costs but more than likely wouldn’t bring down the price
This is something I want or to be more exact – this is a feature I want. There are many disc based games that I have that I don’t actually play just because I don’t want to bother putting in the disc. Quick games like Williams Pinball or Hot Shots. To get up, take out the old disc, put it away, get the new disc, put it in, play for five minutes, then repeat. Too much work.
Maybe Sony can allow us to one or two games downloaded to the HD at a time. I guess it would cut down on the pirating if you had to delete your previous games before loading a new one. Even if you tried to pirate only, you’d have to have the physcial media and could only play a few games at a time.
@Xael & @name you are both parasites and a waste of oxygen. Kindly die.
My heart bleeds for those poor people who find ejecting one disc and inserting another too much exercise. Grit your teeth and bear it – you can always eat another KFC family bucket to recover.
There is no justification for this “product”. It exists to enable piracy, and that is all.
Pirates have to be pretty damn stupid to fail to understand the paradox they create: I like PS3 games; therefore I shall steal not buy PS3 games; Oh there are no new PS3 games, Sony sucks.
Perhaps we can hope that this is some vast Darwinian trick, and every such dongle will simultaneously explode on April 1st, eliminating the pirates and raising the IQ of the human race in the process.
We can but hope.
Now that means WAR !!! Wondering what is going to be Sony’s next move? I bet they are running like crazy already at their HQs trying to figure out how to stop it.
I kindda got used to buying games since I moved from PC to PS3 and I must say I have nothing against buying well made games from dedicated developers like Naughty Dog, Quantic Dream, Ubisoft etc. but it would be nice to have the option like PSJailbreak to test some of the s**t lazy game makers are feeding us.
I just checked its $170 do you know how many sweet games you can get for that price?I dont see this as a big deal once sony patches the ps3
@nemo20000
I thought the same thing, how hard is it to put the disc in/out of the console and put it away? Something else I’ve noticed that pirates fail to understand is when they hack a product and then the company counter-attacks it with a firmware update or refuse to fix it when it breaks (Apple), they honestly do think they have every right to complain,
to me that’s like robbing a bank and then trying to sue them when they increase their security. What did you think was going to happen? That they’d fall down on their backs and let you continue stealing from them?
Lol. Good point, Timewarp
Hmmm let’s see… I have 35 games (including GOWIII, Uncharted 2 and Metal Gear) lets just suppose that they are all 25GB discs, my PS3 is an 80GB… so this will allow me to save the awesome amout of 3 GAMES! and I will have to delete ALL my downloaded games, music, videos photos and even GAME DATA! (devil may cry 4 is 5 GB!) yeha…. GREAT F^%&*NG DEAL!
This means that even if you have a 320GB PS3 you will still be able to save only 12 25GB GAMES TO YOUR HARD DRIVE! AND! of course if you do that you will no longer have room for downloaded games, DLC, GAME DATA! (some are quite huge!!), music and videos! DOES THIS REALLY SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD DEAL TO ANYBODY?! Because for me it’s just plain stupid!
Hmm, from now on we may see in PS3 firmware updates lines that we have never thought to see:
* fix to recent security vulnerability
Great article.
@Axl – Yeah, that is exactly the point I was trying to get across; who the heck thinks that this is a useful feature?
And I’d still like some clarification on the FAT32 thing, because I know the max file size for that file system is like 2GB or something…
Just to clarify, games won’t actually be 25gb LOL. Most will be around 4gb, seen as a lot of it is just security etc. Anyway this simply won’t work; online gaming is simply too big now as well as Sony’s ability to create a “panic” firmware.
Sony better do something about it.
hello …
sorry for popping back while i already flooded this article with a huge comment….
I sure hope SONY gets a FW update soon, to counter-attack, even if i do not feel this thing will work, most multiplat games are 4-9 Gb, while exclusive ones can be from 25+, GOW3 was 40Gb i think & some may be as close to the 50Gb.
FAT32 can only support 4 Gb Files max
PS3 can ONLY read FAT32 partitions on external devices.
If you format via Windows you max partition size for FAT32 should be under 35Gb
If you use other tools to format you may have bigger size FAT32 partitions but still you cant put 4Gb+ files
Most PS3 Games can’t be read on PC Blu-ray Drive / burners (i tried!
… not that i wanted to copy but just for curiosity of how the files are on it)
Downloading a 4Gb file is possible but there’s a risk for corruption, for the size is still considerable, now with bigger files, even if you split…
PS3 has force FW update
SONY can ban MAC address of such devices.
So I don’t think this will be a practical means.
I prefer to buy quality games, i have video reviews to let me decide & most of the time we do have demos too, so there are no real need for anything like it.
cheers!
It seems like a fairly easy hack to patch out, and there is no need to remove USB access. Just limit it. They can release FW that limits the transfer rate from USB to something far bellow the blu-ray reading speed, and suddenly games will have bigger loads, wierd glitches and framerate issues. The limits can be disabled when accessing certain filetypes (avi, mp4, etc.) so it doesn’t interfere with normal usage, thus disabling the use of external hard drive to backup games. Internal harddrive is even easier, they just need to get creative.
i applaud this community. aside from two twits and one incredibly lazy SOB, you guys are awesome.
for the two idiots, have you forgotten what became of the incredible psp? thanks to p….. its almost dead.
for the lazy SOB, congrats! finally someone lazier than myself and friend. now i can use you as the example of absolute laziness instead of my friend and his in car stereo remote and his not changing songs when he can’t find it.
this “device” has got to be the worst idea ever, i do hope for anyone getting this sony does horrible things to your ps3, least we forget they do have the option to do things to our ps3′s without our say so. (it is in the EULA) don’t think for one second Sony isn’t already on this and prob’ly already know how the device works and have counter measures in place with the next firmware update. “this is what they get for removing otherOS”, have you forgotten why they removed it in the first place? on the day that jerk left the community i had a couple cocktails and read various forums laughing the whole time. i was angry, i’m sure tons of people were, but my anger was not directed towards sony. rather that one idiot that was only out for glory. can’t wait to have another day of drinks and forum surfing while laughing at the fools that wasted time, money and effort on this hunk of garbage. we all know, you will be screwed and blame sony. just remember, you brought it on yourself this time. that is, if you buy this.
@vesra ALL TRUE!
I LMAO about the “car stereo remote” thing because one of my friends is just like that and I always make fun of him for that I MEAN C’MON ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS RAISE YOUR HAND JUST A LITTLE BIT!
But yes, all of this is just wrong, I mean why would you want to damage an Industry you actually LOVE?! Do you really want devs. to lose interest in making games for PS3 because of the F&*^NG PIRACY?! And don’t give me that crap of “Im not rich I cant afford buying all games I want” then why the F%$% do you have a PS3 on the first place?! BUY FOOD AND BASIC STUFF INSTEAD OF WASTING YOUR HARD EARNED DOLLARS ON SOMETHING YOU CAN NOT AFFORD!! or BUY A PS2 instead!
Or just because Im hungry it gives me the right to rob a restourant?! NO! RIGHT?, Or just because im poor it gives me the right to rob a BANK?! , well just the same not being able to affors all games you want doesnt give you the right to STEAL THEM! STEALING IS A CRIME AND PIRACY IS STEALING DO THE MATH!
You can use Pandora through the web be browser
Real easy answer. Encourage Block Buster and other companies that usually rent software and movies to offer their services through PSN. In a day and age where movie and game offerrings are just enormous it’s silly to go to your local rental place and get a game. And if your going to offer physical copies of games to play then offer stuff that is ancient, or five years old at least. Most people who do rent games instead of purchase and resell are likely renting and purchasing older games for older platforms anyways.