PS3 hacked?

It's very interesting to read that the Playstation 3 might at last have been hacked by the same man who 'jailbroke' the iPhone for the first time. Interesting but not all that much use.

I mean, who wants a hacked PS3 anyway? The report to which I've linked says there are a number of reasons someone might want to do this. You could persuade it to play home made games. OK, copy that, it might be interesting. You could play pirated games. Not to be encouraged but I understand the appeal (although a second-hand game is usually so cheap it's not worth it). And with the new hack, it seems you might be able to resurrect your old PS2 games and play them.

OK, all of those are good reasons, the middle one less so. The report also says you can install another operating system; actually you can already do that, right where it says 'install a new operating system' but we'll let that go.

What the report doesn't say is the reasons you'd be crazy even to consider hacking your PS3.

First, if you start fiddling with the software it might not play your existing games.

Second, since 5 per cent of the fix is hardware, you might break it.

Third, and this is a culmination of the two points above, if you do anything like hack it, you've automatically voided all of the warranties it came with.

Fourth, if it's out of warranty but needs to go somewhere for repair, you betcha they'll take the hack off it and return it in its 'official' state.

Hacked PS3? Sure, as proof of concept it could be interesting. It's been done with the other consoles, I know. But it's a crazy, crazy idea.

[Wopchop23]

You sir are a loser. You dont know what your saying at all.

[GuyClapperton]

I think you need to elaborate a little - I'm happy to be proven wrong or disagreed with, but an insult from someone who can't punctuate 'you're' is difficult to respond to intelligently.

Seriously, what are your substantive points? I'm happy to listen and welcome the feedback.

[thedude420]

It's very interesting to read that the Playstation 3 might at last have been hacked by the same man who 'jailbroke' the iPhone for the first time. Interesting but not all that much use.

I mean, who wants a hacked PS3 anyway? The report to which I've linked says there are a number of reasons someone might want to do this. You could persuade it to play home made games. OK, copy that, it might be interesting. You could play pirated games. Not to be encouraged but I understand the appeal (although a second-hand game is usually so cheap it's not worth it). And with the new hack, it seems you might be able to resurrect your old PS2 games and play them.

OK, all of those are good reasons, the middle one less so. The report also says you can install another operating system; actually you can already do that, right where it says 'install a new operating system' but we'll let that go.

What the report doesn't say is the reasons you'd be crazy even to consider hacking your PS3.

First, if you start fiddling with the software it might not play your existing games.

Second, since 5 per cent of the fix is hardware, you might break it.

Third, and this is a culmination of the two points above, if you do anything like hack it, you've automatically voided all of the warranties it came with.

Fourth, if it's out of warranty but needs to go somewhere for repair, you betcha they'll take the hack off it and return it in its 'official' state.

Hacked PS3? Sure, as proof of concept it could be interesting. It's been done with the other consoles, I know. But it's a crazy, crazy idea.

you misread first of all, part of the procedure is installing linux, Second, everyone could benefit from instillation of home brew, if you cant handle the 5% hardware then you shouldn't be playing big boy games, I just have to say kudos because i want the full potential of anything i purchase, if i wanted to be limited by what others say i have to i would've stuck with win 98.(MY BAD, I WOULD HAVE KEPT WIN ME AKA WIN VIRUS) I tell you what i have never found my self short of words but let's be real this is limitless, Its like giving a child a chemistry set and saying here is the world lets make life, ITS TRULY LIMITLESS.

[goggle]

the main advantages to this will be getting access to the real video processing under linux so that 3d stuff can run once drivers are written. linux on the ps3 is really bad now for anything but a minimal window manager. the 256mb ram limit is easy to fix as you can put your own ram in and then with this hack you could run 3d apps, making the ps3 a really nice (and very fast) computer for around $300.

[GuyClapperton]

Many thanks to thedude240 and goggle. I don't think I misread the report to which I linked; it says clearly enough that the hack allows you to install other operating systems, which you can already, although I'm happy to take goggle's point that Linux isn't all that great on the PS3.

I think a lot of your view on this depends on the readership you want to address. The report to which I was responding was on the BBC's news website, which is aimed at the general rather than specialist readership. This blog gets publicised via Twitter and elsewhere to very much the generalist readership, too. So although I take thedude240's point about not playing big boy games if you can't handle it, I do think it's reasonable to blog and point out some of the downsides of this sort of hack when another writer is reporting it as almost universally a good thing.

[thedude420]

I agree totally there is definitely 2 points of view to it but I am the kinda person that wants what i pay for and probably a little more, I have very high expectations of anything i pay for. Its not something someone who is not adept at component level dodling should even contemplate preforming on there system, but for people like me its great, its better than watching a lion get released into the penguin habitat at the zoo, its unleashing the actual raw power of the gpu for what ever i want it for(still unsure why i want it, but i do).

[GuyClapperton]

See, that's where I'd be with the penguin (-:

I do think it's odd that Sony releases a box it's effectively cut down for public consumption - if there were a way of opening it up whilst protecting warranties etc. I'd be wholly in favour of it. Maybe one for PS4...

[ballzach]

GUY, you are in no position to correct anyone's puncuation. You need to run a spell check before you hit enter next time, McHighNmighty. As for your offered opinions, it wouldn't suprise me to learn that you work for sony.

[predator78]

Not sure where all the hostility in this thread is coming from. There "are" many very obvious benefits which a few of the main ones have already been pointed out. The best and most obvious would be the fact that a gaming system could be converted into a quite powerful pc at a very cheap price. If that's not a good enough reason than you are rich enough that not much will impress you anyhow. In this case put your money to greater use such as world domination or something less boring than stating that someones great work and inventiveness is somehow pointless and meaningless. Or you could please let everyone in on the latest article not written by yourself that is about you and your greatest last acheivement possibly.

[sergent]

What the report doesn't say is the reasons you'd be crazy even to consider hacking your PS3.

First, if you start fiddling with the software it might not play your existing games.

Second, since 5 per cent of the fix is hardware, you might break it.

Third, and this is a culmination of the two points above, if you do anything like hack it, you've automatically voided all of the warranties it came with.

Fourth, if it's out of warranty but needs to go somewhere for repair, you betcha they'll take the hack off it and return it in its 'official' state.

Hacked PS3? Sure, as proof of concept it could be interesting. It's been done with the other consoles, I know. But it's a crazy, crazy idea.

Haha. I think I will buy PS3 just to hack it lol

[skatamatic]

I heard somewhere that Sony actually takes a loss for every PS3 that they sell. It's just too powerful of a machine for the price they charge. They do, ultimately, make millions on the game licensing however.

My point is, PS3's are actualy super powerful computers packing an 8-Core CPU capable of outputting 2 TFlops of computing power. Note that in the 60's 1 TFlop of computing power was believed to be theoretically possible but at a cost of over a quadrillion dollars. Limiting the system to games/certain media seems like an insult to the hardware so a 'hack' like this is a great thing (to people technically capable of not screwing anything up that is).

It is comparable to buying a Ferrari with a 90km/h governor on it.

[sergent]

1 TFlop of computing power was believed to be theoretically possible but at a cost of over a quadrillion dollars.

A computer in 1960's without a hard drive, 64 bytes of RAM, was considered good, and costed millions of dollars. So you MAY say PS3 is powerful, but you should be careful with comparing it to the old computers, and what was believed.

[skatamatic]

A computer in 1960's without a hard drive, 64 bytes of RAM, was considered good, and costed millions of dollars. So you MAY say PS3 is powerful, but you should be careful with comparing it to the old computers, and what was believed.

You seem to follow me around this forum posting replies of no significance. An i7 processor can produce about 100 GFlops. So...well I don't think I need to explain myself anymore. I was saying that what was once thought to be ungodly expensive is packed into the PS3 for about 250 bucks. At todays rate of around $1.80/GFlop the PS3 SHOULD cost $3,600.