“ but with the release of the PS5 and the introduction of PlayStation's bug bounty program, I was motivated to attempt some kind of exploit chain that would work on the PS5.”
Money is a perfectly reasonable reason to jump through the “responsible disclosure“ hoops. If you want to do work like this for purely altruistic reasons, go ahead, I’ll cheer you all the way. If someone else does it for money or reputation instead, I’ll still read their fascinating write up of it.
Money is definitely a valid motivator.
I just want to play the game like a normal person. But it's no fun anymore.
As for your end statement, I believe having root access, or just the same level of control over the individual device as the manufacturer does after the sale, is a matter of consumer rights/protections ripe for legislation, not about "features".
[1] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/09/eu-study-finds-piracy...
Did you even read the link?
1) it is totally unfair for the honest buyers if other people can get it for free in an "illegal" way.
2) The IP holders may simply don't want people to get there work for free, irrespective of the fact "they are not going to buy it anyway!". I've seen lots of indie artists express such opinion.
Ultimately, I don't think that's something bystanders have a say. You (general you, not "you" you) can't force your "rational analysis on economy of privacy" on the IP holders. Large game companies obviously almost only care about the profit, so you may assume they think that way. But that can't be applied to everyone.
Vast majority of people hack their consoles to pirate or run homebrew, not cheat. Consoles are usually only hackable on non-current firmwares anyway which means no online play.
>Piracy hurts game developers/publishers.
This has been disproven countless times.
I believe a good reason why the PS2 was so dominant was because of how widespread PS2 piracy was.
However, once these countries developed further and the people who grew up with PS consoles started to make more money, guess which consoles and games these people decided to buy? Hint: it wasn’t Xbox!
Long story short, easy access to piracy was a gateway to future PS game sales in many developing countries.
I also bought PS3 before Hotz by the way. Over the span of 2 years I bought like 3 games I cared about the most, that's all I could afford with the money I had available as a kid. After the jailbreak I had some 20 titles.
PS3 was originally PS2 backward compatible, then they removed that feature to shave a few bucks off the BOM.
Just think! All your CDs and movies in one machine, that you can play on your big rear projection TV over your 5.1 surround speakers!
Just think! They had absolutely no intention of releasing a version that was actually a PS2 with wireless controllers, and indeed thought the very idea that anyone would buy such a thing was laughable.
That would have blown the market to pieces.
Any theoretical PS5 piracy would almost certainly require it to be completely disconnected from the Internet so that the firmware and operating system could not be updated (or verified by Sony).
I always find that interesting, because to my eyes the quality jump from DVD to Blu-Ray is the biggest we've ever seen (and likely ever will see) in home video formats, way bigger than the move from VHS to DVD. I don't think DVD has aged particularly well, especially in a world of non-interlaced digital flat panel displays. A properly mastered Blu-Ray disc still looks considerably better than the HD streams being offered by just about any modern streaming service, but DVD generally looks worse than your typical 480p stream.
I have no doubt that viable piracy improves hardware sales in less fortunate economies, I just don't think it's enough of an effect to have the dramatic impact on global sales that was implied above.
If you want a console whose global sales I think were driven in large part by piracy, look no further than the PSP.
1: https://www.vgchartz.com/charts/platform_totals/Hardware.php...
In the old days, all you wanted and could do was play games so stakes were low. Now you have Netflix, NFL, and years of digital “goods” tied in there.
I do agree with you that piracy played a big part on PS1, and PS2 success but the role of it in the modern day won’t be as important as in the past.
The PS5 became profitable in 2021.
Lol who uses that argument in 2022? TLS cost is a rounding error with current generation of hardware.
They've removed features before. They tore OtherOS out of the PS3.
I don't see PS2 compatibility as being sacred to the PS5.
"CTurt stressed to Ars that it would be nearly impossible for Sony to plug the hole that enables mast1c0re. That's because a version of the exploitable PS2 emulator in question is packaged with each available PS2-on-PS4 game rather than stored separately as a core part of the console operating system. [..] For physical PS2-on-PS4 discs, that means the exploit should continue to work as long as you refuse any online updates before playing. And for digital releases, even if the exploit is later patched out, there are methods to downgrade to a stored, exploitable version using proxy HTTP traffic from a local server."
so there isn't just a single PS2 emulator in the PS4/PS5's OS, it's a per-game emulator.
I believe it is doable, but the long-term impact to consumer loyalty is another question. Xbox is a peer system and people may move to it and potentially not return.
(I'm frustrated over this because as an ISP employee that has to answer to 'slow device speed' complaints, we try to speedtest from the device, and the built-in PSN speed test is woefully low compared to a browser-based test proving our network isn't to blame.)
OtherOS came with the system in the box, and Sony tore it out after consumers had already purchased the system.
A subscription service, they can just end it and refund people's money and call it a day. It's absolutely not set in stone.
Unless they decide the revenue from the highest tier is worth leaving it in place. To be determined.
With PS2 emulation, I suspect far more people do use it and it would be much, much easier to prove you used it. This could lead to a huge settlement against them.
Sounds like a great way to destroy Sony's motivation to support backwards compatibility :P
> See also Part 2 (to be published),
