YokimaSun writes “Sony may have dealt a major blow to the PSjailbreak sellers, but the release last week of PSGroove, an open source version of the hack, has now opened the floodgates of ports to mobile phones such as the Nokia N900 and Palm Pre. The final kick in the teeth is that a port of the exploit has been released by Waninkoko of Wii custom firmware fame for the Dingoo Handheld, which is a homebrew console that is very popular amongst emulation fans. It makes you smile that you can use one homebrew console to hack another to get homebrew on that console. Awesome.”
pudge notes that you can apparently do the same with a TI-84 Plus graphing calculator (YouTube video).
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donniebaseball23 sends this quote from an opinion piece at Industry Gamers:
“On Monday, news came down the pipeline from SCEE president Andrew House that Sony wants to focus on a younger audience for the PSP with future titles. My immediate reaction was one of shock and confusion. After all, in an interview with IndustryGamers at E3, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime noted that, ‘the way I would describe the market for the Nintendo 3DS would be the launch market that we had with the Nintendo DS plus the launch market that maybe PSP had.’ When your primary competitor is looking to the exact market that you’ve catered to, why would you abandon that market? There was a time when Sony Computer Entertainment was a trailblazer, bringing things to the industry ahead of everyone else. Nowadays, however, it seems that Sony is content to merely fall in step behind everyone else and simply try hard to not fall too far behind.”
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dlove67 writes “PSX-scene.com reports that the first PS3 modchip has been tested and confirmed to be working. Running off of a USB dongle, it appears to be relatively user friendly and claims to not void your warranty. Online gameplay works (at least for the time being). It’s been a long time coming; cheers to the PS Jailbreak Guys.” The video is attached below if you’re curious. Can’t help but point out that this wouldn’t have happened if Sony hadn’t decided to yank the Boot Other OS option.
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When the PS3 launched in 2006, estimates pegged the price of producing the consoles to be as much as $250 more than the price at which they were sold. Production costs have dropped since then, but there have been several price cuts as well. Now, almost four years later, Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida says they’re finally turning a profit on the hardware.
“This year is the first time that we are able to cover the cost of the PlayStation 3,’ Yoshida said. ‘We aren’t making huge money from hardware, but we aren’t bleeding like we used to.’ In May, Sony began shipping new PlayStation 3 consoles with smaller and more cost-effective graphics chips. Now, Yoshida said, Sony is looking at replenishing retail stock that has been running on empty since January rather than cutting the price. ‘When we bring the cost of hardware down, we are looking at opportunities to adjust prices if we believe that will increase demand,’ he explained. ‘At the moment, we are trying to catch up our production.’”
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Eraesr writes “Apparently Valve boss Gabe Newell thinks the PS3 needs to be more of an open platform, drawing a comparison to Apple’s Mac platform. In an interview with 5BY5.TV, he said he would like to see the PS3 be ‘open like a Mac’ instead of being ‘more closed like a Gamecube.’ ‘Platform investments, like the Mac, are difficult because you have to be aware of what direction that platform is moving,’ Newell said, referring to the firm’s recent move onto Macs with its titles and distribution service Steam. ‘We need to target platforms that do a better job of looking like where we want to be in a few years.’”
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tlhIngan writes “The US Air Force, having purchased PS3s for supercomputing research, is now the latest victim of Sony’s removal of the Install Other OS feature. It turns out that while their PS3s don’t need the firmware update, it will be impossible to replace PS3s that fail. PS3s with the Other OS feature are no longer produced since the Slim was introduced, so replacements will have to come from the existing stock of used PS3s. However, as most gamers have probably updated their PS3s, that used stock is no longer suitable for the USAF’s research. In addition, smaller educational clusters using PS3s will share the same fate — unable to replace machines that die in their clusters.”
In related news, Sony has been hit with two more lawsuits over this issue.
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Stoobalou writes “A Californian Playstation 3 user has filed the first class action lawsuit against Sony over removal of the ‘Install Other OS’ function from the Playstation 3. The action seeks to redress Sony’s ‘intentional disablement of the valuable functionalities originally advertised as available with the Sony Playstation 3 video game console.’ The suit claims that the disablement breaches the sales contract between Sony and its customers and constitutes ‘an unfair and deceptive business practice perpetrated on millions of unsuspecting customers.’”
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Channard writes “As reported by Joystiq, the PS3/PlayStation Network version of Final Fight Double Impact features a rather restrictive piece of digital rights management. In order to launch the game, you have to be logged into the PlayStation Network and if you’re not, the game refuses to launch. This could be written off as a bug of some kind except for the fact that the error message that crops up tells you to sign in, suggesting Sony/Capcom intentionally included this ‘feature.’ Granted, you do have to log into the PlayStation Network to buy the title but as one commentator pointed out, logging in once does not mean you’ll be logged in all the time. Curiously, the 360 version has no such restrictions, so you can play the game whether you’re online or offline. But annoying as this feature may be, there may be method in Sony’s madness. “
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Stoobalou writes “A controversial update which was seeded by Sony in order to remove the ability to run Linux on the Playstation 3 games console has caused a storm of complaints.
The 3.21 firmware upgrade, which removes the security hole provided by the ‘Install Other OS’ widget used by lots of educational institutions and hackers alike, also removes the console’s ability to play games… turning it into a very expensive doorstop.”
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The $64,000 question about Sony’s upcoming motion control system, the PlayStation Move, is how responsive it will be compared to traditional console controllers and its counterparts from Nintendo and Microsoft. Eurogamer slowed down videos of Sony’s tech demo software to establish a rough baseline latency that developers will have to work with. Quoting:
“While exact latency measurements aren’t possible in these conditions, a ballpark idea of the level of response isn’t a problem at all. The methodology is remarkably straightforward. Keep your hand as steady as possible, then make fast motions with the controller. Count the frames between your hand moving, and the motion being carried out on-screen. Equally illuminating is to stop your movement suddenly, then count the frames necessary for your on-screen counterpart to catch up. While not 100 per cent accurate, repeat the process enough times and the frame difference becomes fairly evident. Bearing all of that in mind, and recognizing that we don’t know how much latency the display itself is adding, I’d say that a ballpark figure of around 133ms of controller lag (give or take a frame) seems reasonable, certainly not the ultra-fast crispness of response we see from games like Burnout Paradise or Modern Warfare, but fine for most of the applications you would want from such a controller.”
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