Sony Update Bricks Playstations 510
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."
Par for the course? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Both Xbox360 and the Wii are just as locked down as the PS3.
Is that why there's a massive piracy scene for the first two, and zero piracy on the PS3?
Re:Par for the course? (Score:5, Interesting)
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I don't agree, I think it has to do with videogame piracy, not movie. You can already rip Blu-Ray with a drive cheaper than a PS3. It is EASIER on the PS3, of course.
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All PS3 games that ship on disc ship on Blu-ray.
Yes but all PS3 owners, have a Bluray Reader.
Dump the thing across the network if you have to
Re:Par for the course? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, there are two words to explain that: Other OS. Check out this table [marcansoft.com] (slightly outdated, it's a year old or so) by console hacker Michael Steil (or watch him talk about it on any of his talks). Every console post-PS2 was hacked for homebrew, and then those hacks were abused for piracy. The PS3 comes with homebrew, therefore there is little motivation to crack the native system. Pro-piracy people are rarely good hackers, and need homebrew to piggyback on. In fact, the reason the PS3 was recently attacked was neither homebrew nor piracy; instead, geohot attacked it solely as an ego boost and to get media coverage (note how he hasn't even tried to develop a useful application for his exploit, such as GPU access under Linux).
Blu-ray is a minor inconvenience. There are a myriad potential ways of copying PS3 games that don't involve blu-ray discs.
Sony are shooting themselves in the foot by removing Other OS, and pissing off legitimate customers on top of it.
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Though I don't think pro-piracy crackers are BAD. I think many of them are pretty damn good. But their skill set is very different. They can get into games and sites and reverse engineer lots of bits of software. BUT to crack a ps3 you need very high level hardware cracking skills. Totally different things. You also likely need some amount of money if you might end up breaking a ps3 or 10. Crackers are generally not wealthy people. Really though I think it is like saying "That celloist is a t
Re:Par for the course? (Score:5, Interesting)
I can only speak from my experience in Wii hacking, but I can safely say that the dude who "developed" wii softmod piracy on the Wii did so by duct-taping together existing homebrew in a very poor way. He can barely reverse engineer software and he hasn't contributed a single breakthrough to the hacking community - all he does is leech off of homebrew and present his duct-taped solutions and GUIs as breakthroughs. At the same time, he doesn't understand the implications of what he does, nor does he properly comprehend the system architecture, and he also doesn't bother with safety. This conspires to make Wii softmod particularly dangerous to the uninitiated, as you're almost guaranteed to permanently brick your Wii if you blindly do stuff, and still dangerous even for experienced pirates, as some of his tools just flat out randomly brick consoles for no reason at all.
The day he preannounced his USB loader for the Wii (something highly predictable, as someone had recently released high-speed USB drivers for homebrew), I decided to carry out an exercise and see how long it would take me to build the core functionality by doing what he does - duct-tape together existing modules and tools. The answer is that what is widely considered to be his major breakthrough amounts to 6 hours of actual work, plus polish and a bad GUI. I had a video proof-of-concept [youtube.com] going before he even had a chance to release his loader.
It might be different on other consoles; that I do not know.
Re:Par for the course? (Score:5, Interesting)
And yet the PS3 isn't tougher to hack in the way geohot has (certainly not given Other OS). Look at geohot's hack: it's a simple RAM glitch, much like the one tmbinc pioneered over 2 years ago on the Wii ("twiizer attack"). Now that hacks are out for all consoles, we can compare the relative difficulty. Compare the PS3 (plaintext hypervisor in RAM, no hashing) to the Xbox 360 (encrypted hypervisor in RAM, hashing, encrypted executables). Both consoles have good security, but the PS3 hack is significantly simpler than 360 hacks from a technical perspective (drive hacks notwithstanding - that's a whole different ballgame). That's also confirmed given how little time it took geohot to get it to work, even though he was completely unfamiliar with the PS3 when he started a few months earlier. Even the Xbox1 LDT bus tap by Andrew "bunnie" Huang was orders of magnitude more complicated, and yet he pulled it off in 2001.
As a console hacker myself, I know quite a few others, and I can definitely say that interest in hacking the PS3 was near nonexistent before the Slim came out (sans Other OS), except for a couple Linux folks trying to poke holes in the hypercall interface to get access to the GPU.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
that interest in hacking the PS3 was near nonexistent before the Slim came out (sans Other OS), except for a couple Linux folks trying to poke holes in the hypercall interface to get access to the GPU.
someone donate this guy a mod point.
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That's not a solution to this issue (in fact, it's worse than using a proxy to continue logging in with 3.15). This initiates a cat-and-mouse game with Sony, which will end with annoyed and/or banned users. It also voids the warranty on your console.
As a PS3 Linux user, I don't consider this even remotely as good as the old situation. Sure, functionally at this point in time it might be OK, but the whole point of an officially supported homebrew mode is that it's officially supported. Homebrew after Sony's
Re:Par for the course? (Score:4, Insightful)
To you, it may seem complicated. To me, injecting a single glitch pulse into a RAM line such that sometimes you get lucky and corrupt the right write is a shotgun-style trivial hardware glitch attack. Geohot's hack, hardware-wise, is one of the simplest out there.
Re:Par for the course? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, that part of the table is wrong (IMO it should read 12 months or whatever). However, this warrants some explanation.
Since the advent of drive modifications and consoles with signed executables, piracy has split into two camps: drive modification, and software modification. The latter implies homebrew and always piggybacks on homebrew, and is mostly what I refer to in my GP post. However, drive modifications are a different story. They mostly appeared when drive firmware patches delivered via homebrew on the GameCube were ported by modchip manufacturers to be delivered via an alternate serial port on the drive. The GC/Wii's drives are outsourced to Matshita, and they didn't bother to fix the hole in the GameCube. Paraphrasing tmbinc, "The GameCube had a connector on the drive board that might as well have been labeled 'insert modchip here'. With the Wii, they fixed this problem by removing the old connector... and replacing it with a new one".
Therefore, it is safe to say that DVD (drive) piracy on the Wii was there from the very beginning - not because the modchip makers are good, but because modchips were trivially ported over from the GameCube. On the other hand, softmod piracy on the Wii started, as usual, by piggybacking on homebrew.
The reason that drive mods are popular is because manufacturers have neglected that part of console security - they made their software secure, but didn't properly secure the drive. If you can convince a drive that a burned game is legit, then there's nothing that the console software can do about it. In order to fix this, you need to improve drive security and couple it to system security.
The Wii is the worst example - the drive bus is in plaintext and unauthenticated. This is why HDD-to-drive physical adapters are coming out from modchip makers.
The 360 is better, but the drives are essentially off-the-shelf PC drives. Although they're trying hard to detect and ban mods, and there's some crypto going on, the drives are still pretty insecure.
The PS3 is different; as far as I know, the BD drive is custom, secure, and much better coupled to the system.
So, to conclude and better explain things: the PS3 avoided commercial drivechips by having good drive security (something sorely lacking on other consoles), and avoided noncommercial software piracy by removing the incentive for homebrewers to hack the system (which will inevitably happen otherwise, as has been proven time and time again).
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So, to conclude and better explain things: the PS3 avoided commercial drivechips by having good drive security (something sorely lacking on other consoles), and avoided noncommercial software piracy by removing the incentive for homebrewers to hack the system (which will inevitably happen otherwise, as has been proven time and time again).
This conclusion surprises me a little, as my understanding was that while the OtherOS feature would permit alternative operating systems to install and run (primarily Linux), aspects of the hardware would be restricted, most notably, the RSX, which I'm told is essentially the PS3 GPU. This would seem to me to be a fairly significant handicap? Even if not a major handicap, most hackers I know (and the hacker mentality itself) would find the notion of having a piece of hardware which you can only partially ut
Re:Par for the course? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you have some valid points; the PS3 is probably less popular in general, and its security architecture has probably been overstated, which would discourage hackers.
My feeling is that the RSX limitation, while certainly an annoyance for Linux users, just isn't enough to motivate most people into actually breaking the system. Even for those that are, it significantly changes the attack front. A console with no "homebrew mode" needs to be attacked by breaking into the game-mode software, which is what the manufacturer wants to avoid. The PS3, on the other hand, can have small holes poked in the hypervisor without compromising GameOS. This already happened once: a bug was found that enabled the use of the RSX in an older firmware by exploiting some bugs in the hypervisor interface (without actually breaking into it). Sony patched it later.
It's worth noting that this RSX limitation is really the only significant hardware limitation for the PS3 in Other OS. Sure, some other peripherals are virtualized, but you don't really lose any functionality from that. You get access to the full system mode of the PowerPC, and you get access to 6 SPEs which is pretty good.
My personal feeling towards the PS3 (pre-Slim), and I suspect that of many other hackers, was "Meh. No RSX, annoying, but we've got Linux which is pretty good. Maybe we can do some neat tricks with the SPEs". Even if the notion of a walled garden goes against the spirit of controlling your own hardware, it's still so much better than the competition (the iPhone's tightly controlled App Store, the 360's tightly controlled XNA stuff, or the total lack of any reasonable indie game option for the Wii) that it means you tend to go for the other targets. The Wii is particularly bad; they won't let you get an SDK license unless you meet ridiculously high standards - WiiWare is really just a small game option for medium to large game studios, not for small indie operations. The bureaucracy is too large.
I wouldn't want to live in a world where we can't control any of our devices, but I think having "walled gardens" on a few (e.g. mainstream game consoles) is tolerable. I understand the manufacturers' point of view, and why they depend on some software security in order to avoid piracy. Sure, I'd prefer totally open systems, but having some officially-supported homebrew infrastructure still beats having nothing by a large margin.
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No, there are two words to explain that: Other OS. Check out this table [marcansoft.com] (slightly outdated, it's a year old or so) by console hacker Michael Steil (or watch him talk about it on any of his talks). Every console post-PS2 was hacked for homebrew, and then those hacks were abused for piracy. The PS3 comes with homebrew, therefore there is little motivation to crack the native system. Pro-piracy people are rarely good hackers, and need homebrew to piggyback on.
This is just plain BS. Piracy on modern consoles (at least in the case of the Xbox 360 and Wii) involve bypassing the DVD drive's built in security check. This really has nothing to do with homebrew and you can, in fact, run homebrew on either system without modifying the DVD drive to accept pirated discs. So your statement that pro-piracy people are a) rarely good hackers and b) are piggybacking on homebrew is complete crap.
Get your facts straight before commenting on something you obviously know nothing about.
You might want to weigh your own confidence against the authority of the person making claims you disagree with before launching into an attack.
I don't really understand your objection to a), and I think Marcan's claims about b) are justified but deserve a bit of clarification. It's not so simple; as Michael Steil discusses, the efforts (piracy vs homebrew) often leverage each others' work. The only reason you can "run homebrew [on the Wii] without modifying the DVD drive to accept pirated discs" is that
Re:Par for the course? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the same reason there as very little DVD movie piracy in the mid-late 90's (very few people had burners and security cracks yet).
Doing a straight copy of a DVD doesn't require cracking CSS, you just copy the contents of the disc. The main thing that held DVD piracy back in the mid-late 90's was bandwidth and storage. While most people here in scandinavia would prefer 700 or 1400 MiB rips at the time we still hadn't convinced the average american "w4r3z d00d" that 250-300 MiB wasn't good enough for a full length movie...
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No, there is one word to explain that: blu-ray. It's the same reason there as very little DVD movie piracy in the mid-late 90's (very few people had burners and security cracks yet).
I partly counter your example with UMDs; absolutely no one has UMD burners yet the PSP has been an extremely convenient medium for playing games unlicensed, along with other homebrew software.
What is especially different between movies and games is movies can be reformatted into smaller sizes. Those 5 gigs of video can be turned into a few hundred megs which is easier to disseminate online. Games, though, can only have content taken out and some aspects of it compressed or reformatted.
Since dual-layer Blu-R
Re:Par for the course? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. In addition to a PS3, X360, and Wii there's also the iPhone and iPad that can be bricked via forced updates. Also certain DVRs and Bluray/HDDVD gadgets. I've also heard complaints about DTVpals being bricked by the Dish Company's updates.
And my response?
- Call Sony to demand restitution for the PS3 they broke.
- Wait.
- If no response to repair or replace the broken PS3, then I'd buy a new PS3 from some store (like amazon or walmart), put the bricked one inside the box, then return it as defective ("It just won't turn on. No I don't want an exchange; I want a refund."). The store would eventually return it to Sony who would have to deal with the property THEY destroyed.
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Ooops. I just noticed I didn't answer your question. I'm not aware of any gadgets you can buy New which does not have firmware. Of course you always have the possibility of simply not updating your TV or DVR or Bluray Player so it can't be bricked, but you also run the risk of not being able to play some new Blurays that require the latest firmware. (There's also talk of blocking output to the Component Video cables.)
Older gadgets don't have firmware. For example the Super VHS I bought a few months ago
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AFAIK the nintendo DS doesnt have firmware upgrades, not sure about the DSi though
but that's all i can really think off to be honest, off course your PC doesnt REQUIRE bios upgrades to run new games, but they might be beneficial for the entire system as a whole
Re:Par for the course? (Score:5, Funny)
Recently, as a reward for getting straight 'A's I took my son to a CompUSA and told him he could have any computer he wanted. Imagine my disgust when he selected a mac mini. It's as if I took him to a whorehouse for his first lay and he wound up giving head to the bouncer. Where did I fail as a father?
Re:Par for the course? (Score:5, Funny)
Where did I fail as a father?
Taking your son to CompUSA...or a whorehouse.
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Where did I fail as a father?
Taking your son to CompUSA...or a whorehouse.
Taking your son to a lousy CompUSA... instead of to a good whorehouse. The boy should learn useful skills, not just tech stuff.
Re:Par for the course? (Score:4, Insightful)
Kid fucked up and bought a Mac and learned to hate it in a hurry? Linux box!
Bricked your Windows PC? Linux box!
Found out that your PS3 isn't as awesome as you originally thought it would be? Linux box!
Linux, making useless computers not suck since 1991.
Re:Par for the course? (Score:4, Informative)
"put the bricked one inside the box, then return it as defective"
That's fraud, also, I think they print the serial of the PS3 on the receipt so they wont match when returning it.
Re:Par for the course? (Score:4, Insightful)
>>>That's fraud
Yes it IS fraud for Sony (or any other company) to destroy people's personal property. As I said I would follow proper procedure and give Sony an opportunity to do the right thing (repair/replace), but if they don't I will not just sit on the property THEY destroyed and do nothing.
I'm tired of corporations running over citizens as if they were smashed squirrels on the road to wealth. Oh and also dipping into taxpayer wallets by giving themselves free handouts (Congressional bills). I will do what I feel is necessary to protect myself from loss.
Re:Par for the course? (Score:4, Insightful)
Or, instead of committing fraud, and hurting your local retailer in the process for something that is not their fault,
you could, you know.. Take Sony to Small claims court. This is exactly the kind of stuff that Small Claims court is made for. Sue them for the cost of a new device, plus filing fees.
Re:Par for the course? (Score:5, Informative)
Not only that, it's primarily fat PS3's that are bricking. I don't think they sell those anymore.
Re:Par for the course? (Score:4, Insightful)
I was on the verge of buying a used fat hardware-emu PS3 before this stupid "update" came out. Now those old ones are going to be even harder to find and more expensive.
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Depends. My Dad had a story about how he bought a VCR from a slightly shady place about 20 years ago. When he plugged it in, it didn't work. He took it back for a refund, and they wouldn't take it. He called AMEX from a payphone and told them the story, and the rep told them "take it inside and try to return it again. If they don't take it, leave it on the counter and leave".
He got his chargeback. So it's not necessarily fraud. But the GP makes it sound like it.
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**"put the bricked one inside the box, then return it as defective"**
A friend of mine was banned for life from Best Buy for trying this.
They had an issue with a Linksys router they purchased from the (IMHO) worst online retailer...buy.com. They couldn't get buy.com to agree to replace it, so they went to Best Buy, purchased an identical piece of hardware, put the bad one back in the box and attempted to return it. The folks at Best Buy compared the MAC address of the one in the box to the sticker on the o
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>>>Far better to sue.
Yeah that will go well. I'll spend a couple thousand dollars fighting Sony for the next ~8 years over a $300 console. And most likely - lose.
I prefer to not put myself through that hell. I prefer to take the easy route of going through my Credit card's protection program (if the item does not work, and customer has proof-of-return, the retailer's agreement REQUIRES a refund).
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Consoles have serial numbers. Those serial numbers are visible through a window on the box they are packaged in. Said serial number is scanned when you purchase the console.
In other words, your proposed attack against "The Man" wouldn't work.
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Re:Par for the course? (Score:5, Interesting)
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I think Nokia N900s are also "unbrickable" - even an interrupted firmware update is recoverable, but that's because the "lowest level" firmware is never updated (or at least hasn't been updated so far and there's no info about doing it) - what they call a reflash is actually just re-imaging a regular disk partition in the solid state memory that contains the OS.
I wonder why more manufacturers don't use a similar "sub-BIOS" system that can be used to recover from failed firmware updates. I know some PC mobos
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So far, the PC's I put together from parts don't have forced locked down firmware updates.
Seriously, this locked-down stuff is going to kill everything many of us love about computers, gaming, etc.
Does anyone out there doubt that at some point the iMac is going to be locked down to only allow apps via some iTunes like channel?
Why do Sony, A
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But the opposite is not true either. One reason for the success of the PC architecture is its openness. Just look at how well the IBM PS/2 with non-open MCA fared compared with system using ISA and PCI (in all their variants).
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So is there any console or other electronic gadget you can buy nowadays which does not include forced locked own firmware updates that has the possibility of breaking it?
The Nokia N900 is such a device.
It is one of the few devices you truly own and where the vendor will not dictate what you are allowed to install.
When a new firmware update is available you get a notification asking you if you would like to install it or not, nothing is forced onto you.
But don't get me wrong, The N900 is not perfect. It is a new device with a new OS and some of the applications reflect that. The E-Mail client, for example, is a piece of crap without proper IMAP support and spell checking. Th
Re:not a stationary though, but (Score:4, Funny)
Just like every other FW update they do (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, every single system update brings out dozens of "complaints" how it bricked their system. You'll note the very low number of posts against each of these user in the forums too, creating their account to troll or complain is the question? You get the same thing when major games are released. Trolls or genuine reports has never been determined because no one ever follows up the complaints with real people to determine validity, but nevertheless, people write these problems "stories".
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I would wager that the false positive reports balance with the false negatives. (ie, your trolls vs the unreported angry people)
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So if I write stuff here about you that's untrue, on balance it becomes true because of stuff that other unspecified people haven't written here????
Rrrright...
Bitter Xbox Fanboys Over The RRoD Fiasco (Score:2, Funny)
"You'll note the very low number of posts against each of these user in the forums too"
Every major PS3 firmware update and game release has pathetic and desperate Xbox fanboys racing to console forums creating dummy accounts making up inane stories about bricked PS3s.
Owning the worst console in history, the Xbox 360 and its unprecedented garbage hardware, has created a bunch of foaming at the mouth nutcases desperate to smear other consoles in hopes it will somehow salvage the reputation of their piece of c
Re:Bitter Xbox Fanboys Over The RRoD Fiasco (Score:5, Funny)
a bunch of foaming at the mouth nutcases desperate to smear other consoles.
Pot calling kettle, come in kettle.
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Personally, when I went to buy a console, I decided to buy the console that actually had games I was interested in purchasing. To date, I own about a dozen 360 games, and have rented even more. However, I own about TWO dozen Wii games, and rented more. I don't own a PS3, since the majority of games are cross-platform, and those that aren't have simply failed to pique my interest in any significant way. The first game to come close was Heavy Rain, but reviews cooled me towards it.
However, my decision was bas
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There's a degree of truth of this. I've noticed that if I research any purchase online, I always have to employ a mental "negativity filter" to reflect the fact that by and large, it's unhappy people who post on these forums. My "fat" PS3 has been updated (reluctantly) for several days and has had no problems (touch wood) - unless you count the loss of functionality that I had never used, but had liked knowing was there.
However, firmware updates do genuinely seem to have a habit of causing problems with the
Doorstop? (Score:4, Funny)
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Clearly the article said it turned it into an expensive brick!
But a brick that can still contribute to your electric bill.
This always happens (Score:3, Interesting)
Over the life of my PS3, updates have commonly caused severe issues. I've had to reformat the hard drive several times and I even had to send it in to be "repaired" after updating. Sony really needs to work on not breaking their own system.
Re:This always happens (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that Sony cares way more about locking down and commoditizing their media content with DRM and "security meseasures" than they do about their customers (one of the inherent problems of having a hardware maker who is also a media producer). They're not alone on that (MS and Nintendo are hardly open themselves), but they do seem much more obsessed about it than just about anyone else--short of maybe Apple.
The problem is that Sony doesn't seem to be thinking much about the fact that their media is only worth something in the first place BECAUSE of their customers. And, if they're not careful, they could very easily lose their balance and fall. After all, the perfect way to produce a piracy-proof blu-ray of a movie or videogame is to simply release it as a blank disc. But no one is going to buy it then, are they?
Re:This always happens (Score:5, Insightful)
In this respect, even Microsoft does a better job. They have to update a more sophisticated operating system that runs on a HUGE variety of systems and processors. Sony knows 100% the exact software and hardware they are updating on, and 100% of the software that will run on the console, yet they can't manage an update without borking somebody's box. If they worried more about quality than piracy or someone running linux on their hardware, they might actually be able to produce a decent product some day.
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Over the life of my PS3, updates have commonly caused severe issues. I've had to reformat the hard drive several times and I even had to send it in to be "repaired" after updating. Sony really needs to work on not breaking their own system.
I have owned a PS3 for years and have never once had a problem with their updates.
Out of curiosity, are you doing anything "weird" with your PS3, such as running other OSs or anything?
interesting... (Score:3, Interesting)
Sony shoots one foot while trying to shoot the other...
I don't really have much to add that doesn't get beaten-to-death any other time Sony is brought up.
Haven't Installed it (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Haven't Installed it (Score:5, Informative)
It's fine if you want to play games. And the update is required if you want to play online games.
Both my and my flatmate's PS3 went through the update with no problems. It only becomes a "very expensive doorstop" if you don't use it to play games, or watch DVDs and blu-rays, the article is a bit flamebaitish because we already knew this would happen, and the update has a page which specifically informs you about the removal of the Other OS feature and then confirms (I think twice) that you really want to go through with it.
Re:Haven't Installed it (Score:4, Insightful)
TFA didn't dwell on the "removes other OS" feature - that was already well known.
TFA explained that the update tended to stop the affected units from doing anything useful - eg. playing games, connecting to the Internet. Which I'm sure does have the side effect that installing an alternate OS will no longer work, but I don't think this is quite how most people interpreted Sony's original description.
Re:Haven't Installed it (Score:5, Informative)
TFA explained that the update tended to stop the affected units from doing anything useful - eg. playing games, connecting to the Internet. Which I'm sure does have the side effect that installing an alternate OS will no longer work, but I don't think this is quite how most people interpreted Sony's original description.
The article says that is the case for people who have not installed the update. That has been the case every time Sony releases an update (apart from a couple of non essential updates such as the one that updated the slideshow facility). It is not news.
The only real bit of news in there is that some people are experiencing infinite loops in the update process, which does suck.
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It appears that you only lose the ability to play games (Online ones) and Blu-Rays if you DON'T install the upgrade.
The article doesn't indicate that anyone has lost this functionality as a result of the upgrade.
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Actually the first paragraph does. It is very poorly worded:
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 or connect to the Interweb according to forum posts, turning it into a very expensive doorstop.
Emphasis mine. There is no also about it. The two outcomes are mutually exclusive depending on whether or not you install the update.
It is always the case that if you don't install a required system updated, that you can no longer use online features. I've got no idea why some users are saying that their PS3 suddenly "refuses to play or eject blu-ray discs" though. With the standard of reporting in the article I wouldn't be surprised if one person
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Will be malfunctioning? My PS3 and my flatmate's are both working fine. No doubt there is a very vocal minority who are experiencing problems, but it is definitely not breaking PS3s across the board. Both of our PS3s are still working fine at full res via HDMI to our HDTVs and hi-fi system.
We already knew that installing the update would cause Other OS to not function.
We already knew that not installing the update would disable online capabilities, including certain games.
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But the thing NO ONE expected (asides from the Spanish Inquisition) is that legitimate Fat PS3s would be rendered non-functional (stuck in upgrade infinite loops, for instance). "Bricking" in the parlance. (And yes, there is a trollish minority that insists it's not really "bricked" unless it's utterly unrecoverable. We're aware of your position. We just understand that you're wrong.)
Anyway, only the most pessimistic would believe in advance that Sony would be so careless with a firmware update that it woul
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Indeed, this is no different to the problems with any of the earlier updates, but people love their insane conspiracy theories. I wonder if those stuck in infinite loops have tried the "hold the power button down for 10 seconds on boot up" trick, which resets a few things like switching from HDMI output to the default video output.
Sounds like Sony could be more thorough with testing, but what with all the different versions of the "fat" PS3 that they've had, or say people losing power midway through the ins
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I'm sorry but you do realize that by "online stuff" people mean "playing games", right?
For example, my copies of Warhawk, SOCOM and MAG all very much appreciate being online.
PS my PS3, an original fat 60GB model (now a 320GB model not that its relevant) went through the update fine.
Not Bricked But.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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This is why I kept my PS2. It has 99.9% compatibility with my older PS1 collection (since it's basically a PS1 inside a PS2).
The PS3's compatibility is nowhere near that high. And companies wonder why we turn to emulation..... the emulators work better than the actual paid-for product.
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My PS3 has been broken since the update. I cannot connect to PSN, Playstation Home, play online or watch a bluray. When I try to connect I get error "Z(7,-100)". I have told by some people that it is broken server side if I get that error, Sony support are clueless.
Definition of 'Brick'? (Score:5, Informative)
The article doesnt describe bricking. It barely describes real problems. It describes (rather vaguely) sluggish internet and third party controllers not working. And it never actually shows or links to actual complaints. The only real information in the article is that people who dont install the update can't connect to PSN, which is standard for these updates.
D
Sony is a shell company (Score:4, Funny)
It's a front for the Iraqi-Italian axis and this "bricking" is part of their war on the Christian American Family. What we need is Communism, and ham.
Am I the only one? (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe it has something to do with the fact the I never played around with "install other OS", never opened the hood to replace the hard drive, never tried to jailbreak it...
Still, I think it's sad that Sony is trying to prevent power users to exploit the full potential of this otherwise marvelous piece of technology!
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The clock problem didn't affect all fat PS3s. I have a later model (a year or so old) and it worked fine on March 1st. I made a point to try to connect to PSN to see whether the bug would be triggered or not.
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Is this even legal? (Score:5, Interesting)
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I think Sony would say that the EULA makes it so. I think a lawyer would/could argue that if they brick your system with an update, they owe you a new one. Unfortunately, you'd never get a lawyer to take this case as the value of a PS3 and "damages" aren't enough to cover one billable hour...
Morally (though that's so gauche to say these days) I think if you buy a product and the company borks it well after the purchase, they owe you a fix or new one. Using the classic /. car analogy, it's like taking your c
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I wonder whether the intentional removal of a major feature which was present at time of purchase, and which for many was the primary reason for said purchase, is in any way actionable.
That's an extremely good question.
IANAL, but AFAIK current consumer law in most countries was drafted when the idea that a manufacturer could change how the item you've bought works, months or even years after you bought it and force you to accept this change if you want to continue using the item was little more than fanciful dystopic science-fiction.
Complicating the issue further is that (certainly in the UK, YMMV) legally speaking, it's the retailer's problem to ensure you get what you paid for, not the
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I wonder whether the intentional removal of a major feature which was present at time of purchase, and which for many was the primary reason for said purchase, is in any way actionable.
Aside from what others have said regarding the EULA, which really does control here, if you wanted to go to the Uniform Commercial Code and sue the retailer for breach of an implied warranty as jimicus suggests, you'd have an additional problem:
2-315. Implied Warranty: Fitness for Particular Purpose.
Where the seller at the time of contracting has reason to know any particular purpose for which the goods are required and that the buyer is relying on the seller's skill or judgment to select or furnish suitable goods, there is unless excluded or modified under the next section an implied warranty that the goods shall be fit for such purpose.
Installing a secondary OS may have been your particular purpose, but a retailer wouldn't know that... It's something that less than 1% of purchasers would do. Furthermore, even if you told them expressly, "I'm purchasing this to install Linux," note that second claus
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IANAL
The FTC needs to step into this. I filed a complaint with the FTC earlier this week, it only takes a few minutes, so please do the same if you are a PS3 FAT owner unless you enjoy losing features you paid for. Judging that any post I make on the playstation blog containing the word FTC is instantly censored by string matching, I believe this is what Sony is afraid of.
From the FTC statement on unfairness, "To justify a finding of unfairness the injury must satisfy three tests."
source: http://www.ftc.gov
Re:Is this even legal? (Score:5, Insightful)
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In either case it's the PS3 owner that has to make that decision, keep the OtherOS functionality or use it for PSN/Games.
Technically the PS3 still does everything it could do before the update, just not at the same time.
Re:Is this even legal? (Score:4, Insightful)
Technically, if I give you the choice of being shot in the left or right kneecap, you can walk with either leg, just not at the same time. I'd still get arrested and prosecuted, though.
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You forgot you'll no longer be able to play any new games, use the media server to play any legitimately bought DRMed movies or play any BluRay movies that require the new firmware.
Take your pick use it as a Linux box or everything else you bought it for except a Linux box.
I don't plan on doing the update until it's absolutely necessary. I'm also hoping they'll put the Other OS functionality back, but I'm not holding my breath. I won't be buying any new Sony products in the near future, even if they put the
Consoles? (Score:2)
I understand how MS could sometimes release updates that are harmful to some computers, they control on the hardware and the other programs installed on their customers machines.
But in the case of consoles and Sony they know exactly what they will encounter, one of a few versions of the Playstation 3.
And I believe this is the second of their updates to brick PS 3s.
So my questions is, do they not even test their updates on the PS 3s?
Or are PS 3s of the same version radically different enough to brick or not
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There's really only ONE report of a bricking. Meanwhile my Microsoft console is doing a mandatory, 26 minute update before I can use Xbox Live this morning. I don't know whether I should be more scared that the update should fail, or that it will RROD before the update finishes. And all I want is to play Forza 3... (I'm throwing rocks at Gran Turismo now, wewp)
My $0.02 (Score:4, Interesting)
Our 250GB PS3 Slim has been fine after the latest update...no freezing or game launching problems. I can't RTFA due to work filters, but I would imagine that this update wouldn't cause problems with Slim PS3s anyway, since out of the box you already can't install Linux on there.
Can anyone tell me if TFA says anything about Slim PS3s?
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it seems to be the portly version which is having the most problems.
This is yet another update that PS3 fat owners are reporting widespread problems, with nary a hiccup for PS3 slim owners. Tin foil or no, that's just a fact.
Thanks!
Is it bricked bricked or... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is archaic definition bricked or "inconvenient to repair" bricked, as is the new usage.
Given that "literally" is the new figuratively it's hard to tell what people mean these days.
Glad I didn't install the update (Score:2)
No problems here (Score:2)
And why do you care? (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly. It's their hardware.
Look I understand that you "thought" you became the owner when you forked over the cash. But that's not how corporate America works these days. For a given amount of green, you get to place a Sony-owned piece of hardware in your living room, and play it until Sony decides it's obsolete. You then get to put it in the garbage, give Sony some more money, and replace it with another box with even less features. And to top it off, you rebuy all of the games you liked to play.
I know it sounds cynical, but this is how the console market works. Unless you're using FOSS on open hardware, you don't really own it anymore. There are EULAs to contend with, the DMCA and DRM, and the ever-increasing term of copyright.
If you don't want the pitfalls of proprietary hardware, don't buy it.
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Because it's cheaper. Companies only exist to make money, really.
Re:No issues here (Score:5, Informative)
Your Linux partition is still there, you just can't make use of the space reserved for it anymore. The only way to recover the space is to do a back up, format, and restore.
Re:Will Sony replace bricked PS3s caused by update (Score:5, Informative)
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