Hasta La Gadget!

Just last week Sony said that those found to have hacked their PlayStation 3 consoles would have their PlayStation Network access “terminated permanently.” Harsh words that, unsurprisingly, weren’t too warmly received by the hacking community. Destructoid is now reporting that not only have those tinkerers found a way to unban themselves, but that they can in turn ban any other console they want. There’s apparently a catch, though, with the hackers having to know the unique ID assigned to the other console that they’ll be banning, which makes this sound like perhaps the hack is simply swapping a “good” ID onto a “bad” console, but at this point we have no details on the supposed procedure here. Regardless, if some random girl with a cute avatar hits you up on IM and, after a few minutes of casual conversation, asks you for the serial number on your PS3, think twice before handing over those digits.

Update: We were a little leery about this given Destructoid‘s lack of a source, and thanks to a note from reader Omega we now have what looks to be the actual source — indeed this all is sounding rather theoretical.

PlayStation hackers reportedly able to unban selves, ban others, turn tables originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Feb 2011 10:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Consumers using circumvention devices or running unauthorized or pirated software will have access to the PlayStation Network and access to Qriocity services through PlayStation 3 system terminated permanently.

To avoid this, consumers must immediately cease use and remove all circumvention devices and delete all unauthorized or pirated software from their PlayStation 3 systems.

Sony releases statement on PS3 hacking, surprisingly comes out against it originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Feb 2011 14:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Details about Sony’s next-gen portable Playstation, the NGP, have been scarce since we spoke with SCEA President-CEO Jack Tretton about the new device. However, in an interview in the forthcoming issue of Edge, Shuhei Yoshida –who happens to be president of SCEA Worldwide Studios — revealed a few more tidbits about Sony’s NGP strategy (alas, still no official price). Apparently, the PSP will stick around even after NGP’s release because of high demand for the older handheld, not to mention a lower price. For those of you concerned about a dearth of titles upon the NGP’s debut — a la the PS3 — fear not, as Yoshida stated that porting PS3 games was a goal from the very beginning and the process will be simple (relatively speaking, of course). Combine that with a push to make the NGP’s development environment “as easy as possible,” and we’ll hopefully see plenty of available titles upon the device’s release. Oh yeah, Yoshida-san also said that NGP is just the console’s codename, and the real name will be announced later this year — PSP2 just rolls off the tongue, now doesn’t it?

Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida drops some NGP knowledge: PSP sticking around, PS3 games easy to port originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Feb 2011 17:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oh, honey. Sony PlayStation’s (entirely fictional) Kevin Butler holds many (also fictional) positions within the company, but apparently none of them require him to keep up with (very real) news events. Travis La Marr (aka @exiva) tweeted the now-infamous PS3 METLDR root key towards Butler with the challenge to “Come at me.” What’s a spokeperson to do but confuse it for a Battleship reference and retweet the entire code? Obviously someone let him in on the joke, as the tweet’s since been removed (original URL can be found as More Coverage below). At least Sony won’t have to subpoena for his info here. Geohot, we hope you’re laughing.

Update: As Digital Foundry points out, this sequence actually refers to the USB dongle ID generator key, also used for PS3 security circumvention.

[Thanks, Scott M]

PS3 ‘jailbreak code’ retweeted by Sony’s Kevin Butler, no punchline needed originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Feb 2011 01:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony had quite a good holiday during its third quarter for fiscal year 2010, posting a ¥137.5 billion (approximately US $1.68b) operating income. Year-over-year, however, it’s actually six percent lower than Q3 FY09, with some blame attributable to a five percent stronger yen. Although sales were more or less the same in most divisions (with pictures and music seeing a more noticeable drop), operating income saw dramatic changes. Consumer, Professional and Devices dropped 47 percent to ¥26.8b ($327.3m), while Networked Products and Services (which includes the PlayStation brand) jumped a whopping 134 percent to ¥45.7b ($559.78).

Looking at unit sales, Bravia sets were way up (7.9m units versus 5.4m in Q3 FY09), and video cameras, compact digital cameras, and PCs all saw moderate gains. PSP hardware took a pretty big hit, going from 4.2m last holiday to 3.6m this past quarter (the now-profitable PlayStation 3 saw a slight decline, 6.5m to 6.3m). Software-wise, though, both gaming machines saw a bump — 57.6m (from 47.6m) for PS3 and 16.4m (from 15m) for PSP. The PlayStation 2, now almost 11 years old, actually had about the same 2.1m hardware unit sales YOY, though software took a pretty hard hit (from 11.2m to 5.3m). Sony’s golden years console isn’t going down without a fight — then again, it might’ve been a different story had the company managed to add backwards compatibility to the PS3.

Sony posts $887 million net profit, PlayStation has strong holiday quarter originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Feb 2011 12:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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