End to Pandora?

August 27th, 2008 Posted by uberjack in hacking, psp, rant

Odds are that you’ve probably heard about the new PSP-3000 model (colloquially called “PSP Brite”) that’s due to be released soon, and one that will replace the PSP-2000 series (”PSP Slim”). The new model will include a built-in microphone and a brighter, more responsive screen - an improvement that is almost negligible when one considers the improvements between “Slim” and “Phat” (PSP-1000 series).

Like many other developers and hobbyists, I suspect that there’s more to the system than what the press release lets on - I’m fairly certain that the new PSP model will be built differently to eliminate the extremely efficient “Pandora” hack. A recent dcemu thread discusses just that - probability of the elimination of PSP’s “hackability”, and raises some interesting points, among them “will this stop piracy?”. I’m fairly certain that the answer is “no” - and not just to piracy, but hacking in general. After all, the initial hacks of the PSP centered around badly implemented loading routines in the PSP’s image viewer and GTA: LCS, and as long as there are inquisitive people, there will be exploits to be found and security holes to be exploited. While I expect to see the end of Pandora, I doubt we’ve seen the end of buffer overflow exploits - hardware (and firmware) necessary to deter/elminate buffer overflow exploits would, in all likelihood, break backwards compatibility (not to mention prove too costly).

One thing that I believe is important to remember, however, is that Sony shouldn’t necessarily be chastised for this step. Piracy is an unfortunate side-effect of homebrew development - while I’m not going to venture a guess as to how much money the company is losing/has lost due to piracy, I’m fairly certain that it’s a considerable amount. For many, like myself, the PSP is a retrogamer’s dream come true - there’s no better way to waste hours on end than by playing Legend of Zelda, a port of Doom, or any of the large number of homebrew applications. For too many, however, it’s just a way to hoard modern games.

Sony has stated in the past that they’re aware of PSP’s homebrew community, and that their problem is not with homebrew, but piracy. While I have no reason to trust any particular large company (Enron, anyone?), I have no basis to doubt this fact in the current situation - if anything, homebrew development has helped Sony sell more units. At the same time, piracy hurts those who make the PSP into what it is - the makers of the PSP games. No PSP games means much fewer sales (I don’t think homebrew alone will carry the PSP); fewer sales means no motivation to support or manufacture the PSP.

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