Sony has finally announced their ultimate plan for defeating hackers on the PS3 system, or at least the current hack. This process will involve the courts, police, and may run Sony into the ground, but it has been deemed a necessary risk to put a stop to the cheating running rampant through the PS3 install base.
First, a bit of background on the hack and the recent developments. The newest PS3 hack targets the root code of the system, hardwired into the CPU of the system. Using the hack does not require any physical modification to the system, it can be loaded onto a flash drive and completely circumvent the internal security systems of the console. Altering the root code allows hackers to install any program onto the system, to play illegal copies of games, and to alter online matches to their favour. People following the developing story, myself included, had generally come to the conclusion that Sony was caught in an impossible situation. The vulnerability to the hack lies in the fact that the root code for the PS3 is hardwired into the CPU, as well as being identical in every single system ever produced. What this means is that Sony would have to recall every single console ever sold and replace the CPU, which many thought to be impossible. Apparently not!
Sony has announced a new mandatory recall for all PS3 consoles, effective immediately, at no cost to the consumers. Similar to the way Microsoft has handled the RROD fiasco, Sony will pay for the shipping costs to send the system to their manufacturing plant and back to owners, at an estimated cost of $100 (Canada Post, using Slim PS3 specs, shipped from my house to California) for both ways. The actual cost of the new CPU is unknown at present, but let’s guess at $50, approximately 20% of the current estimated production cost of a new PS3 ($240). So that is $150 for each PS3 sold, times the current estimated number of systems sold, 47.9 million. That works out to about 718 million dollars, a sizable dent in Sony’s estimated profits for this fiscal year, which were 1.7 billion in case you were wondering. Of course, that is the estimated company-wide profits but what about the Networked Products & Services division, which includes their gaming division? Well, the division’s operating numbers last fiscal year showed a loss of $895 million, which was a pretty good improvement over the previous year’s loss of $941 million. So if the trend were to continue, leading to a loss of only $850 million, then the total loss once you include the new recall program would only be $1.569 billion. Applied to the estimated profits for the company, that would reduce them to about $1 billion; I wonder what impact that will have on their stock?
I’m guessing that some people will have found the flaw in Sony’s logic by now, mainly that the people who have hacked their systems and are now enjoying their pirated games, don’t want to have their PS3 fixed. People have illegally hacked their system are not going to voluntarily give them back to Sony to replace, removing their illegal super powers. To use the RROD example again, people kind of wanted to have their systems working again, so they jumped on board the replacement program – personally I had a system replaced two times before they finally got to a CPU design that didn’t catch on fire.
So what is Sony going to do? What would any company do? Sue their consumers and send the police out on them of course. Sony has already successfully subpoenaed George Hotz’s PayPal records to track if he made any money off of the hack, now they are taking that worldwide, to every distributer. Sony will be forcing all retailers to turn over any records they have remaining about purchasers of the console – their credit card information, maybe their extended warranty, their information on the company directory – anything to get their home address. Cross-referencing with the list of people who have already sent in their PS3s will allow Sony to compile a list of everyone who refused to send in their system. That is where the police come in, privately funded SWAT teams, sanctioned by local police departments, will be swooping down on unsuspecting non-conformists. Snatch and grab tactics will be the main method for obtaining the illegal PS3 systems, with liberal use of pepper spray, tear gas, and random bodily harm.
So that is the plan for Sony, to restore order within their empire, and squash the rebellion among their subjects. Good luck!
On the Xbox front, Microsoft has publically declared the Kinect to be a commercial failure. Despite their best attempts to market the peripheral both for gaming as well as homebrew developers the peripheral has not sold enough units to recoup the development and manufacturing costs. Microsoft will be mothballing the Software Development Kit (SDK) that was under development. The SDK would have allowed anyone to connect the peripheral to a PC and develop gaming or non-gaming applications using the full 3D and motion tracking capabilities of the Kinect.
As for Nintendo, they have decided to cut their ties to some longstanding IPs that have defined their systems for many years. Deciding to be innovative and risk taking, Nintendo is no longer going to produce any games focused around the Mario Bros. and Pokemon franchises. Despite masterpieces like the Super Mario Bros. movie, the gaming giant has decided to focus on creating new IPs instead of relying on their standard characters. We can only guess what new games will be developed now that Nintendo is abandoning the pokemon series, after hits like Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver, Crystal, Ruby, Sapphire, FireRed, LeafGreen, Emerald, Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold, SoulSilver, Black, and White, building on each other for a total of 649 pokemon.
So that is it for this issue of the Tin Soldier, remember to guard your PS3 and start building up your immunity to pepper spray. Keep on gaming!
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