Harrison on Homebrew for the PS3

[Shiftfallout]

ony would like to open PlayStation 3 up to independent game developers in some ways, but is continually mindful of the damage that pirates and hackers with illegal intent can cause, according to Sony Worldwide Studios boss Phil Harrison.

"I fully support the notion of game development at home using powerful tools available to anyone," Harrison said in an interview with Slashdot. "We were one of the first companies to recognise this in 1996 with Net Yaroze on PS1. It's a vital, crucial aspect of the future growth of our industry and links well to the subtext of my earlier answers."
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Harrison then explained that his involvement with games in the 1980s originally began as he tinkered with Commodore 64 games that appeared in magazines. "You'd spend hours typing in the code, line-by-line, and then countless hours debugging it to make it work and then you'd realise the game was rubbish after all that effort! The next step was to re-write aspects of the game to change the graphics, the sound, the control system or the speed of the gameplay until you'd created something completely new."

But he admits that these days the doors into the industry that might be opened by going through that process "are largely closed by the nature of the videogame systems themselves being closed".

"So, if we can make certain aspects of PS3 open to the independent game development community, we will do our industry a service by providing opportunities for the next generation of creative and technical talent," he added.

While Sony has encouraged legitimate independent development in some areas - notably with Net Yaroze with, in this generation, PlayStation Beyond - it has been accused of adopting a heavy-handed strategy in its dealings with PSP developers, with legitimate or at least non-threatening projects often struck down by firmware updates designed to lock out pirates and the hackers who facilitate piracy.

Sony's interest in allowing for homebrew development puts it on a similar path to Microsoft, which recently launched its XNA package of tools, offering the ability to develop games on both PC and Xbox 360, with a complementary educational focus that will plug game development modules into a number of university courses.

Source: http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=75599

This is great, because homebrew became big on the PSP, and though Sony initially tried to fight it, realised the hackers were better than they were. This, along with the uncharted territory homebrewers have taken their product and the popularity it has recieved, is a good sign indeed.

 

[sagema]

If you ever played an online game ever, hackers ruin the experience. Sony just announced their inability to fight hackers unlike XBL. Good luck playing online when some jack ass keeps using the 1 hit kill glitch. I played PS2 online and it was riddled with hackers.

Net Yaroze was a huge flop. Few people bought it and they cancelled service in a few years. That dev system was nothing to brag about. The lack of support from Sony was worse.

 

[Shiftfallout]

If you ever played an online game ever, hackers ruin the experience. Sony just announced their inability to fight hackers unlike XBL. Good luck playing online when some jack ass keeps using the 1 hit kill glitch. I played PS2 online and it was riddled with hackers.

Net Yaroze was a huge flop. Few people bought it and they cancelled service in a few years. That dev system was nothing to brag about. The lack of support from Sony was worse.

sorry to tell you, but the PS3 is NOT the ps2 or PS1. Your opinion is noted, but every post you have in this subsection is negative towards sony or just full of crap. Like how you cant stand a thread being 25 pages, grow up.

Hackers are not all bad. Modders are considered a type of hacker, and every console has a form of homebrew. If you fight it, you lose control over it, but if you help it grow, you can know exactly how to prevent the bad sides, aka hacking. You are mistaken if you think every online game is easily hacked, and your bias is duely noted.

User generated content and indy software is the future of gaming, like it or hate it you cannot stop it.

 

[Sovieto]

If you ever played an online game ever, hackers ruin the experience. Sony just announced their inability to fight hackers unlike XBL. Good luck playing online when some jack ass keeps using the 1 hit kill glitch. I played PS2 online and it was riddled with hackers.

Net Yaroze was a huge flop. Few people bought it and they cancelled service in a few years. That dev system was nothing to brag about. The lack of support from Sony was worse.

you do know glitches are different from hacks, right?

 

[sagema]

If hackers didn't exist we'd see games not only come out faster but server costs go down. Sony closed MGSO because one of the reasons was cost to do server repairs from hackers. If you think a shop lifter doesn't affect a company, you have the same mentality. These people damage companies for billions. Whether it be stealing, or breaking things in the virtual world, the results are the same. To look the other way only invites costly problems.

 

[Shiftfallout]

If hackers didn't exist we'd see games not only come out faster but server costs go down. Sony closed MGSO because one of the reasons was cost to do server repairs from hackers. If you think a shop lifter doesn't affect a company, you have the same mentality. These people damage companies for billions. Whether it be stealing, or breaking things in the virtual world, the results are the same. To look the other way only invites costly problems.

lol ok, since you are clearly ignorant to what a hacker is.. I will help you. Read and learn Noob. Hackers are not bad. Modders are considered hackers, indy programmers making new software would be considered hackers, ..ect. Compairing a shop lifter to a hacker just shows the full extent of your ignorance.

"hacker
A person who writes programs in assembly language or in system-level languages, such as C. The term often refers to any programmer, but its true meaning is someone with a strong technical background who is "hacking away" at the bits and bytes.

Hackers Have a Bad Name
During the 1990s, the term "hacker" became synonymous with "cracker," which is a person who performs some form of computer sabotage. The association is understandable. In order to be an effective cracker, you had to be a good hacker, thus the terms got intertwined, and hacker won out in the popular press.

However, sometimes, hackers are not even worthy of the original meaning of the term. Today, a lot of malicious acts are performed by people with limited knowledge who gain unauthorized entrance into computers to steal data or perform mischief. See cracker, hack, white hat hacker, samurai and script kiddie."

 

[VampiricLugia]

To me, it shouldn't just be the console developer giving out construction tools. The producers of games should hand them out, too. Valve is GREAT in the fact they put Source out to people. So many awesome games have been created out of this program. And Bethesda. Allowing customers to have the construction package for Morrowind/Oblivion.....

Construction packages are powerful tools, and should be allowed to customers more often. I love playing around with Source, even though my computer barely allows it....

Anyways, yes, there are crackers who delve into the servers and begin reconfiguring items to mess things up which causes the price of service to go up for protection costs, but in my mind it's worth it. I only have dial-up right now, so I haven't really reaped the rewards of playing fullout online, but I know it's worth it.

 

[sagema]

That's right Shift. Defend everything that's wrong with this world. You missed the point completely. Game developers will have to spend more time/money making PS3 games secure because of their open door policy. There's a reason why Microsoft bricks 360 hackers. There's a reason why Microsoft now has the best gaming network on the planet.

 

[Shiftfallout]

That's right Shift. Defend everything that's wrong with this world. You missed the point completely. Game developers will have to spend more time/money making PS3 games secure because of their open door policy. There's a reason why Microsoft bricks 360 hackers. There's a reason why Microsoft now has the best gaming network on the planet.

translation:

Sagema, over and over and over again you show you have nothing logical to add to these forums. You don't know what you are talking about.

24 pages!? It's aimless to keep any thread going this long. Oh well. Better waste some extra space. Shift has 8 pages worth easily. I need at least 1/2 a page.

LALALALALALALALALA LALALALALALALALALA LALALALALALALALALA
LALALALALALALALALA... Close this thread...

 

[Spiritshotgun]

Hackers arent bad. they help poor folk .

 

[WiiZero]

If hackers didn't exist we'd see games not only come out faster but server costs go down. Sony closed MGSO because one of the reasons was cost to do server repairs from hackers. If you think a shop lifter doesn't affect a company, you have the same mentality. These people damage companies for billions. Whether it be stealing, or breaking things in the virtual world, the results are the same. To look the other way only invites costly problems.

breaking things in the virtual world you dumba** how are hackers and shoplifters the same ut:

 

[VampiricLugia]

breaking things in the virtual world you dumba** how are hackers and shoplifters the same ut:

Not all hackers just break stuff. Some steal codes or programs and then begin using, selling, or giving out the program/code, thus equating them with a shoplifter.