.

Sony boards clamping down on homebrew dicussions

  • Posted September 6th, 2007 at 10:52 EDT by
  • 19 Comments

The official PlayStation Forums are clamping down on users discussing PlayStation Portable homebrew.

In a post by ‘SCEA’ (presumably the forum representative for Sony Computer Entertainment America), new rules state that any discussion topics or posts that are related to homebrew will be deleted. Apparently this ‘includes, but is not limited to’ the following:

• Custom firmware
• Themes, applications, custom bootup animations/sounds, and other materials made available only with use of homebrew
• Programs that may be used to aid or facilitate copyright violations (such as Eboots, ripping software, decryption software)
• Debugging software
• Programs designed to emulate firmware
• TIFF applications
• Programs designed to provide for modification of the PSP® code or firmware, or that would allow for any exploitation of the PSP® system firmware flashing software
• Applications designed to bypass PSP® system and game security features
• Emulators, ROMs, CSO, ISOs, or any other unauthorized copies of copyrighted material
• Software or hardware designed to aid or facilitate in cheating

The post then goes on to detail license agreement of the PSP just to drive the point home.

Software and hardware modding on any console is illegal, and there are concerns with modded consoles connecting to online services, as even if the user does not intend to do so, damage may be caused.

In the past, Sony has gently discouraged homebrew, but has never made large steps into stopping it outside of firmware updates; although, one has to consider the audacity of users raising the discussion of homebrew on an official message board.

Stay tuned.

related articles

Related Content

Comments

  1. Dave-The-Rave | Dave-The-Rave

    • 5:54am EDT - September 6th, 2007

    good move

  2. sup-a-hero

    • 6:02am EDT - September 6th, 2007

    I've never used homebrew anyway so this doesnt really affect me

  3. sofaking13

    • 6:34am EDT - September 6th, 2007

    I think that is some ridiculous $hit because this totally utilizes their protable console to it's fullest.  Some of the stuff you can do on that thing is craaazy.  Now I know Sony shouldn't entirely back something like this, but they shouldn't be doing all they can to rid the web of the info.

  4. wiggsj

    • 6:56am EDT - September 6th, 2007

    I find the more I play with the "guts" of a system the more Iscrew it up, I learned the hard way with the PS2 so I won't be modding or homebrewing anything soon.

  5. Staticneuron

    • 7:00am EDT - September 6th, 2007

    "but they shouldn't be doing all they can to rid the web of the info."

     

    Umm.... they aren't. They are just making sure it isn't talked about on the OFFICIAL forums.

    Yea, one has to wonder about the intelligence of those posting about the hombrew on those forums.

  6. The Cleaner

    • 7:21am EDT - September 6th, 2007

    Why do they always take this approach? It never helps them. The community developed stuff is probably the most interesting - certainly as far as PSP goes. People will loose interest in PSP if they make it anymore boring. People like flexible systems that they can adapt to suit their needs.

     

    As far as modding systems overall - (A) you have to and (B) it is not ilegal in Australia and New Zealand at least. So blanket statements saying it is ilegal is incorrect.

     

    As far as why you have to Mod - I can give you a few hundred examples why you have no choice but to mod your PS2 - lets look at Xenosaga. They didnt release the first one in PAL but I purchased Xenosaga 2 and was lured in by the bundled in DVD "catchup" movie that would cover Xenogears 1 & explain the story thus far. So I played Xenogears 2  then suddenly they decide not to release Xenogears 3 in PAL territories - dum asses. So modding to get by region hurdles is a good idea.

     

    Also backups are not ilegal in Australia and the PS2 was famous for scratching a ring around your DVD. I mean PS2 will never win an award for reliability right. Now with PS3 backward compatibility stripped down to bugga-all Ive no choice but to keep a few PS2 spare machines and Im not going to buy a Jap model, US model, and PAL model thanks - I'll get two spares and mod them.

  7. wolfhawk

    • 7:49am EDT - September 6th, 2007

    I know what they are trying to do, but in my opinion if you let the idiots discuss it openly on your boards you can find out much easier what it is they are doing and the best way around it.

     

  8. Tha_Last_Romeo

    • 7:57am EDT - September 6th, 2007

    Why cant Sony or someone make a Homebrew software that lets the user create stuff... Send it in to Sony or a rep and then see if they can add the Homebrew software or application to PlayStation Store as a free download. That would save a lot of time for Sony engineers and the users will get what they want.

  9. Random1448

    • 8:12am EDT - September 6th, 2007

    Homebrew is stupid, the programs are terribley designed, and there isn't really anything good out there, save for a few emulators. homebrew is for nerds and criminals.

  10. The Cleaner

    • 8:22am EDT - September 6th, 2007

    Criminals? Nerds?

  11. Enacku

    • 8:36am EDT - September 6th, 2007

    Whats the big deal? You purchased the hardware, why cant you do whatever you want to it? Thats bs. But i can see from there standpoint of trying to protect piracy of their games.

  12. Aratacus

    • 11:35am EDT - September 6th, 2007

    hey! im a nerd.. and i don't use hombrew.... lol... seriously... sony has shut down multiple web sites (i have no profe, just find it odd, that the hombrew stuff dissapears, and the new site owners will not give their identities)... projectpsp for example... over 5,000 people stole the warhawk beta... a few weeks later is was shut down, and bought buy an unknown source... i believe it was sony for sure... send stuff into sony though!!! thats a great idea... if its legal anyways....

  13. gingo

    • 1:32pm EDT - September 6th, 2007

    psn id: gingo... i tohught sony was all for homebrew i didn't know they were against it thi is quite a surprise to me

  14. davin_g

    • 2:50pm EDT - September 6th, 2007

    i think they just said why they don't approve of homebrew. a great deal of it is used to pirate games and like they said users can unintentionally harm their servers if running a psp or other device on a sony network with homebrew applications. you can do whatever you want with your psp and ps2 and ps3. just don't think sony is going to pay for it to be fixed or just allow you to pirate their games or discuss this on their very own boards. they own their message boards and can ban or delete posts however they want. i do believe however some intelligent homebrew applications could be adopted by sony as a good idea but for the most part and for the well being of sony's customers and company homebrew is not helpful.

  15. Alpha2

    • 4:18pm EDT - September 6th, 2007

    They dont approve of un co-ordinated homebrew because 9 times out of 10 it leads to piracy.n Sony can't make money off of people downloading UMD isos and Copied PS1 games. THAT is what they're trying to discourage. They could possibly create some form of approved game/application method but the more people try to crack code to play ripped games the more they have to spend time trying to fight it.

  16. Atreides

    • 4:47pm EDT - September 6th, 2007

    I would have no reason to use a Custom Firmware on the PSP if Sony actually started to release some good PS1 games on the PSN.  Until they do, Custom Firmware is the only option to play your favorite PS1 games on the go.

     

    As for the idiot who said Homebrew is for Nerds and Pirates, I bet you 9 out of 10 PC owners have atleast 1 homebrew app on their PC.  Any app made by a non commercial developer, i.e. torrent apps, and many many others fall under the homebrew umbrella.  And if you use Mac or Linux, most of the OS is built on or with homebrew.

     

    The PSP actually uses code from homebrew FOSS projects (BSD apps) for their Net protocal among other things.

  17. The Cleaner

    • 8:12pm EDT - September 6th, 2007

    That's a good idea The_Last_Romeo - Sony should try to work with the opensource & homebrew communities and adopt some of the good idea's. It will make the PSP a lot more exciting if a legion of  unpaid but very tech savvy home developers started building aps for the PSP and these where QA and provided by Sony as a free opensouce download optimised for PSP! 

     

    I think the reason Sony is always so defensive is that the management at Sony dont really understand technology so they feel threatened. The new fast growing companies are the ones that have bold management who have leveraged the new technology trends in their favor instead of fighting it. Sony is scared and is holding onto its DRM and propriatise products so hard that they have squeezed the life out of them and made the platforms too sterile.

  18. InfernoReaper

    • 9:08pm EDT - September 6th, 2007

    Sony is allowing custom levels in UT3 and Little Big Planet to be shared over the net, you can install Linux on your PS3, but they say nay to homebrew?  A good 20% of the market AT LEAST is kept alive through homebrew.  It's the only reason I'd buy a new PSP is to mod my old one.  Sony may have just found a loophole in something that would allow legal action to be taken against them.  Either way, if you think Sony is trying to stop the homebrew community, you are very much mistaken.  There are so many other sites for homebrew.  Too bad Dark_Alex is gone...

  19. PS3-The Ultimate Machine

    • 11:20am EDT - September 7th, 2007

    You mean people actually talk about how to bypass codes with copyrights,ON THE OFFICIAL FORUMS!!!seriously they should have banned this from the start.

Comment

What are your thoughts?

This will permanently ban this user and delete all associated comments. This action is irreversible, are you SURE you want to do this?!

Share With Your Friends!

The Facebook Platform

Connect to PSU's social reader to share articles and see what your friends are reading. [ More info ]

RSS feed

Forum discussions

More

5,971,592 Posts | 280,433 members