Comment by giobox
4 hours ago
The other major incentive for hacking the console Microsoft removed was for the first time on a modern mainstream home console to allow side loading of homebrew code/emulators etc. The console supported a developer mode that allowed side loading of third party applications, so folks could get emulators and other traditionally "banned" content on the console through an officially supported route.
There's a great presentation by Tony Chen on the Xbox One's security features:
> https://www.platformsecuritysummit.com/2019/speaker/chen/
Examples of the kinda software you can put on the Xbox One in developer mode:
You are 100% correct but they started clamping down on people using Dev mode strictly for emulators and homebrew. So here we are.
This is what killed Linux support on PS as well, Sony was disappointed with what was being done with PS2Linux, instead of indie titles.
Hence why PS3 Other OS no longer did hardware acceleration.
The PS3 was incredible value dollar-to-flop, given that it was sold at a loss. This resulted in universities and other research institutes buying them en masse to create supercomputer clusters. Naturally buying thousands of consoles but not a single game puts sony in a difficult position. Although I think it's sad the hardware got locked down in later revisions, I fully understand why they did it.
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Linux on playstation was a play by Sony not to have customs like on a toy but as a more favorable computer merchandise. They didn't care.
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I've seen this argument, but I strongly suspect that it's a cope argument. "We couldn't get in... because... we didn't care to! Even though we've hacked literally every other object on the planet just because."
The proof in the pudding of this will be when the Nintendo Switch 2 reaches 2035 with no cracks. That's my prophecy; that this time around the cat actually will catch the mouse. Between NVIDIA's heavily revised glitch-resistant RISC-V security architecture and Nintendo's impeccable microkernel, there's nowhere left to hide. DRM may turn out to have been a very slow long battle to "victory," not a "this will always be defeated."
I have my doubts. I suspect that Nvidia have made mistakes.
Anyway, situations like the one you describe are one to be solved by legislation requiring certain devices be sold as open devices that put power in the hands of the owner.
Well, and these systems are also designed with ratchet-type measures in place from the get-go, where holes are plugged, fuses are burned, and newly released titles will only decrypt/run on the latest OS.
So even if Switch 2 doesn't make it all the way to 2035 with zero cracks, there's a strong likelihood that any exploits found will be short-lived.
Which incentivizes people to hold on to exploits for as long as possible, ideally past the console life cycle, just to make sure it can be used, which already is a thing