With the recent events on the PS3 what if anything will Bethesda/SD do to limit cheating online*? Will this delay a PS3 release?
*I’m making the assumption that CFW will be undetectable by PSN, allow modifications such as aimbots and/or allow modification to game files.
With the recent events with the PS3 I think cheating is not what they’re going to be worrying about.
Lets not derail as we can argue all day about that too and it’s not really my concern.
For those people who chose to play on the PS3 having cheaters go unchecked would pretty much kill the game, especially when you consider they’d have probably no administrative tools or coordinated efforts like you’d see on the PC.
Does the PS3 have a report system like the Xbox?
Although, the reporting system doesn’t do much at all during a match.
I’m not sure. If they can detect custom firmware (check the firmware hash against official firmwares) then online/PSN is probably a no no and so cheating will be left to a minimum (depending on how fast they ban people). Of course there’s no saying if these things would become a cat and mouse chase.
There is also the issue of just running unnoffical signed code. This could mean a memory resident aimbot/hack or just modified game files. Neither of which I’d think Sony could or would check for and I’m doubting Bethesda/SD spent time locking down access on a console version of the game which should be all intent be totally secure from tampering.
That was before the keys were found and the system was laid wide open. I’d be shocked if Sony not only saw that coming but also let onto developers that such a break in security was around the corner.
I imagine they’ll work hard with Sony to take the necessary steps to minimise any damage. Whether or not both parties are able to though, is another matter entirely. Fingers crossed.
Seems they’ve got peek/poke access now so can do all sorts of things to the memory and this is very early days. Unless they can detect this sort of stuff and ban people from PSN it’s going to ruin public online play.
I’d bet Sony is more worried about pirated games than aimbots and will do an update to address that issue first
True but prevailent cheating could totally kill off PSN which in turn would lose them very real sales too. Given the choice would you pick up Brink on PS3 or 360 if you knew the PS3 would be rife with cheaters and hackers? This is sort of my question, is SD/Bethesda actually following this and preparing something within the game to deal with it? Can they even do that?
From what I’ve read (on the internetz!!!) the concensus seems to be that Sony is screwed on all fronts. The key opens up the lowest level of security, the only way Sony can fix it is by issuing new hardware with new keys under new security.
hopefully the cost of blueray media and their required burners will slow some of it down
Trying to walk a fine line here so I’ll just say that the PS3 natively supports USB External Storage and the internal HDD is SATA based and user upgradable. You can fill in the obvious from there. 
It’s a cat and mouse chase now until the PS4 except the mouse has a bazooka and the cat is stuck in a rollerskate. If cheating isn’t important for Sony it should be for developers who are selling multiplayer games.
The problem is that they don’t want to release the PS4 anytime soon. The console makers sunk too much money into this generation and ideally want another few years to recoup those costs and pay the the R&D on the next boxes.
The problem is, from what I read on IGN, the hack can’t be patched with firmware, and the hackers are claiming that only new hardware will fix this.
Sony can’t afford to replace everyone’s PS3s. It’s questionable if even a hardware fix would be cost effective.
And when you think, they did this, only to allow installation of Linux on PS3…
HAHAHA!!!
At least now Sony knows what happens when you remove features
makes for interesting speculation though, like using pc hacks online
I think they did it because Sony started locking down their system and removing features, making themselves a big juicey target. Sure it’s going to spill over but from what I’ve been reading those involved have (wisely) been very vocal about how against that sort of stuff they are.
Sony is also diging themselves deeper. Their reaction thus far has been more underhanded stuff like depositing money into geohotz paypal then claiming in court filings that he was earning/asking for money for his work. I wouldn’t be surprised if they also leaked the rumour that they’d kill switch PS3s that were hacked. That sort of stuff just encourages the bad people to get worse and the good people to stand up and defend the legitimate use ever louder.
And still, much under the radar we have cheating which is looking much like it’ll depend on PSN blocking online to hacked firmwares or machines with homebrew running.
Well the problem is that there is no way for them to tell that the console is running custom firmware. There really isn’t any fix for this. As such, the only viable solution is going to have to be a report feature and a lot of diligence on the part of the devs.
From here on out it seems Sony’s only recourse is to make this have many hurdles and risks but accept they can’t stop it. That may in fact be enough to protect the online aspect, having authentication challenges randomly download on PSN during connection could get them a ban list. The only concern there is if people find a way to spoof their machine id and get round bans.
And the reporting is the other problem. As soon as people know it’s possible to cheat they’ll see them everywhere.
