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Sony's Playstation Portal hacked, can now emulate PSP games

overkill.wtf

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Re: Sony's Playstation Portal hacked, can now emulate PSP games

#91

Post by dvdkon »

pjmlp wrote: post #78
dvdkon wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why create new games for a proprietary platform that users would have to hack instead of just writing it for PC? Homebrew like this is about the challenge or about making existing hardware more useful, porting emulators is an effective way to do that.

Why buy this in first place then? Just use a PC and save the money for something that really matters.

I presume people bought it for its intended usecase, or just as a novelty. I don't think anyone's buying this for emulation, not when there are friendlier options available for the same price. Once they already have it, though...

Re: Sony's Playstation Portal hacked, can now emulate PSP games

#92

Post by thiht »

jsheard wrote: post #9
zerocrates wrote: post #3

Why not just sell something like the Portal as open in the first place? There are no Portal games to worry about protecting. What's the percentage in locking it down?

If they're selling it at cost or at a loss (I don't know if they are) as a value-add to the PS5 then they wouldn't want people buying it just to play emulators.

Then they should not sell at cost or a loss (is that even legal?). Boom, fixed in a decent way.

Re: Sony's Playstation Portal hacked, can now emulate PSP games

#93

Post by dangus »

zerocrates wrote: post #3

Why not just sell something like the Portal as open in the first place? There are no Portal games to worry about protecting. What's the percentage in locking it down?

If you want a game console company to sell a totally open console, that’s just a willing misunderstanding of the game market on your part.

Even the Steam Deck as the most open commercial console on the market is pretty clever in that it doesn’t stop you from using competing software stores, but you still need to invest significant effort into getting them to work. Getting my free copy of Control on the Epic Games Store to work on the console was something that took me a significant amount of time. I could imagine a less technical person being completely unable to do it, but if you owned the game on Steam you just click a button and play.

In my opinion, if Sony wasn’t being supremely lazy they would have made the Portal with AMD x86 hardware similar to the Steam Deck and designed it to natively play your PS5/PS4 library on the go instead of making it a streaming-only device.

Re: Sony's Playstation Portal hacked, can now emulate PSP games

#94

Post by dangus »

thiht wrote: post #92
jsheard wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're selling it at cost or at a loss (I don't know if they are) as a value-add to the PS5 then they wouldn't want people buying it just to play emulators.

Then they should not sell at cost or a loss (is that even legal?). Boom, fixed in a decent way.

Of course selling a console at a loss is legal. If selling products at a loss was illegal this entire Hacker News thing wouldn’t exist.

I wouldn’t call that “fixed in a decent way.” The subsidy of the hardware is a benefit for many consumers who choose game consoles.

Re: Sony's Playstation Portal hacked, can now emulate PSP games

#95

Post by TheCapeGreek »

dangus wrote: post #93
zerocrates wrote: post #3

Why not just sell something like the Portal as open in the first place? There are no Portal games to worry about protecting. What's the percentage in locking it down?

If you want a game console company to sell a totally open console, that’s just a willing misunderstanding of the game market on your part. Even the Steam Deck as the most open commercial console on the market is pretty clever in that it doesn’t stop you from using competing software stores, but you still need to invest significant effort into getting them to work. Getting my free copy of Control on the Epic Games Sto…

>but you still need to invest significant effort into getting them to work

This is far more related to their lack of Linux support, and forcing launcher usage via Steam for some games (EA, Ubisoft) than Valve making it difficult on purpose. Nothing stopping you from using Desktop Mode to do whatever you want on the device otherwise.

Re: Sony's Playstation Portal hacked, can now emulate PSP games

#96

Post by xena »

TheCapeGreek wrote: post #95
dangus wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want a game console company to sell a totally open console, that’s just a willing misunderstanding of the game market on your part. Even the Steam Deck as the most open commercial console on the market is pretty clever in that it doesn’t stop you from using competing software stores, but you still need to invest significant effort into getting them to work. Getting my free copy of Control on the Epic Games Sto…

>but you still need to invest significant effort into getting them to work This is far more related to their lack of Linux support, and forcing launcher usage via Steam for some games (EA, Ubisoft) than Valve making it difficult on purpose. Nothing stopping you from using Desktop Mode to do whatever you want on the device otherwise.

Nothing is also stopping you from putting Windows on the Steam Deck, Valve even provides drivers for you to do it!

Re: Sony's Playstation Portal hacked, can now emulate PSP games

#97

Post by victords »

Difwif wrote: post #89
spike021 wrote: post #42

News like this makes me so nostalgic for the PSP homebrew and "hacking" scene of the 00's. It's what got me into software in the first place.

I wonder how many of us learned how to program on the PSP. It's crazy to think how transformative this was for my life in the long run. It's also the same reason why I know Lua but went straight to C++ after that. I wish I could bottle up the magic that was the PSP homebrew scene and give it to kids today. I'm guessing Minecraft mods are the closest modern version.

The homebrew scene still exists today, just moved consoles.

I was just playing around with the Xbox Dev Mode this weekend and trying out different emulators.

Re: Sony's Playstation Portal hacked, can now emulate PSP games

#98

Post by Zambyte »

dangus wrote: post #93
zerocrates wrote: post #3

Why not just sell something like the Portal as open in the first place? There are no Portal games to worry about protecting. What's the percentage in locking it down?

If you want a game console company to sell a totally open console, that’s just a willing misunderstanding of the game market on your part. Even the Steam Deck as the most open commercial console on the market is pretty clever in that it doesn’t stop you from using competing software stores, but you still need to invest significant effort into getting them to work. Getting my free copy of Control on the Epic Games Sto…

> but you still need to invest significant effort into getting them to work.

This isn't true for things that actually run on GNU/Linux. Installing the itch.io launcher is as easy as going to desktop mode, opening discover, navigating to the itch launcher, and clicking install.

Re: Sony's Playstation Portal hacked, can now emulate PSP games

#99

Post by toyg »

gchamonlive wrote: post #87
jsheard wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're selling it at cost or at a loss (I don't know if they are) as a value-add to the PS5 then they wouldn't want people buying it just to play emulators.

The argument usually goes like this, but has zero evidence in real life. Even PS2 which was quite infamous for the amount of unlocks and hacks, sold really well and was very successful. I think business do that not to protect sales or anything but to appease shareholders.

You misspelled appealing to game developers and publishers. Most companies will not invest on a platform that makes it too easy to rip them off.

Re: Sony's Playstation Portal hacked, can now emulate PSP games

#100

Post by incrudible »

gchamonlive wrote: post #87
jsheard wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're selling it at cost or at a loss (I don't know if they are) as a value-add to the PS5 then they wouldn't want people buying it just to play emulators.

The argument usually goes like this, but has zero evidence in real life. Even PS2 which was quite infamous for the amount of unlocks and hacks, sold really well and was very successful. I think business do that not to protect sales or anything but to appease shareholders.

The point is that you do not actually want sales that do not compensate for the loss. Imagine the PS5 let you run arbitrary code on the GPU and also happened to be the best value for the money. It would end up in some compute farm, not living rooms, and Sony would pay for the privilege.
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