Thought PSP hacking was only a problem for Sony? Think again. PSP hacking is actually robbing you of features on your handheld. Sony’s Director of PlayStation Network Operations, Eric Lempel revealed that security is one of the main reasons you’re “not going to see Trophies on the PSP.” Confused? Read on to find out why.
The problem with Trophies, Gamerscores and any of the other equivalents is that players want them to mean something. That means the console makers have to keep a close eye on them to make sure no one’s cheating the system. Take a look at Microsoft’s treatment of Gears of War 2 cheats to see how it deals with players who trick their way into a higher Gamerscore.
Technically, the PSP’s sophisticated innards and wireless PlayStation network connection should mean there’s no reason why handheld gamers can’t enjoy the same Trophy system as PS3 gamers. The difference is that the PSP been hacked to hell and back.
Therefore, any new Trophy system would be vulnerable to hacking too. “If people can artificially inflate their rankings and amounts of Trophies [then] it kills the whole system,” Lempel explains.
Seems like a fair argument, but then again, we’re not sure we actually care that some 14-year-old code monkey in Sweden has about a billion Trophy points to his name. We just care what we’ve got and our mates haven’t, and we’re hardly likely to look up anyone else’s. It does seem a shame that we’ve all got to miss out because Sony has already written off the system as a lost cause.
Thank you http://dark-alex.org and all your scummy thieving friends!
Totally agree tone, who gives a flying one if kiddies want a false trophy list
ReplyDeleteI think this argument from Sony is just a smoke screen covering up the fact they can't be arsed to implement trophy support in firmware and don't want to p*** off their dwindling number of remaining third-party dev teams by forcing them to include trophy support in their PSP games, as they do with PS3 games.
ReplyDeleteWhilst I don't condone piracy on the PSP the homebrew scene is pretty awesome and there are some great apps / games / emulators out there. A lot of PSP coders are actually against piracy and just want to be able to develop for PSP without having to shell out for an uber-expensive SDK. I also think Sony should have opened up the PSP to homemade development from the beginning. If they'd done that then I think we'd be seeing a lot more innovation on there by now, with lots of low-priced minigames to download. Sony would have been years ahead of the iPhone and corresponding AppStore. I guess it's easy to say that with hindsight though!