Thoughts on the PS3

Like most homebrewers and hackers (not necessarily just those of Wii "scene" fame like myself) I'm experiencing a growing interest in the PS3 all of a sudden. It's an amazing and beastly console that has simply gone too long without any serious hacking attempts made. Now that the Wii has been thoroughly disassembled and capable of being made to do anything, the PS3 is the next most interesting target. In my opinion, it's more interesting than the XBOX 360 because the XBOX 360 has already been hacked a couple of times in the past, the PS3 has better controllers, and the PS3 is simply a more powerful machine.

Geohot's efforts of hacking the PS3 have certainly been entertaining to watch. He's managed to dump information using the PS3's OtherOS feature and it's yielded some interesting finds of course. If you haven't read RootLabs writeup of the hack, I strongly advise you to do so.

Before I go any further with just spewing out the thoughts running through my head on the PS3 I want to take a quick moment to mention something. MaxConsole orchestrated a devious scheme to get hits on their site started a rumor that Sony intends to remove the OtherOS feature in the next update from PS3s which support it (those of you just tuning in, newer models of the PS3 already don't support the OtherOS anymore). This rumor is the most uninspired attempt to cause senseless panic that I've ever seen. Sony has stated that they will not remove the OtherOS feature on PS3s which support it so there is nothing to worry to about. Any news site that says or even implies otherwise should no longer be thought of as a credible source of information and should suffer a fiery 404 death. Sorry I had to go off on a tangent here, I'm sick and tired of hearing this rumor day in and day out.

Now where was I? Oh yes, even though geohot's hacking efforts are extremely interesting, they're not going to make any huge waves. The information obtained from them (dumps of lv1 and other internal goodies for example) will certainly help in the future, but it's a future that's a long way off for the moment. Right now, what's first needed is way for the average consumer with and PS3 model to be able to run homebrew code on their system. In other words, we need a sort of Twilight Hack for the PS3. Whoever finds a way will be met with fame and respect from all around the world. Thus, the PS3 has become a very tantalizing machine to try and hack right now and thus people who have already had experience working with the Wii are turning their attention to it now.

It's a very exciting time to be a PS3 owner for sure on what I hope is the verge of PS3 homebrew. I don't own one myself at the moment but I would like to pick one up the instant I get the cash for it. For those of you as interested in the PS3 as I am right now, I encourage you to join #ps3dev on EFNET,  to hang around the PS3 homebrew development forums, and to closely watch the wiki documenting hacking and homebrewing on the PS3.