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[hesido]

I don't like piracy on my console!

The moral decision seems easy enough, do not pirate, support the devs, the plaftorm. However, when personal finances are involved, with new games costing about >100usd where I am, it's really easy to go down that route.

That's why I never like to have that option of piracy. It makes it easy to do the right thing, because that's the only thing to do. It makes it easy to explain why you are buying one game instead of having 10 games put on your hard drive for 50 bucks to your friends.

 

[Foffy]

On the plus side, this couldn't happen at a better time for preservation: as appears to be the case starting with last gen, we have already experienced delisted games this generation. Piracy, as much as there is that automatic taboo about it, has always been the gateway to preserving such games, and will assure P.T. doesn't vanish into nothingness. At least until emulators happen, but maybe next decade.

Of course, that is a great thing to realize and accomplish long after the system's been out on market and making the most of what the platform seems to be able to make, so it never can be argued or seen as an intrusion on products, but platform circumvention never hits that. It usually happens at an apex in a system lifecycle, which could reasonably be argued to be around now: PS4 is somehow still killing it at retail with no pause or dry spot, so it was only a matter of time that a popular system would get some cracks opened in its walls.

I'm not too concerned about this, actually. Seeing as most AAA games focus so heavily online and a user now has to pay for that, it will be kind of fruitless to circumvent the system and risk losing online play, which the user paid to access. Unless you're a big offline-only player, but many of those games can be found on PC for far more changing prices due to constant platform sales. I have no idea if even in the latter platform Brazil is reasonable about pricing games: $100 is already too much for games in many places of the world, and that's not even including it being a declined economy. Those factors can play a role in what an individual does.

 

[gundamkyoukai]

It's rather interesting how they got this done.

 

[FDC1]

Why are games so expensive there? Sorry but i'm not really aware of the economics of selling consoles in Brazil.

huge import taxes I believe

 

[Charles Brandon]

is this like a "hack" you can easily do at home? i mean, if that knowledge spreads sooner or later, is that a big deal like the r4 on the ds?

Not really. If I understand it correctly, you give your PS4 to the shop, it comes back wiped but with these ten games on. You can only play those ten games or any disc games that you buy after that. You can't access the games you already own on your account, you can't go online, you can't download patches or DLC. If you want more pirated games you have to repeat the process.

I can't really see people making all those sacrifices in developed nations. Especially when you have PS+ as someone else pointed out.

 

[Yoshi]

The link describes the actual process.

They clone the hard drive and then flash the new PS4 with the original PS4's NAND/BIOS. The new PS4 is then basically the old PS4, with the licenses for the 10 games available for offline play.

Now this is great stuff, this way we could potentially make download games survive a lot longer, couldn't we?

(On the other hand it also makes Always / Periodically Online more likely to happen :/)

 

[firehawk12]

I don't like piracy on my console!

The moral decision seems easy enough, do not pirate, support the devs, the plaftorm. However, when personal finances are involved, with new games costing about >100usd where I am, it's really easy to go down that route.

That's why I never like to have that option of piracy. It makes it easy to the right thing, because that's the only thing to do. It makes it easy to explain why you are buying one game instead of having 10 games put on your hard drive for 50 bucks to your friends.

I think the scarier thing is that this exploits a consumer friendly practice implemented by Sony (doesn't need always online checks), so console manufacturers might try to add more DRM.

Now this is great stuff, this way we could potentially make download games survive a lot longer, couldn't we?

(On the other hand it also makes Always / Periodically Online more likely to happen :/)

For all intent and purpose though, this is basically the same as buying one of those PS4s with PT installed on them from ebay. I guess that's one way to preserve a game. lol

 

[Hasney]

1. Install 10 games for 150USD
2. Never go online nor update in order to keep using them
3. Get console hardware ban
4. ?????
5. PROFIT

This is genius, spend $150 to save what, $450 total if you take only new title releases (where do you have like 10 new title releases even during same month, other than holiday season?) then never update your consoles and keep playing same games offline forever, also making your $800 a brick that you can't even resell since it will be HW banned as soon as it goes online (I remember PS4 cost a lot in Brazil).

The article is incorrect about game prices in Brazil, they're usually over $100 per game if you buy them officially in region so not having online or firmware updates is a tiny price to pay for them to actually have something to play and could quite easily be re-sold within the country because there's millions of people in the same position (and millions more who can't even afford that)

 

[Dr. Buni]

Why are games so expensive there? Sorry but i'm not really aware of the economics of selling consoles in Brazil.

In short? Because the government in Brazil is as corrupt as it gets.

 

[AmanoBuff]

Why are games so expensive there? Sorry but i'm not really aware of the economics of selling consoles in Brazil.

Import taxes are huge as videogames are considered to be luxury goods in Brazil and other third world countries.

 

[recks]

Why are games so expensive there? Sorry but i'm not really aware of the economics of selling consoles in Brazil.

I honestly don't get why people complain about game prices here, if you take the conversion rate of today (3USD = 1BRL), most of the games would cost between 60 to 70 USD. Consoles are more expensive though.

 

[lherre]

I don't see a lot of future on this method if it "clones" the ID of the original PS4 since Sony could track that ID and check if it is duplicated when you connect to PSN. So that consoles could easily be banned from PSN (and not sure if they can make the games installed unusable).

 

[NEO0MJ]

I honestly don't get why people complain about game prices here, if you take the conversion rate of today (3USD = 1BRL), most of the games would cost between 60 to 70 USD. Consoles are more expensive though.

It's more that the country isn't as rich as america and to the average Brazilian $60 is bigger punch to the wallet than to the average American.

 

[Hans.Gruber]

I honestly don't get why people complain about game prices here, if you take the conversion rate of today (3USD = 1BRL), most of the games would cost between 60 to 70 USD. Consoles are more expensive though.

How much is a meal or a tank of gas in USD though?

 

[Dr. Buni]

I honestly don't get why people complain about game prices here, if you take the conversion rate of today (3USD = 1BRL), most of the games would cost between 60 to 70 USD. Consoles are more expensive though.

Because the games are overly expensive. A console game on release costs considerably more than R$200. That is about 1/3 of the salary in Brazil.

Now compare it to Steam, where the same game is released costing R$100.

 

[DrKelpo]

The article talks about using raspberry pi to copy and flash the NAND, so... I mean, you're talking about people who can open the console and know how to use a raspberry pi. Seems much more difficult than the last gen hacks anyway.

Not really. If I understand it correctly, you give your PS4 to the shop, it comes back wiped but with these ten games on. You can only play those ten games or any disc games that you buy after that. You can't access the games you already own on your account, you can't go online, you can't download patches or DLC. If you want more pirated games you have to repeat the process.

I can't really see people making all those sacrifices in developed nations. Especially when you have PS+ as someone else pointed out.

yeah, i hope so. thanks, guys.

 

[Syntsui]

Why are games so expensive there? Sorry but i'm not really aware of the economics of selling consoles in Brazil.

Some games are not that expensive, there are some that you can buy cheaper than in the US, like Bloodborne for example which you can find for around 45 dollars at Mercado Livre.

There are cases where they just don't give a fuck, like Mortal Kombat X costing around 70 dollars though.

Edit: guys, games don't cost U$100 here, where are you getting that? Not even in shopping center they cost that much, just stop spreading lies.

 

[Hasney]

I don't see a lot of future on this method if it "clones" the ID of the original PS4 since Sony could track that ID and check if it is duplicated when you connect to PSN. So that consoles could easily be banned from PSN (and not sure if they can make the games installed unusable).

Then they probably won't connect to PSN, it's not the end of the world for them. Luckily, it is for people in the main regions which would make it a non-starter here.

 

[M3d10n]

The real news here seems to be that Sony messed things up and the console's unique key is stored in flashable memory and therefore can be cloned.

 

[Wolf Akela]

Niche piracy? Is that a thing now? I agree, just thinking it's silly. It's not even worth it when you consider how much PS+ gives stuff away. Spend half the cost to sub to PS+, buy a game you really want, win win.

It's really not the mindset of pirates specially in third world countries. They want a one time payment so they can get games uber cheap, and possibly just get the games themselves in the future. Lots of them don't like the idea that they're paying for something every year. Parents would also just buy their kid the modded hardware. The idea of spending so much money on something intangible is preposterous to them, especially these days where there are lots of ultra cheap / F2P mobile games. I know loads of people who bought their kids a modded DS/PSP and not a single legit game. From their viewpoint, the hardware itself was the only cost. Nothing else follows.

I remember PS1 games were sold for $0.75 per disc. PS2 games were slightly pricier ($1/disc) because they use DVDs. When broadband became more common, people started switching to downloading the games then either burning them to DVDs or copying to HDD loaders.

Besides, you can't pick what goes free on PS+. You'll get a tiny number of games every month that you can't play once you stop your sub. Meanwhile for these pirates, they see a bajillion games available for nearly zero cost.

 

[dose]

How old is the PS4, 2 years at most? Is it the console to be "pirated" in the shortest amount of time?

From the sounds of the technique, this isn't your normal type of piracy, ie, you couldn't just pick a game, put it on your PS4 and play it.

 

[Charles Brandon]

Am I right in thinking that downloaded game files are encrypted such that they only work with the console that downloads them, like a key in a lock. So you can't just copy games from one console to another. This hack works by by essentially copying the key (system ID) and the lock (game). Is it possible to lock down the encryption so that alters if it detects that it is being copied? Or is that just a load of shit.

 

[nelsonroyale]

The prices are so expensive, this is hardly a surprise. The prices are disgraceful in Brazil.

 

[SolidusDave]

That method can't take off at all.

Requires someone physically dismantling the PS4.

I guess you could share the full PS4 HDD backup file (of someone that has a lot of games) and the data on the BIOS chip of that very PS4 console on the internet. And some people could get it to work on their own.
But most can't/won't and would require to either go to a local shop (not happening in most countries due to legal actions) or ship the PS4 half around the word.

No actual level of PS4's security cracked so this can't lead to any progress in PS4 homebrew/hacking either.


The self-imposed restrictions are also way too high, most people interesting in saving money will probably stick to find someone to account-share with.

 

[Wolf Akela]

That method can't take off at all.

Requires someone physically dismantling the PS4.

There was a lot of piracy on the PS1 due to modchips. Were there even alternate methods like swap discs?

 

[KHlover]

Piracy nowadays is pretty useless considering you can't play online. I can't imagine having a console and not playing with everybody, enjoying events etc. I don't know how popular the PS3 Piracy is, but I guess not as spread as the xbox360 is.

You act as if not having access to online makes a game totally worthless. Why? Plenty of fun SP only games out there, can't even remember the last time I touched a game with online multiplayer at all.

There was a lot of piracy on the PS1 due to modchips. Were there even alternate methods like swap discs?

Lol yeah, Swap Disk Trick was huge on PS1 since it allowed you to play burned games without any modification to the console.

 

[lherre]

There was a lot of piracy on the PS1 due to modchips. Were there even alternate methods like swap discs?

Ps1 had external chips too (you could plug them in the external ports so you didn't need to open the console).. And I don't remember if the swap method worked with the first ps1 models.

 

[bobbytkc]

It sounds really limited to me, and comes with too many caveats. I don't see this becoming too widespread.

 

[SprachBrooks]

Some games are not that expensive, there are some that you can buy cheaper than in the US, like Bloodborne for example which you can find for around 45 dollars at Mercado Livre.

There are cases where they just don't give a fuck, like Mortal Kombat X costing around 70 dollars though.

Edit: guys, games don't cost U$100 here, where are you getting that? Not even in shopping center they cost that much, just stop spreading lies.

Thanks, but are they still not expensive relative to the socio-economic standards of many people living in the country?

 

[Stone Ocean]

It sounds really limited to me, and comes with too many caveats. I don't see this becoming too widespread.

Yeah, it's too much of a hassle. Piracy around here is popular when you can just go to a random store and grab a bootleg disc, when you start having to take the console to stores to grab more games people just stop bothering lol

It's why PS3 piracy was never popular around here. People are interested right now because "omg ps4 piracy" but it should die down quickly.

 

[Sayad]

Some games are not that expensive, there are some that you can buy cheaper than in the US, like Bloodborne for example which you can find for around 45 dollars at Mercado Livre.

There are cases where they just don't give a fuck, like Mortal Kombat X costing around 70 dollars though.

Edit: guys, games don't cost U$100 here, where are you getting that? Not even in shopping center they cost that much, just stop spreading lies.

How much does consoles cost over there?

 

[Stone Ocean]

How much does consoles cost over there?

1500~1900 BRL at the grey market
2500~ at official outlets

 

[Holygriever]

A bit of a drive-by, byt for clarification (and sorry if it was mentioned): though Brazil seems to have embraced it, the method wasn't developed here. It's a russian import.

 

[bryehn]

Hope the method doesn't leak.

It will.

 

[antti-la]

1500~1900 BRL at the grey market
2500~ at official outlets

Whoa... so about 735€ (825$) for a PS4 from a official outlet.

In a country where monthly average income is somewhere around 650€ (720$).

That's terrible.

 

[Yshi]

1. Install 10 games for 150USD
2. Never go online nor update in order to keep using them
3. Get console hardware ban
4. ?????
5. PROFIT

This is genius, spend $150 to save what, $450 total if you take only new title releases (where do you have like 10 new title releases even during same month, other than holiday season?) then never update your consoles and keep playing same games offline forever, also making your $800 a brick that you can't even resell since it will be HW banned as soon as it goes online (I remember PS4 cost a lot in Brazil).

The article stated that you can play online, and update the pirated games, also you wont get console hardware ban, atleast not for now. And they stated that sony cant know if the game is pirated or not.

I'll quote the part that say it in the article:

"De acordo com o funcionário, usando um programa especial e o “chip”, os técnicos conseguem fazer com que você jogue qualquer jogo do PlayStation 4. Mais que isso: os jogos podem ser atualizados normalmente e até funcionam no multiplayer. “Você pode jogar online e nem a Sony vai saber se você está jogando um game original ou não”, promete."

Also for those wondering the original article here is the link

 

[lherre]

The article stated that you can play online, and update the pirated games, also you wont get console hardware ban, atleast not for now. And they stated that sony cant know if the game is pirated or not.

I'll quote the part that say it in the article:

"De acordo com o funcionário, usando um programa especial e o “chip”, os técnicos conseguem fazer com que você jogue qualquer jogo do PlayStation 4. Mais que isso: os jogos podem ser atualizados normalmente e até funcionam no multiplayer. “Você pode jogar online e nem a Sony vai saber se você está jogando um game original ou não”, promete."

Also for those wondering the original article here is the link

Basically because Sony is not checking ID's right now.

 

[SolidusDave]

There was a lot of piracy on the PS1 due to modchips. Were there even alternate methods like swap discs?

I think that was before laws (technically) turned modchips illegal.
This one is even worse legally because a company actively has to break copyright laws. They don't just supply a method to pirate games but in fact the actual pirated content as well (unless you bring them a second PS4 with stuff on it I guess).


and the consoles are not banned/blocked yet because Sony didn't look into it yet. There's no way to prevent this scenario as the system isn't actually hacked, no spoofing IDs or whatever. The PS4s basically being cloned from a small number (one?) system makes it even easier for Sony.

 

[Ethelwulf]

Honestly, I always played pirated games back in the days one I had my PS1. Nowadays I see it under a different perspective, specially in the gaming media, so I do wish this piracy technique stops. Even though, gaming shouldn't be exclusive for people with money and so forth I understand (not justify) why these type of actions occur in third world and developing countries. Same goes for movies. Why would millions of people be neglected of entertainment just because they can't afford it?

 

[RoadHazard]

Because the games are overly expensive. A console game on release costs considerably more than R$200. That is about 1/3 of the salary in Brazil.

Now compare it to Steam, where the same game is released costing R$100.

Those console game prices sound about the same as here in Sweden. New games typically cost around 600 SEK here, which is about 220 BRL. But our salaries are considerably higher. Is that 600 BRL salary per week or month (I know the US has weekly salaries, while we have monthly here, but I don't know about Brazil)? Either way, yeah, relatively speaking that makes for pretty expensive games.

There was a lot of piracy on the PS1 due to modchips. Were there even alternate methods like swap discs?

Yes, but that method meant you could then burn and play any game you wished. Free games forever. This method doesn't.

 

[Stone Ocean]

I've been told you can play online no problem yes

But stores aren't offering any guarantees

Whoa... so about 735€ (825$) for a PS4 from a official outlet.

In a country where monthly average income is somewhere around 650€ (720$).

That's terrible.

For comparison's sake, minimum wage is at 788 BRL per month and our economy hasn't been this bad in like 8 years. Terrible is an understatement

 

[Syntsui]

How much does consoles cost over there?

Around 566 dollars, just the console with the controller and cables. This if you buy it at Mercado Livre, if you want one at the official market you have to pay around 850+ dollars.

Thanks, but are they still not expensive relative to the socio-economic standards of many people living in the country?

Oh yes, considering our economic reality. It's irresponsible to maintain gaming habits if you receive a minimum wage, unless you live with your parents, don't pay the University, don't pay bills etc. PC gaming is dirty cheap though, too bad you need to spend about 4x the price for the parts to build a good one, it's just beyond ridiculous.

 

[darkwing]

I don't think Sony can just ban console IDs , they weren't too strict on the PS3 either

 

[Yshi]

Those console game prices sound about the same as here in Sweden. New games typically cost around 600 SEK here, which is about 220 BRL. But our salaries are considerably higher. Is that 600 BRL salary per week or month (I know the US has weekly salaries, while we have monthly here, but I don't know about Brazil)? Either way, yeah, relatively speaking that makes for pretty expensive games.



Yes, but that method meant you could then burn and play any game you wished. Free games forever. This method doesn't.

We have monthly salary, our minimal wage is around BRL 778,00 / 260 USD. PS4 games are around BRL 220 so you can see why pirate something like ps4 is a thing here in brazil.

 

[samar11]

Only in third world countries.
I mean no shit this would happen
I hope any store selling this kind of crap gets shut down.

 

[m@cross]

Ok so here is why the stuff costs what it does in Brazil according to Sony.

63% is import taxes levied by the government of Brazil
21.5% is cost of shipping
22% is retail/Sony profit margin

the extra 6.5% is loss Sony takes as a discount

If they started manufacturing the console in Brazil, the cost would be reduced significantly.

source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...s-why-its-playstation-4-costs-1-845-in-brazil

While I agree the cost is high, I don't agree it is a reason that justifies piracy. If someone can afford the console cost, game cost is relative and should be equally feasible for those consumers. There are plenty of poor people in Brazil, but they are not the ones buying the console or going to get it pirated with games I don't think.

 

[Collateral22]

I don't think Sony can just ban console IDs , they weren't too strict on the PS3 either

Yes they can.

I doubt this is a hardware mod of any kind either, more of an exploit than anything that was around for ps3 or 360. I'd be shocked if these consoles are touched in that way.

 

[Yshi]

Only in third world countries.
I mean no shit this would happen
I hope any store selling this kind of crap gets shut down.

They wont, the government doesnt give 2 shi** about it.

Anyway as it is today,this "jailbreak" thing for ps4 wont last long.

 

[Stone Ocean]

Yes they can.

I doubt this is a hardware mod of any kind either, more of an exploit than anything that was around for ps3 or 360. I'd be shocked if these consoles are touched in that way.

Actually you need to mess with the hardware, but not permanently. I don't know the details but basically you open the console and do a thing with another console's thingy

 

[Collateral22]

Actually you need to mess with the hardware, but not permanently. I don't know the details but basically you open the console and do a thing with another console's thingy

I just find it extremely strange that all the big people in the modding scene have had 0 luck with XB1/PS4 modding, but some little shop in Brazil somehow has a way. Doesn't add up to me.