PS3 Hacked!

iPhone hacker set his sights on PS3 – and wins!

News out of the US tells us of George Hotz, who claims he has managed to hack into the PS3 gaming console. Hotz was the same guy who last year hacked, or unlocked, an iPhone. Unlike Australia, Apple has an exclusive deal with mobile carrier AT&T for the iPhone, so all units are locked to that network. Hotz changed that.

What the ramifications of Hotz’s latest hack are yet to be known, I’m guessing it will allow people to play pirated games, which is not good for the industry – after all, where does the development money come from for new games? – sales of current ones. He could possibly also run unauthorised software on the system.

Some people are saying”so what?”, and to a degree you have to ask yourself if it is that big of a deal. However, I can’t imagine Sony will be too happy about its console being taken apart, and who knows what kind of problems this might cause in the future. What I do know is, that if you are connected to the Playstation Network, the risk of being hacked is no greater than at any other time you use the facility.