Article written by Joshua Hood.
Published on 20/06/2011 at 06:30 PM.
According to a “well-placed industry source” (aren’t they all nowadays?) of GamerTell‘s, those new CECH-3000A/B PS3 models aren’t just having a bit of nip and tuck – they’ll also be shipping with new copy protection features built in to the hardware.
The new system will not be something on the motherboard, or in the operating system, but instead reside in the console’s Blu-ray drive itself, says the site. It’s similar to an implementation on the Xbox 360, and is presumably a response to GeoHot’s encryption key discovery earlier in the year.
GamerTell speculates that there could be some form of watermark on genuine retail PS3 disks that the drive searches for when booting a game. Obviously, the interesting thing will be how Sony implements this with regard to the older, watermark-less units.
The site is also claiming that the new version of the hardware will launch around the same time as a firmware update enabling BD-Java playback during 3D movies – currently it’s an either-or situation between BD-J and BD3D. Finally, the post references a price drop around the time of September’s Tokyo Game Show – a rumour that’s been doing the rounds on Twitter since the new hardware was unveiled.
Take this all with a pinch of salt – utilising a copy protection method from the 360 when that system has a fair amount of piracy problems itself sounds a bit odd – but you have to believe that Sony will be doing all they can to safe up the console as much and as soon as possible.
In related news, a Sony UK spokesperson has told CVG: “With regards to the new CECH-3000B PS3, the information is relevant for Japan only and we have nothing to share at this time.” Expect more news in Tokyo, and if there really is new security measures in this model, expect is worldwide as soon as Sony can produce the things.
PS3 BluRay drives are secure anyway. Sometimes they just won’t play BluRay discs at all just to make sure you’re not pirating.
That’s not been my experience – I have over 350 Blu-ray movies and over 100 PS3 games and they all play just fine on my PS3.
Jesus, that puts my collection to shame.
are there even 350 films in blu-ray? lol HMV doesn’t sell that amount I know that. Thats one heck of a collection, and a lot of money spent anyway, respect.
It’s not even screwed in lol, opened up the case earlier today to do the regular clean, and for the first time noticed i could just pick up the drive – just a ribbon and a few tiny wires attacjed.
When i first got my PS3 (This time 3 years ago) we had a fw update every couple of months, which were not just security or misc updates, they added features. I’ve been waiting for about a year for a BIG update, which’d add most of the things people have been asking for.
I’m sure they’d get more sales if people saw the PS3 (and PSN) as a continially evolving system. Can’t remember the specifics but didn’t SCEE and SCEA get frustrated because it wasn’t in their hands?
Are you saying that, 3 years ago when there was more to be added into the firmwares, more stuff was added in firmwares more often?
Wow, I wouldn’t expect something like that to happen.
Thats obvious, but there is always room for improvement, and there certainly isn’t any lack of ideas, so i don’t appreciate the snide comment. I wish I hadn’t even psoted now
On a more postive note, I agree that there has been SOME development of significance to customers with Movies etc… like cc said int he comment below. Plus both he and Pedromr highlight that there many things to add/improve, plus could name a few more.
Oh, I was being tongue-in-cheek, not snide :-p
The stuff that people want added now are more difficult to add than the stuff that was added early. Cross game chat? We don’t even know if that’s possible (even though it apparently is on the Vita).
The browser could definitely use some updating (what happened to that Firefox rumour I saw ages ago?) and some new visualisations would be nice. Codecs? I haven’t seen a video file my PS3 can’t play – it can play much more than a fresh copy of Windows already. Some new visualisations would be nice but it’s not exactly in any list of priorities of mine.
Honestly, I want the XMB to be faster. It’s not quite as slow as the Xbox 360 is in places (seriously, it takes so long to populate the recently downloaded list on my 360), but it can be a little annoying when you open it in game. They could speed the store up, too, I utterly hate having to wait 20 seconds for the loading icon in the top right to go away before I can continue browsing after I start downloading something. Same when you exit the web browser, too.
Lol Gamoc, i’ll forgive you, saw your tweets yesterday about being angry, and i Know what i can be like in abad mood!
You highlight a very interesting point, the sony hint at big changes for the internet browser….then nothing :(
As for CGC being possible, I wonder how much memory it takes up, it would need to be 2MB or less because of the 32MB limit for the OS, how about only keeping the friends and games section in the in – game XMB, plus caching friends’ avatars and comments on the HHD would surely help, rather than having to redownload them evry time!
There’s been plenty of advancement on the Blu-ray front, particularly surrounding 3D, but yes there hasn’t been major feature released for gamers in the way there was in the past.
One answer would be Sony’s dev time has been taken up with the movie side of thing, another would be they’ve spent the past year constantly updating the security side of things and yet another could be that the PS3 is pretty fully featured so there’s not to much else to add
Of course its still missing things like a mini, context sensitive version of the XMB whilst in-game, enhanced party/lobby features and of course cgc. Not forgetting the browser is next to useless for 2011′s internet (it wasn’t that great when it launched, but its positively archaic now) maybe more movie codecs adding along with an update to the mnusic player & its visualisers.
So yes, hopefully they’ll get around to adding real, actual useful stuff if they’ve finished with the 3D Blu-ray movie side of things and people stop hacking the damn thing.
“…maybe more movie codecs adding along with an update to the music player & its visualisers.”
This! Sony, would you kindly?
I feel the same. Most of the recent changes were more subtle with the addition of 3D capabilities and regular security updates. The web browser is useless and movie codecs are lacking.
The recent FW updates have severely limited Blu-ray movie playback on ‘jailbroken’ PS3s perhaps this adds hardware solution to what they seem to have accomplished via firmware on certain PS3 SKUs. They wouldn’t want to endanger studio support of Blu-rays because the worlds most popular Blu-ray player is hacked. Of course I don’t know this, but they’ve got to do something.
Maybe it makes it impossible to add linux back, limiting the number of consoles where it is possible by making internal changes because people are using a linux install on their PS3 to rip Blu-rays?
Glad to see Sony trying to keep ahead of the pirate games etc.
Good move.
I remember when you could get the PS2 chipped for free games, my friend still has his, maybe if the PS3 played copied games and they were available as easy to get PS2 copied games maybe the PS3 sales would increase.
True, they definitely would, but sony make most of their money on the royalties from the games sold, so it would be like shooting themselves in the foot :O
Correct, Sony make money from the games, not so much the consoles.