Alright so the big news coming out of the weekend for folks like me was this little posting by famous iPhone hacker George Hotz (known as Geohot). http://geohotps3.blogspot.com/

 

Folks, the Commodore is into system hacking. I’ve never done it myself mind you, as myself hacking a system like Xbox360 at my skill level would be akin to breaking into Fort Knox with a toothpick. But I enjoy the thought of making systems like these that are designed with specific feature sets in mind, do completely different and arguably more fun things like say homebrew software, APIs for web-facing applications like Pandora or Youtube, or even emulators that allow me to play games of old, reliving precious moments of my childhood. I’ve had an Xbox that’s been hacked for years and I use it for just about everything media center related. But for awhile now I’ve been looking for a replacement. And Mr. Hotz might have hit the target here.

 

To backtrack a bit, I’m tired of waiting for the 360. All of you in the know are screaming at me now. I know what you’re thinking. I check x-scene with the best of em and I know that 2010 is “the year of 360 homebrew.” But it’s just been slow going and more importantly not much easier to execute if you actually commit to hacking the 360. To get one of these 360s running any kind of code you provide is just a long and arduous process at this point. Since I don’t have a degree in electrical engineering, I think I’ll stay away. I mean I know my way with a soldering iron, but I’m not gonna rewire any flux capacitors anytime soon. Enough about that, it’s depressing and reminds me of my own inadequacy.

 

So to the PS3. Apparently ‘ol George has done it again, coming up with a soft-modding methodology that would allow you to mod a PS3 without voiding the warranty. This is just enough of a hope to make me actually spend my money on a PS3, something I thought I would frankly never do.  The thought of being able to play my PS2 AND PS1 discs through an emulator on the PS3 is very encouraging (especially since they cut PS2 backwards-compatibility), not to mention the emulation of all those older systems for which it’s almost impossible to get games nowadays.

 

It should also be reiterated (as it was by George himself) that modding these machines shouldn’t have anything necessarily to do with pirating games. I certainly would never condone such behavior as I believe very strongly in supporting the games industry as a whole. Will there be people that are interested in modding only for piracy? Absolutely. But I am not one of them.

 

I just want to unlock the potential of the technology that Sony provides me for my $400, which they needlessly shackle out of the box. Why should I sit on a multi-core, cell processor system that is capable of computation that could help doctors cure cancer, when I could use it to do so much more? It’d be like buying a 600 HP Ferrari and then only using it to take the mail to the mailbox. The neighbor’s would be thinking rightly, wow what an incredible that car you’re not using at all.

 

This gets to the very heart of why I love the modding scene. It’s about unlocking potential and fostering a community around working together to do cool things with these machines that we spend a lot of money to buy. It makes you feel more like you’ve got your money’s worth. And the level of customizability just shoots through the roof, fostering a better connection to the machine and the brand, which I would argue is in turn better for the manufacturers in the long run. And to be fair, I think Sony was on the right track with this enabling linux to be installed on the PS3. But I need more!

 

So, yeah, I’m in a bit of a hurry. So if you would please, a bit faster Mr. Geohot?