Irony is..

Using a save game bug in GTA:LCS to bypass the security in PSP firmware.

Seriously, I’m amazed that the gaming press have not been capitalizing on the incredible hilarity of the fact that a game that is all about breaking the law, and belongs to a series that is known for controversy and frivolous blame-shifting lawsuits is the tool that allowed hackers to run uncertified software. Now I don’t by any means support piracy, and unfortunately these developments help pirates as well, but I really wish Sony would wake up and realize that if they just opened up the PSP to legitimate ‘indy’ development, there would be a whole lot less crackers trying to get around bugs in the system to run things. The PSP is an ideal homebrew development system, and there are lots of talented people out there that would love to be let loose on it, but don’t have the funds or inclination to do fulltime dev. Maybe Sony is just trying to protect license-paying developers that are churning out shit games by keeping the free-but-great competition away?

This latest obstacle in Sony’s attempts to keep ‘illegitimate’ software off the PSP is a somewhat unusual in that it does not seem to be at all dependant on security flaws in the actual PSP firmware, but rather on a bug in the save/load mechanism in GTA: Liberty City Stories. I am sure it will only be a matter of time before Sony figures out a way to block this with a firmware update (their developers are probably working on it 24/7) but at least we’ll probably get some cool new add-n. It seems that every time crackers get through the PSP’s current security, Sony release a new security fix and sugar coat it with something cool. Maybe we’ll finally get a working version of the personal organizer and email software that was leaked onto the web last year?