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Re:Open-source Playstation 4 SDK by jokoon on Sunday September 06, 2015 @07:32AM (#10177371)
So... can one load a game on the PS4 at home using that, or is just intended to emulate the playstation on a PC ? I don't understand the intention behind making this open source, seeing all the loaded piracy history of the playstation consoles.

Kinda feels like it's a little short for a SDK too, but I'm no expert.

Re:Open-source Playstation 4 SDK by SifJar on Sunday September 06, 2015 @08:34AM (#10177449)
It runs via an exploit found about a year ago in WebKit [1] , and allows running custom code. It does not enable piracy, as that would require greater system access. It allows running simple applications, with severe limitations (can't use native video out or controllers; workarounds employed are using an HTML Canvas for visual output and a Nintendo DS for control).

It is a very basic SDK right now, it is still in development and has a long way to go. Considering the exploit to run code only works on FW 1.76 (~1 year old), there presumably aren't many people able to run code anyway.

[1] http://wololo.net/2014/10/24/webkit-exploit-confirmed-to-run...

Re:Open-source Playstation 4 SDK by stinos on Sunday September 06, 2015 @09:10AM (#10177527)
Kinda feels like it's a little short for a SDK too

It sure is, also a bit sad that it takes such detours to be able to write software for such devices. Years ago when the first PSP came out things were different. I bought the PSP just because I saw there was a rather complete SDK available for it (also made available by hacking around and reverse engineering IIRC, but at least it was more than enough to write actual applications): it included access to buttons, sockets/wifi, raw framebuffer access etc. Which led to the availability of fun things like a working VNC client which was super impressive to me back then (remember that's like 5 years before the first iPad). I had only like one game which I never really played but instead I spent hours writing mini games and setting up communication between the PSP and a PC, using it as remote control and whatnot.

Re:Open-source Playstation 4 SDK by Narishma on Sunday September 06, 2015 @10:07AM (#10177677)
> I had only like one game which I never really played but instead I spent hours writing mini games and setting up communication between the PSP and a PC, using it as remote control and whatnot.

And that's exactly why manufacturers go to such lengths to prevent people from hacking on their consoles. With the way they are priced, and depending on when you bought that PSP, it may have cost Sony money if you didn't buy any games for it.

Re:Open-source Playstation 4 SDK by pandaman on Sunday September 06, 2015 @01:27PM (#10178298)
What length exactly? Both Sony and MS released, at some point, SDKs that could use a retail unit for development [1,2,3,4] so I am not sure this is exactly why.

1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Mobile

2.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_for_PlayStation_2

3.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS

4.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_XNA

Re:Open-source Playstation 4 SDK by girvo on Sunday September 06, 2015 @07:51PM (#10179544)
And don't forget the Net Yaroze[0]! Sony was embracing tinkerers all the way back in 1997

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Yaroze

Re:Open-source Playstation 4 SDK by pandaman on Sunday September 06, 2015 @08:36PM (#10179637)
I did not include Yaroze since it required a special PSX.
Re:Open-source Playstation 4 SDK by venomsnake on Sunday September 06, 2015 @02:27PM (#10178486)
> And that's exactly why manufacturers go to such lengths to prevent people from hacking on their consoles. With the way they are priced, and depending on when you bought that PSP, it may have cost Sony money if you didn't buy any games for it.

There is this revolutionary business idea of selling stuff at profit. Cross subsidizing always bites you in the ass. Loss leaders too.

Re:Open-source Playstation 4 SDK by spike021 on Sunday September 06, 2015 @12:59PM (#10178188)
I miss working on homebrew for the PSP. That was a fun time.
Re:Open-source Playstation 4 SDK by Wofiel on Sunday September 06, 2015 @07:49AM (#10177390)
The PS4-Pong example in the README has a YouTube video[1] so it's physically possible to run something with the HTML5 canvas renderer, but there doesn't seem to be much in the way of instructions to do so up there.

As for the sparseness, definitely true, the SDK really doesn't have much in the way of functionality yet, but I'm kind of surprised by what they have so far.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNqKyuTDbjE

Re:Open-source Playstation 4 SDK by SifJar on Monday September 07, 2015 @03:04PM (#10182603)
There are no instructions because the code exec method is not (yet?) public. The exploit is, but not the payload to run applications. There is no announced release date for code exec method, or indeed announced plans to release, as far as I am aware.