Game Development Giant

For example, in Jester's memory.

In the next generation, which is the generation where ps first came out in history.

What was the cracking like at that time?

By this time, as the difficulty of cracking continued to increase, it was difficult to achieve anything from the game storage media, so the experts turned to attack the console itself. For example, PlayStation and later PS2, Xbox and other contemporary consoles can be cracked using the direct reading method. The so-called direct reading is to install a chip on the host computer so that it can skip the genuine detection and successfully read the pirated disc. Of course, soldering direct-reading chips is not something every player can complete independently.

At this time, players who usually play cracked machines will go to the store to buy the console that the store has already cracked for you.

Of course, after Jester knew about this, could he take precautions in advance?

Prevention can prevent this method, but there is no hardware without loopholes. As long as crackers want to crack it, who knows what more bizarre methods they can come up with?

Moreover, even if you want to prevent it, it is not that easy.

In this era, at least in the next generation, it is impossible to carry out methods such as online verification.

In addition, even handheld consoles have not escaped the fate of being cracked. Of course, at least according to Jester, his Gameboy has not been cracked yet, because he had previously thought of some of the reasons why Nintendo's handheld consoles were cracked. , so we took precautions in advance.

The flash card cracking method is suitable for almost all Nintendo consoles. From the original gameboy in history to the later nds, this method can be used to crack.

It doesn't make any difference whether it's direct or indirect.

And why is this method so powerful? Very simple. Because the flash card is actually a blank cassette that can be rewritable. Players can download relevant game data from the Internet, then write it into the cassette and run it. This makes the game resources completely free! In order to prevent burning cards, Nintendo has strengthened the encryption measures of nds, but players can still circumvent it by flashing the machine or using a boot card.

That is, for Nintendo. As long as their essential storage method remains unchanged, it is almost inevitable to be cracked in this way.

In fact, Jester is also thinking about this issue now.

Nintendo is preparing to announce its handheld device at e3, although Jester is said to be unconcerned about it. But it would be unrealistic to have no opinions at all, and what Jester is thinking now is if Nintendo still uses the same technology as it did in history.

So is he using this cracking method to trick the other party first?

Jester wasn't worried about whether he was insidious or not. But I am worried about being found out. Revealing it would have a huge impact on his reputation. As the president of the World Electronic Games Association, it was so shameless and despicable to use such methods on his own members.

Jester soon put this matter behind his mind for the time being, and he recalled the history of the game. Some console hacking stuff.

The ones Jester recalled before were called hard solutions.

But as time went by, preventive measures were tightened again. There is little hope for successful cracking on hardware, so experts turn to software such as the host system, that is, soft cracking.

Of course, it is too early to prevent soft decryption now, because the current host does not even have a system, and there is no basis for soft decryption at all.

But this does not prevent us from first referring to the cracking ideas of those cracking masters in later generations to carry out targeted cracking. So, how is soft cracking achieved?

According to the information learned in Jester's memory.

As early as the Xbox era, software decryption of the system was realized, and even the operation of self-made systems was realized. However, at that time, some changes to the motherboard and other hardware were still required. In terms of soft decryption, the masters at the time used the archive vulnerability of the game 007: Night Fire to flash the firmware and system of the Xbox to achieve cracking; and the self-made system was even better. It could not only run the game on the hard disk, but also run various A variety of simulators and home-made software, etc., can be said to be extremely powerful.

Later, console manufacturers hoped to use system upgrades to patch vulnerabilities and reduce the possibility of cracking.

However, there are loopholes in every system. From psp to wii, xbox 360 and ps3, all systems have been hacked by hackers, allowing these consoles to run pirated games and home-made programs, and even flash home-made systems. For example, after hackers break through the encryption method of PS3, players no longer need to modify or flash the machine themselves, so that they can obtain stronger gameplay and richer game resources.

All this kind of information flashed through Jester's mind one by one, and then he slowly thought about some ways to deal with it.

Of course, crackers are experts, and developers who spend a lot of money to support them will not be trash. Host manufacturers who have suffered from piracy and cracking will definitely not see their own interests damaged in vain, so they have introduced Various precautions.

\u003cbsp; An alternative mini dvd, Sony even designed the most special umd storage medium for the psp, while the ps2 used dvd which was not popular at the time.

What's even more ruthless is Microsoft, which is indeed rich and powerful.

How did they do it?

They directly replaced it with a brand new optical drive. The purpose of this was to prevent the computer optical drive from recognizing these specialized game discs, thereby preventing the software from being easily read and cracked.

In addition to these independent measures on the hardware, manufacturers will also take measures on the software to further maintain genuine games, including the system updates mentioned earlier, and Sony in order to avoid the PS4 that was almost cracked as mentioned before incident, the vulnerabilities of version 1.76 on the ps4 system were patched through the 2.00 firmware upgrade.

Console manufacturers can also work with game developers to impose restrictions on works such as encryption. For example, pirated copies cannot be connected to the Internet to participate in multiplayer modes. Other measures include formulating mandatory policies. For example, after the release of Xbox One, Microsoft proudly announced DRM (Digital Content Encryption). protection technology) and a series of policies, and the other is zone locking, etc.

Of course, some game developers do not always use DRM anti-theft methods to prevent piracy.

For example, CDPR's The Witcher 3 did not encrypt the game, and the game did not have any online content. Therefore, for PC players, there is basically no difference between the full version and the pirated version.

But.

CDPR also said that the reason why there is a game called The Witcher 3 is because of the console. Without the console, this game would not have appeared? why? It's because it's impossible for them to get enough profitable sales just by relying on PC players.

When cdpr and others were developing The Witcher 3, they were desperate.

But Jester also knows that using these various independent and unique anti-theft methods has its disadvantages. Nothing is perfect in the world. With convenience on one side, there will naturally be disadvantages on the other. convenient.

For example.

First of all, the most direct thing is that manufacturers will design various preventive measures, which drives up the cost of hardware and causes inconvenience in use. For example, the use of non-mainstream storage media will undoubtedly lead to an increase in manufacturing costs and greatly reduce the applicability; and various restrictive policies such as networking have also made the game complexity increase instead of decreasing. Unfortunately, many players are probably unaware of this side effect.

But the biggest harm of cracking is to dampen the enthusiasm of game developers. For example, the decline of PSP was largely due to the developers' frustration.

According to statistics in 2009, although PSP sold 46 million units, due to the existence of piracy, there were only 26 games with sales of more than one million on the platform. It can be said that the game console has the worst sales ratio of software and hardware; and game sales Not going out caused the enthusiasm of developers to be severely dampened. Later, few new games were launched on the PSP.

The flight of developers has resulted in players being unable to continue to play good works.

In fact, Jester started out as a pirate player. Whether it was PC games or console games, he started by cracking them. After all, players his age in China have been exposed to games since they were little overlords.

Later, when Jester entered the ps2 era and felt that he could finally buy a console of his own, he bought a cracked one.

I feel that this is driving sales for game console manufacturers.

As everyone knows, this is not necessarily a good thing for console manufacturers, because by selling more consoles (hardware), manufacturers may not be able to make profits, and may even suffer greater losses - everyone knows that home consoles mainly rely on game works to make money. In terms of money and hardware, it is possible to lose money, and cracking will undoubtedly cut off an important source of income for host manufacturers, and the risk of eventual bankruptcy is hard to say.

For example, the later Sony ps3 was selling hardware at a loss, and the ps4 must not have made much money.

To be honest, when Jester officially became a supporter of the original version, it was because of a sentence of torture. If Sony really goes bankrupt, will there still be ps5 and excellent games from its studios in the future? You know, Sony's life was very difficult later on.

Just as he was thinking of this, Carmack's time ended and it was Jester's turn.

The assistant beside Jester whispered something in his ear, and Jester also came back to his senses from his previous contemplation. (To be continued...)