Hacker News

I saw a post from someone who worked in the scene recently, seems they were someone famous. I don’t follow things so I’m not sure. Basically they were giving up because new people to the scene were just discovering things with AI and then immediately disclosing them to the world, allowing Sony to patch them before they really got used.

It sounded like things may have changed.

Their store and possibly their entire main OS menu sure feel like "webshit" on the PS4 and PS5. I'd be pretty surprised if they weren't using Webtech for layouts, formatting, and scripting (with Javascript).

On the PS3, only the store was webshit, and it performed so amazingly poorly (and crashed all the time) that I never bought anything on it, and I doubt I'm alone in that. The PS3 could have handled a website well (obviously), but not the trash heap of a "web app" they used.

From what I can tell, they didn't learn a lesson from this, they've just benefitted from beefier hardware to keep their newer stores usable (and I may be imagining it, but performance on menus and in their store already seems to have declined a lot from when I purchased my PS5).

Given all that, I'm not sure how much Javascript performance they can afford to give up without making their entire system's UI experience totally suck. They could improve the quality of their system and use of web tech to improve performance, like it's a joke any of this isn't perfectly, buttery smooth on a system that powerful even if it is Javascript and HTML and CSS... but given they never seemed inclined to do that even in the pre-AI-slop days...

The exploit has been fixed in 14.0. Realistically gta6 will require it

Digital Foundry [1] (a popular game graphics YouTube review channel) not just put Linux on it, but made it run games, sometimes even with better perf than PS5 itself does. I'd say if you can do this, then it's pretty much general purpose!

[1] https://www.digitalfoundry.net/news/2026/05/playstation-5-li...

No need if you can get a BC250 for less than a PS5 these days - though even that may be difficult now

Might be a reality quite soon! https://github.com/boykopovar/AnyPS5

God I hope so. Some of my fondest professional memories were my early Navy days, hacking together PS3's into a big ol cluster

Edit: Reading through the exploit, looks like linux compatability for older (non 13.6) is possible. 13.6 needs a new hypervisor exploit.

Going back a few years to covid lockdowns, work from home exploding and a shortage of computers, I thought the mirror image of that was something MS should have tried. Enable a variant of windows on the xbox (probably locked down) so people can plug in keyboard/mouse and do some desktop tasks on the recently released consoles, and it'd also serve to seed a userbase for the gaming side.

I'm not heavy on gaming so I can't justify buying PS5 just for the games, but my god, if I would be able to thinker with it - I'd buy it in an instant!

this is a kernel level exploit and afaik ps5 linux requires full hypervisor... so not yet, but probably soon.

just get a bc-250...

> Unfortunately holding the PS5 controller gives me crippling pain in my wrists and it also doesn't have any games I care about

Juice might not be worth the squeeze, but have you tried one of their Access controllers?

https://www.amazon.com/Access-Controller-PlayStation-5-Gamin...

Apple tried this, I forgot which year, there was a push to make the Apple TV a console. Arcade support, controller compatibility, it all shipped. You can plug in an Apple TV and pair an Xbox controller right now and play a surprisingly large number of AAA and indie games, from Resident Evil VIII to Slay the Spire. It was too little too late, though. Most games are played on phones, and the console market is falling apart. Microsoft seems to be pulling out, Sony is basically shipping locked-down gaming PCs with a couple of exclusive games. Nintendo is holding course more or less, but their main value propositions are simplicity and first-party exclusivity, and phones already ate the first half of that.

Developers need to optimize and debug their game for each console. Xbox/PS are completely different platforms (UWP vs heavily customized BSD) so fixes don't transfer over. Adding another incompatible target with new store guidelines and system APIs adds a lot of work so Apple would have a hard time convincing them.

Now add the perception that Mac users don't play games and Apple devices are made for people already in their ecosystem. The only way they could gain market share is competing with Steam Machine as a more open platform, but without a giant library of existing games.

I think this is a multifaceted problem: - Apple TVs as they currently are can run RetroArch and some other more demanding games just fine, though not at full 4K - Game engine developers (Unity, Unreal are most notable) work very hard to add optimization tools for mainline consoles, and Apple has only recently started to really bolster this with the GPTK (game porting toolkit) and more Metal/GPU focus - Ouya and other similar Android standalone boxes have been underpowered for years, and the AI hardware inflation will make this segment harder to get into

They’ll probably need to design new silicon that is much more GPU oriented (with less CPU) than anything they have in the A or even base M series to handle 4k gaming at sub-M Max prices

A console-optimized lower-priced higher-GPU variant of the A series could be useful for local AI in so many products that don’t come with a capable processor (eg homepods, TV, the monitor they put a whole iPhone chip in)

I could see something for around the price of a Mac Mini with a controller that’s og MacBook plastic white/black

Consoles come with a controller and enough storage to be usable for games. The largest Apple TV 4K is 128GB and it's really common for games to easily be 50+ GB or even considerably more. 100 GB is not even that uncommon anymore (e.g., Call of Duty, FF7 Rebirth, Baldur's Gate 3).

When Apple first launched the Apple TV game store they required games be playable with the horrible remote. Understandably even games that would have been fine on the hardware didn't bother and while Apple later relented and allowed games to require a controller it's still an extra purchase that's needed.

Google tried this with Stadia. I was a pretty happy user of it, but I think it probably exposed the weakness of US bandwidth/ throughput. Still trying to find what to do with the two controllers but it was the best refund experience I've gone through and Google probably regrets setting my expectations like that.

A pro device is going to be expensive. Non gamers won't buy it, let alone $60+ games.

A walled garden living room appliance that allows you to purchase a revokable digital license to download games only through the manufacturer's store?

Apple TV, PS and Xbox all meet that definition. I'm not following what you're pitching…

there is the steam machine but from my experience it is a matter of hardware drivers and support.

Steam Machine is GREAT. But it still has warts around controller support etc...

Also, a lot of AAA games do not work on steam machine because of aggressive anticheat and DRM, and those vendors don't provide Linux builds. No spyware, no game.

The software for the UI just isn't there for Windows machines. There have been attempts but it is always janky and you end up pulling out a keyboard anyway.

Devs are afraid of piracy so they like the walled garden. They don't want emulators running because then they have to compete with the 90s-2015 era which is the golden age of gaming, and their newer games don't stack up ( except in graphics ). Nintendo doesn't want to compete with Mario Kart Double Dash on the Switch 2.

Also: Modern PCs absolutely MOG the Switch 2 and Xbox. The games are all in the same engines and cross-platform anyway, so piracy ends up useful.

Is the emulation layer thin enough for a non-stupidly specced computer to run stuff? Or is this more of a theoretical/advancing for the future thing?

There's also a Switch emulator that's being made for the PS5 that's a port of Eden. It's called ProsperoEden and can already run some games [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXGiTuSAZ5o

Because they don't make money from the hardware. If you don't buy games for it, there's no point in selling you a console, from their perspective.

They don’t make much money (if any) selling hardware.

Sony is barely making money on PS5 hardware.

they aren't in the business of selling consoles (duh). they are in the business of selling games. jailbroken consoles can run pirated games ...

consoles are sold at a loss, best information i can dig up is that this is still true today, even after all the volume.

The irony of posting something like this on HACKER News of all places must have escaped you... this term is tightly related to breaking hardware/software systems apart to understand them and it is very common to share your findings.

What people decide to do with them is on them, and fixing the exploits would be on the manufacturer if they care about this so-called "piracy".

Pirates don't usually bother hacking consoles. It's easier for them to just bypass the security on the disc drive. That's why we had "mod chips" for decades

Are you against accessing hardware that you own?

Don't clog the liability sink pls