Copy Protection: Difference between revisions

** The PlayStation mechanism was actually very clever, and made it completely impossible to burn a disc that would pass the protection ever. Unfortunately for Sony, there were points exposed where people could solder a chip in to override the attempt to read the signature and replace it with a valid one. People COULD press pirated discs once they figured out how the protection really worked, though, yielding the boot disc. There were anecdotal reports of so-called "Hong Kong silvers" which would boot on an unmodified PlayStation, but it is uncertain as to whether they exist or not. While the likes of Datel were able to press PlayStation-compatible discs without Sony's blessing, it is unknown if bootleggers have managed to do so as well; given that there's so many modified PlayStations out there, it is more likely that they didn't even bother trying to reproduce the needed wobble. Worse yet, it turns out that by using a single valid PlayStation game and some quick swapping of the burned disc any reasonably dexterous person could play burned discs on a completely unmodded console. It takes some practice, but it's not that difficult.

*** The final evolution of this "swap trick" was the production of kits containing stickers to hold down the "lid open" sensors (so the console would not try to perform the security test again when the lid was opened to swap the discs), and boot discs that would pass the copy protection check, then stop the disc from spinning and wait patiently until the start button was pressed (so the user could swap in another disc at their leisure).

*** Before the PS3s dropped backward compatibility altogether, this bit Sony on the ass - they had a hell of a time trying to read PS2 discs, to the point where most of the last-gen library was bugged out or failed entirely while playing on a [[PlayStation 3]].

* The Nintendo [[GameCube]] uses a proprietary 8 cm DVD based on the miniDVD.

** Contrary to popular belief, discs for game consoles do not spin in reverse. But Gamecube and Wii discs do use a slight variant of the DVD sector-level encoding. Unfortunately for Nintendo, Wii pirates disregarded the physical aspects of the copy protection and instead decided to attack the console's firmware, which had quite a few holes. Not to mention that the Wii is backwards-compatible with the GameCube, and as such homebrew for the latter will work for the Wii to some extent, albeit not taking advantage of the Wii's enhanced features. In addition, third-party video game accessory manufacturer Datel somehow managed to press discs which boot on an unmodified GameCube or Wii by adding sectors that would at least nominally satisfy the challenge-response authentication the GameCube or Wii is looking for with authentic discs.