14 DAY TRIAL // The holiday season is approaching and people are very interested in buying a gaming console, but, they really need to take into account quite a lot of things. Besides the price, which is becoming an important factor because of the financial crisis, another key element that might attract or scare off customers is the online service that the console offers.
While the Xbox 360 dominates this segment due to its Live service boasting quite a lot of accounts coupled with the New Xbox Experience, which has recently been launched worldwide, Sony is attempting to attract users with its fresh Home online service. The Japanese manufacturer has just released the open beta stage of this program that enables players to create their own online avatar, and interact with other PS3 users worldwide in a fictional place.
Although the launch was met with quite a lot of problems, people not being able to connect or log in, the general reception was positive. But now, as users are getting acquainted with this new service, which was compared with the popular online game Second Life by Microsoft executive Aaron Greenberg, it seems various reports show that the program has been hacked.
It appears a user has even figured out how to manipulate the files that are being uploaded or downloaded from any Home media server, which can be very dangerous for other users. Some people have even managed to change the content displayed by the billboards across the Home environment, generally depicting new games or various products that could have been found there.
But Sony seems to be aware of these problems and has stated that a patch would be released, preventing such illegal attempts, and would fix quite a lot of the problems encountered by users. This first patch will appear today, along with the weekly update to the PlayStation Network store.
Let's hope that hackers won't be able to ruin the whole online experience for regular users, and that Sony will keep an eye on any illegal attempt made in the Home system.