Far from being over, the next-gen madness has lately been focusing on "breaking" the two consoles, Wii and PlayStation 3. Regarding Nintendo's console, things aren't too complicated, yet. Or at least they don't seem to be. Most of the hacking efforts are targeted at replacing the missing Opera browser from the console's initial offering (arguably the biggest disappointment of the Wii launch). Still, even without Opera, the Wii has an internal browser that allows accessing the Wii "channels", such as the Shop Channel, which ultimately is just another website.

Unfortunately (for some), these channels can't normally be accessed with regular PC browser, and neither can the Wii browser normally access regular websites such as Google. The first part ain't so troublesome, but until the Opera browser launches on the Wii, it would be nice to at least be able to navigate (from the console) outsite of the special Nintendo channels. And, as many YouTube videos already show us, it can be done! All you have to do is tweak the console's network settings and, once "hacked", you still need to face the fact that this browser is a rather limited application - as it doesn't display, for instance, Flash objects in web pages.

At least for a short while, the first part - the one about accessing Wii channels from a PC browser - was also possible, as proven by the pictures from this website. That's also where you can learn more about "packet sniffing" Wii's communications and other such leet stuff, if you're into that sort of thing. The rest of us, let's move on to PS3 hacking.

This is where things are really starting to get interesting. From the moment they allowed the installation of an alternative operating system, such as Fedora Core 5 Linux, Sony willingly opened the gates for hackers to their next-gen console's paradise. All of a sudden, running any kind of software had become a piece of cake, so now the biggest challenge is "breaking" the PlayStation 3 games and running the pirated back-up copies that any careful gamer makes for his own, personal, selfish use.

Already a tradition for every new console (including the Xbox 360 and PSP in the past), the process of hacking games begins with "dumping" the data from an original disc, to a hard-drive. And then it continues (in theory) with making a software that allows people to run these pirated back-up copies. The first part is always easier, and it has actaully been done already last week - when the guys from PS3News.com managed to "dump" the first PS3 games (Blu-ray discs!), like Madden NFL 07 and Resistance: Fall Of Man. Obviously, it didn't take long for the first group of pirates back-... err... hackers to publicly release such a PS3 iSO, and the dumps have continued to appear ever since... But in vain, for now: there's still a long way until such a PS3 iSO will be playable.

Until then, somebody challenges us with another kind of hacking: the person who successfully hacks the PS3 that site is running on, and complies with the set conditions, will receive that PlayStation 3 console (with a replaced HDD of 160 GB, and of course Fedora Linux pre-installed), a HDMI cable, and the game Resistance. All I could find (with my Leet -15 skill) was that the website's IP is from Ichikawa, Japan. From here on... you're on your own.

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)