It's All Fun And Games Until Someone Loses Their Eye.

We would have reported on it, only we were struggled to stay alive during the onslaught of NGP news. The firmware promised a bunch of "security updates", though it was cracked within minutes by the lovely homebrew folks that we don't talk about on this site. Seems there may have been a bit more to the fix than the triumphant nerds expected though.

Apparently cheating Call Of Duty: Black Ops players are feeling the full throttle of Sony and Activision's ban hammer since installing the update. Many of them have jumped onto the Call Of Duty forums to plead their innocence: "My friends must have used the PS3 while I took the dog for a walk. Honest. Please unban me."

This is all music to our ears. A post on NeoGAF speculates Sony may have installed some additional crafty technology onto the PS3 with the latest firmware update. Allegedly the update allows Sony to check your PS3 for unsavoury software, allowing them to issue a ban hammer if anything's present. This is the first time we've really covered anything relating to the PS3 hacks (we don't want to bring attention to it), but may we just say: thank goodness. Legitimate players should not be getting screwed over by entitled muppets. We understand not every homebrew user is out to pirate the system or cheat in Call Of Duty, but it doesn't mean someone else isn't. As legitimate PlayStation 3 users we'd rather 99% of the userbase got the full enjoyment out of their purchase, rather than 1% getting SNES emulation.

[source ripten.com]