Why hack your game console?
Some people buy game consoles at launch only to take them apart immediately and post pictures of the insides on the internet. Web pages, wikis, and forums are devoted to putting Linux on game consoles even before they have been released. Recently released videos feature Windows XP successfully booting on a Sony PlayStation 3 via Linux/QEMU and another running emulators using a Gamecube Action Replay exploit on the Nintendo Wii. Why bother? Why reverse engineer a console? Why void your warranty? Aren’t the games and provided content enough?
It’s part of the ideology of the hacker: take it apart, fiddle with it, and make it do what you want.
Illegal home brew development has existed for years: shady individuals authored and sold bootleg Atari cartridges back in the ’80s, followed by 100-in-1 Nintendo Entertainment System cartridges, and so on. However, hobbyists have found better (and more legitimate) ways to explore and extend their hardware: home brew software. If a program doesn’t exist (or it does exist and you don’t like the way it was done), do it yourself. If there’s a barrier like Digital Rights Management, find a way around it.
An excellent example of this sort of home brew is the Xbox Media Center.
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