The mod will more than likely be detectable if you have to run custom firmware.  Initially I would expect you could probably run a stealth setup that Sony wouldn't be able to detect but as they roll out future updates they would add more advanced detection routines that would flag the pirates.

I wouldn't mind if it did ban from PSN though as it would be worth it if the homebrew market took off.  I could always buy another PS3 for my gaming as I could do with a slim anyway.  I have a JTAG 360 and the homebrew market just hasn't advanced as much as I hoped due to the comparative difficulty in obtaining them.

The biggest thing I want to come from this is to make a more complete media centre, it really does have huge potential in that regard.

Imagine the Dolphin Wii emulator on the PS3 with move support

Why should people who get payed 310-380 euros a month buy a game that costs 70 euros, when they can just play it for free? Maybe those hard working developers should lower their prices in 3rd world countries, hows that sound ?

If the PS3's PPE can run Wii code without emulation, yes. If it has to be emulated, that would require several times more processing power and probably couldn't use the SPEs effectively.

does this mean someone could create a firmware with cross game chat?

I hate to say it but I am buying one if this is true. I have PC/360 and play pirated games only and when there is a game on ps3 that i want badly I rent the whole pakage.

I would imagine with enough work, it wouldn't matter if your account is banned from PSN.  If things happen like what happend to the original xbox, hackers will eventually come up with their own servers.  So instead of connecting to PSN you connect to a hacked PSN type service.  The original xbox had plenty of people playing online against each other without going through live (not exactly the best quality but it was playable).  I think it probably can and will be done.

Either way the Genie is out of the bottle and I don't see anything putting it back in.  Most people that are complaining here don't understand how rich the Homebrew community is.  If they can come up with a lot better multimedia center I will probably do this to my PS3.  The original XBMC was awesome for its time.

Yes but great AAA games will sell well no matter how many pirates are out there. If anything piracy causes more consoles to be sold. Hardware is moved but software isn't

There are those half pirates that will buy great games (9 or higher rated or Nintendo only games) but won't buy a 3rd party 8 rated game and pirate it instead.

Wii is a good example of that

Core games like GoldenEye not quite up to AAA standard but it gets pirated a lot.

Casual Gamers are the ones who least know how to hack their consoles for piracy so their games will always sell.

PSP and DS have the same problem. Before R4 come out there was a lot of game sales on DS.

Lets face it we all know people out there who only pirate if they can do it. I have a few mates who pirate all their DS games and and somewhat WIi games simply because it is easy.

Hell I have hacked my PSP, but mainly so I can play NES/SNES games on a nice big portable screen lol. Mind you I haven't touched my PSP in 3years or so.

 Can anyone give me a quick run down on just how hard it would currently be to run pirated games on the PS3, with regards to downloads, getting them on the console, changing firmware, online play, potential risks and complexity of setup. Nothing too deep just a rough guide of difficulty, also compared to other console like Wii / 360 / PS2 / PSP etc.

 I'm anti piracy myself so don't have any interest in doing it but I'm curious to see just how widespread this could be (I know a few friends who pirated the hell out their PSP's), it'll certainly make my life as leading trophey whore out my friends alot harder if they decide to do this :P.

No idea yet mate. I'm giving it a couple of months before even thinking of looking at it lol.

By the way, anyone else notice that Geohot, being an egotistical twonk, released everything before TeamTwiizers and is giving himself all the credit for getting the keys from Metldr..? True, he did get into Metldr using his own exploit...but he used TeamTwiizers' methods to get the keys. You would have thought that he'd have given them some sort of credit for doing the difficult part for him...very disappointing. :o/