They've had several years to do it and Sony should know by now that it's in high-demand too.

The possible homebrew that might come from this whole situation could end up being more productive to the console than whatever team is in charge of adding features through firmware updates.

Please Sony stop them now.

I can't explain but I can correct you on one point.

Sony has been making profit on PS3 hardware for about six or seven months and it was widely published.

So ... if they really want them to make another hardware, what was the point of hacking it?, i say just an e-penis thing.

Like I said elsewhere, this won't be the death of Sony but it's also very bad for them.  As for why this is suddenly popular, first off, it's new, second, people have been saying for years that the PS3 will never be hacked since it went so long, and finally, someone else said something similar to this:

With other hacks, the hackers sneak in through the window in the middle of the night.  With this, they're waltzing in the front door using Sony's keys.

That's pretty big.  It's big because it's not something that is easy to fix if they even really can.  Sony may say they're working on something but that's probably only because they don't want to come right out and say we're boned.  There are solutions out there but they're all pretty bad.  Security wise, this is worst case scenario.

Pirating what? The people behind everything haven't pirated anything. They're against pirating. Homebrew is one of the things they're after. There's no e-peen involved in any of this.

If there really is no way Sony can fix this, it'll be better for everyone if they just accept it and move on rather than wasting too much time and effort doing the impossible.

The Wii and 360 were hacked much earlier in their lifespan and are doing better than the ps3.

Just to correct some posts here, the 360 isn't fully hacked (anymore).  The Wii security has been completely compromised to run unsigned code largely because the architecture is so similar to the Gamecube they didn't really advance the protection much.

The 360 DVD drive firmware is completely compromised so that people can pirate games, this is a ongoing struggle between Microsoft and the pirates as Microsoft build new detection methods to ban those going on Live.  This is not compromising the main security of the console though which is getting the hardware to run unsigned code.  The only way to run unsigned code and hence class the hardware as fully compromised is through the JTAG hack which is only possible on consoles with firmware older than the July 09 update.  these are becoming very scarce.  While the 360 was fully compromised through this hack there was no master encryption key extracted which means it isn't possible to sign new firmware to run on the console once the 2nd bootloader loop hole was closed.  It is more than likely that the 360 will not be hacked again unless Microsoft screw an update up and it opens up another exploit.

The PS3 on the other hand from what I've read has had the master encryption key extracted.  There is no way Sony can update this I believe as its hardcoded into the CPU on the PS3 hence the exploit is here to stay.  The only thing Sony can do from here on out is apply firmware updates frequently to ensure the exploited consoles cannot go on PSN so it will stop the cheaters that would propogate madly.  The big advance the hackers made with this latest hack is if they have the master key then they can probably decrypt the bluray drives firmware on the PS3 now and produce a hack similar to the 360 that would allow reading of copied disks.  This would more than likely be easily detectable though so I guess the pirates will struggle to play on PSN. 

The information above isn't backed up with links as it is literally my understanding of information I've read over the last few years.  In short the PS3 will within the next few months be in the same boat the Wii is in.  All in all this day was always going to happen, so full props to Sony on making the device so secure to withstand this length of time, it's still very impressive.  The lessons learned this generation by Sony and Microsoft is going to give hackers next gen a real headache as they both so very nearly got it right this time round!

I just hope they protect the network, and the trophies, oh and the information stored.

hope Sony can do something, all we can do is sit and wait

I still wonder if this will work (playing copies), third world countries are the majority who will use this but blurays are still expensive like 20$ for each blank blu ray plus the profit of the pirate selling it it may cost 25$-30$ for game and you still wouldn't be able to play online. I guess PS3 sales will take an increase.