PS3 cracked... and what pain can it cause?

Image via Wikipedia

I feel this is a big enough issue to get inspired to write a little something again.

Recently, the PS3 has been hijacked by said digital tinkerer GeoHot and he decided to post the PS3 master root key on the interwebs...

GamesRadar.com
Hacker Claims To Have The PS3's Front Door Keys [Hacking] (kotaku.com)

Enter hacker-heaven!

Sure, most every single console has been cracked before but it's not about the downfall of the industry or sales that I'm worried about, those never have a problem, it's where developers and publishers time is being spent making people like me happy.
You can read my rant on GamesRadar under the above-linked article if you'd like, because I'm essentially going to say the same thing here.

More time is now being spent on how to cut off the hacker siphon draining their funds  instead of making a kick-ass game for me to play.  I can foresee my hard drive being inundated with security enhancements and firmware updates that I don't need and will only waste my time.  Granted, its been purported that no amount of firmware updates can stop this piracy onslaught that is about to occur, which scares me a little bit.

Now with the hypotheticals (just add "What if" before each statement):
-Developers move away from certain consoles because they're compromised?
-DLC becomes the only medium in which to own games?
-The Playstation Security Server Farm becomes operable and eats up my bandwidth just to check and see if   my game is a legitimate copy?
- Indie developers get scared away from the market resulting in the potential loss of revolutionary content (anyone hear of Portal, Minecraft, or Counter-Strike?)

The short-term gains of a few knuckle-draggers that are so frugal that they squeak when they walk stunt the growth of the industry in the long run.  Pirates, hackers, exploiters (read: assholes) draw the attention away from what's important... entertainment.  Instead, quality control and security measures are getting a bigger cut of the budget while creativity and originality suffer.

Image via Wikipedia

I guess I should make an anti-pirate petition or something... but let's be honest, the only petition to ever work in human history was in the movie Erin Brockovich and that was just a movie.  Ok, so that's a bold faced lie but you can still leave a comment and chime in on the issue!