Hot Shots Tennis and MotorStorm: Arctic Edge 'Suspended' from PlayStation Network Because of Hacking Issues

It's probably not too shocking to learn that Sony is taking a decidedly proactive stance when it comes to ensuring that hackers do not find ways to exploit the company's various pieces of gaming hardware. After all, homebrew downloaders lent a good bit toward the eventual downfall of the PSP, and there was all that PlayStation Networkunpleasantness last year that one can imagine Sony still being a tad sensitive about.

Intriguingly, the company's first documented push against hacking and piracy on the Vita involves two seemingly benign PSP downloadable releases. As of today, Hot Shots Tennis (Everybody's Tennis, hilariously, in Europe) and MotorStorm: Arctic Edge have been "suspended" from the PlayStation Network store. Sony's official line to EuroGamer was that the titles were being pulled for "stability improvement," but it stands to reason that the more likely cause is that both games feature exploits that allow for homebrew programming to be run on the PlayStation Vita while in PSP mode.

No timetable has been given for these games' potential return to the store, which probably sucks for the surely thousands upon thousands of people who were moments away from buying Arctic Edge and Hot Shots Tennis, only to suddenly find themselves denied, and thus suddenly unsure what to do with themselves. Undoubtedly they will now wander the Earth, searching for some kind of meaning in life now that Arctic Edge and Hot Shots Tennis are no longer available for download. Without those games to entertain them, they'll undoubtedly take up with unruly, meth-dealing biker gangs, find work in seedy, Triad-owned strip clubs, and perhaps even dabble in cannibalism, as all wandering souls eventually do.

This blood is on your hands, Sony.

Those thieves!

Well that's great. It's not like Motorstorm Arctic Edge was one of the best racing games on the system or anything.

Weird

I was actually considering getting Hot Shots Tennis, but I kept putting it off. Guess it will have to wait even longer now... Time to turn to cannibalism to ease my "pain".

Why am I not surprised by this.

"It was as if, like, maybe a hundred or so Hot Shots Tennis fans cried out and were suddenly silenced."

Oh you.

So Vita's doomed to the same fate as PSP then, if they found an exploit this early on...

So what happens to those of us who bought these games on PSN? I have Motorstorm on my PSP so does this mean I can't delete it as there will be no way to download it again?

It also sucks for people that purchase these games before and now can't dl them again.

Reason #13 why I havent picked up a vita yet. Waiting for Sony to get a little less anal about everything first.

alex you so snarky <3

I actually was looking to purchase Motorstorm Arctic Edge...oh well.

@grbear

Yes, unfortunately one of the trade offs that digital downloads has is that once a company doesn't host the content, say good bye to it. It's a underlying realization that seems to be blurred by the Internets growing sense of entitlement.

Steam could go bankrupt tomorrow if they so chose and peoples $$$ worth of games are dust in the wind. I'm sure people have entire game collections of 100+ games that could be gone tomorrow if the company so chose.

Oh god that last bit about the Triad and meth heads was brilliant.

Have I mentioned how much I love you before Alex? Not even my deeply ingrained Sony fanboy-ness can stop me enjoying this read :)

@grbear

Yes, unfortunately one of the trade offs that digital downloads has is that once a company doesn't host the content, say good bye to it. It's a underlying realization that seems to be blurred by the Internets growing sense of entitlement.

Steam could go bankrupt tomorrow if they so chose and peoples $$$ worth of games are dust in the wind. I'm sure people have entire game collections of 100+ games that could be gone tomorrow if the company so chose.

Oh Mr. Navarro, you so crazy!

Cynicism so thick you could cut it with a knife. Nice job, Alex.

@buzz_killington said:

So Vita's doomed to the same fate as PSP then, if they found an exploit this early on...

They found exploits even before the Vita was released in the US. So, yes. I would have to agree with you.

What about when they find an exploit in a major release game?

@Phyrlord said:

@grbear

Steam could go bankrupt tomorrow if they so chose and peoples $$$ worth of games are dust in the wind. I'm sure people have entire game collections of 100+ games that could be gone tomorrow if the company so chose.

That's not entirely true about Steam. Yes, they could decide to close shop tomorrow. However, I'm sure they're a good enough company that they will allow people a timetable to download all of their games before they shut it down. I have a 1TB hard drive set aside for that just in case. Like hell I'm going to lose out on my almost 300 Steam games.

Damn it! hmm... i wonder if those cannibal, meth bikers i hung out with during the psn outage are still around.

I love you Alex.

The exploits found only affect the PSP Emulation and don't access the Vita Kernel at all. System itself still isn't hacked, all you can run are old PSP homebrew apps.

This is a good, sound take on this piece of news and is dressed up nicely with your usual flair, Alex. Thanks for posting, duder.

@pw2566ch said:

@buzz_killington said:

So Vita's doomed to the same fate as PSP then, if they found an exploit this early on...

They found exploits even before the Vita was released in the US. So, yes. I would have to agree with you.

There have been no Vita exploits found yet. Just PSP exploits that work on Vita. It's the same as 3DS, where DS hacks still work on the DS emulator.

"After all, homebrew downloaders lent a good bit toward the eventual downfall of the PSP"..... I have never really understood this general attitude towards the psp. Hasn't the psp sold more than 70 million units? Thats a good 15 or so million more than the 360 or ps3 has sold so far right? And last i heard, the psp was outselling most other platforms in japan, including the vita.

@hughesman said:

"After all, homebrew downloaders lent a good bit toward the eventual downfall of the PSP"..... I have never really understood this general attitude towards the psp. Hasn't the psp sold more than 70 million units? Thats a good 15 or so million more than the 360 or ps3 has sold so far right? And last i heard, the psp was outselling most other platforms in japan, including the vita.

PSP game sales dropped off a cliff outside of Japan a few years ago.

So sad... the Vita is doomed to the same pitiful state as the PSP... only selling millions upon millions of units and basically ruling an entire country's videogame market for years... sad...

@TruthTellah said:

So sad... the Vita is doomed to the same pitiful state as the PSP... only selling millions upon millions of units and basically ruling an entire country's videogame market for years... sad...

I don't know, the PSP's fate would suck for the Vita. Let's not forget that piracy killed that system dead outside Japan.

@Alex Actually, Everybody's Tennis is a translation of the Japanese name of the game, "Minna no Tennis."

@TruthTellah:

how about at least waiting a full year after its release before speculating like a bunch of clueless childs?

BTW, nothing bad has happened yet. Preventative measures = good thing.

the 3ds can play NDS .roms..... OMG ITS SOOOOO DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMD!!!! (....)

Why do people miss the fact that all those exploits work in PSP mode? Vita is still safe you guys.

@hughesman: Piracy has no impact on hardware sales, if anything it would encourage them. That's also not where the profit is made. Software sales is the actual issue.

Hope Artic Edge returns soon, I want to buy it on my Vita for no other reason than I love me some Motorstorm and never had a PSP. They need to patch that up and get it back on the store.

Silly hackers ruining things for everyone as usual.

lol, subtitle

@Phyrlord said:

"Steam could go bankrupt tomorrow if they so chose and peoples $$$ worth of games are dust in the wind. I'm sure people have entire game collections of 100+ games that could be gone tomorrow if the company so chose."

I uhm, I don't think that's quite how Bankruptcy works. You kinda have to be massively in-debt to declare it. And Valve is one of the most profitable and self-sufficent companies in history.

It's so good to have Alex and his 400% "sarcastic ass" style of writing here on Giantbomb! I will miss him on Screened, but the guy is always welcome here ;)

I find this article to be a paradigm of understated humour.

Not really sure why Alex is defending Sony's decision so staunchly. Like, the way the article's written, you can tell he thought, "Well, people might criticize Sony for removing these games, so I better nip that in the bud right there in the article so they can't complain about it."

Also I like how he makes a crack about how few Hot Shots Golf fans there are and then goes on to blame homebrew enthusiasts of leading to the downfall of the PSP, as if there are thousands and thousands of homebrew enthusiasts out there and not just twelve guys porting the same four emulators to everything. And if there were more homebrew enthusiasts than Hot Shot Golf fans, Sony would be making one of those cheap Korean emulation machines instead of pouring millions of dollars into a dead market. But they aren't.

Hey, fuck you too, Mr. Navarro.

@gladspooky said:

Not really sure why Alex is defending Sony's decision so staunchly. Like, the way the article's written, you can tell he thought, "Well, people might criticize Sony for removing these games, so I better nip that in the bud right there in the article so they can't complain about it."

How is he defending Sony's decision at all? I read it more as "Here's what Sony did, now allow me to mock the small fanbase of Hot Shots Tennis and MotorStorm."

@kerikxi You say piracy has no impact on hardware sales? Piracy = Less software development = Less hardware sales. I don't disagree that piracy has obstructed psp software sales in the west. i disagree with the summation that the psp has bombed and or is dead. I wouldn't call dominating a major world market a "fall".

@BisonHero said:

@gladspooky said:

Not really sure why Alex is defending Sony's decision so staunchly. Like, the way the article's written, you can tell he thought, "Well, people might criticize Sony for removing these games, so I better nip that in the bud right there in the article so they can't complain about it."

How is he defending Sony's decision at all? I read it more as "Here's what Sony did, now allow me to mock the small fanbase of Hot Shots Tennis and MotorStorm."

"Well, people might criticize Sony for removing these games, so I better nip that in the bud right there in the article so they can't complain about it."

@BisonHero said:

@gladspooky said:

Not really sure why Alex is defending Sony's decision so staunchly. Like, the way the article's written, you can tell he thought, "Well, people might criticize Sony for removing these games, so I better nip that in the bud right there in the article so they can't complain about it."

How is he defending Sony's decision at all? I read it more as "Here's what Sony did, now allow me to mock the small fanbase of Hot Shots Tennis and MotorStorm."

"Well, people might criticize Sony for removing these games, so I better nip that in the bud right there in the article so they can't complain about it."

@Brodehouse said:

@gladspooky

@BisonHero said:

@gladspooky said:

Not really sure why Alex is defending Sony's decision so staunchly. Like, the way the article's written, you can tell he thought, "Well, people might criticize Sony for removing these games, so I better nip that in the bud right there in the article so they can't complain about it."

How is he defending Sony's decision at all? I read it more as "Here's what Sony did, now allow me to mock the small fanbase of Hot Shots Tennis and MotorStorm."

"Well, people might criticize Sony for removing these games, so I better nip that in the bud right there in the article so they can't complain about it."

"I hope whatever I say in this stupid Hot Shots article about stupid Hot Shots makes some people on the internet mad. It's called Everybody's Golf in Europe. Is that like 'Everybody Is Golf'? I should post more articles with snarky headlines. My head is kind of shaped like a peanut, but that's okay. I should grow my hair long like Nic Cage in the 80s."

Or that. That's pretty good, too.

It may be a small fanbase for both games but this is a shocking precedent. And the height of anti-consumerism. Alex normally I like you but your attitude here is sad and unprofessional. Sony took games off the store without any warning and you have no option to re-download them and there is no ETA for when paying customers will be given the right to download content that they have already purchased again. One would wonder if they would have pulled a game like God of War: Chains of Olympus at the peak of its popularity if some exploit was found for it that enabled homebrew.

I think my point was taken too literally, I was using hypothetical situations, I know steam couldn't literally go bankrupt tomorrow, but thanks for spending the time clearing that up.

The point I was trying to make was that the problem with digital downloads are that they are controlled by the provider for all access not by the people who buy them.