Gaming I Just Bought A Used PS3 Phat For $80 (As Is)

[mechadylan]

A bit of a moral question here, Tempers (hoping for sincere answers and not just a flame war.) I just bought this at a swap meet with no testing and no guarantee that it worked (as is.) Took it home and it fired right up. Checked the FW in hopes that it was <3.55 but it wasn't. Lastly, it has a lot of PSN titles in the Games section of the XMB as the user accounts were never deleted. I'd like to take the titles and move them to my other PS3, but I'm pretty sure that's an absolute no-no. I don't plan on putting this PS3 online, so I don't really intend to delete the accounts.

I tried playing some of the titles (Mortal Kombat II) and felt no guilt. I'd like to leave it as is, but I might throw in an old 160GB HDD just for fun. But if I do that, can I back up the current accounts so as to keep the games? I already have 2 other PS3s and bought this one on a whim just to tinker with. Thoughts?

 

[chyyran]

>GBAtemp
>Moral Question

You're fucked. I predict this thread will be EOF'd or locked in the end.

Anyways, I'd do it, but I'm am immoral little pirate bastard

 

[Devin]

Bit late to the party but the PS3 does have a backup setting in the settings.

USB HDD->Backup to USB HDD-> Throw in new HDD->Restore.

Dunno about restoring the backup to another PS3, so yeah.

 

[FireEmblemGuy]

I believe backups transfer everything but copy-protected saves, or at least that's what my system told me last week when I backed it up (more or less traded it for a superslim arriving Wednesday). However, I don't really know if the PSN accounts and licenses stay even when the HDD is switched.

 

[Arras]

I don't think you can transfer the logged in accounts without either knowing the password or changing it (and that would really be immoral, and I'm not even sure if it can be done without knowing the entered birth date and/or having access to the email adress). The only thing I can think of the might work is the function where you transfer everything from one PS3 to another using USB cables. That probably overwrites everything on both PS3s though, so you might lose everything that was on the PS3 you are transferring to.

 

[mechadylan]

Yeah, pretty sure that swapping the hdd requires rekeying your login/password and redownloading purchased content. I guess I'll just leave it as is for now.

 

[Maikel Steneker]

If we're talking law, I don't think you're supposed to use these games. But I guess we aren't. I'd say there's not much against using games that someone paid for and have been legally installed on the system. Sure, theoretically the previous owner could still play the games, but he probably won't; you might as well consider them yours. Of course, taking control of the account is very immoral, but just using the games (including backing them up and trying to move them to another system) should be fine in my opinion. I don't think you'll succeed though, the PS3's DRM system is supposed to allow you to move games from one device to another without reactivating via the internet.

 

[tbgtbg]

It's not illegal unless the person who previously owned the PS3 still has a copy of those games on another system, at worst it would be against Sony's TOS. But you probably don't know if the previous owner still has them or not.

 

[mechadylan]

Yeah, I don't intend on putting it online anytime soon so I don't need to worry about updating it. If there was a game in the drive, I probably would've kept that too.

 

[RedCoreZero]

80$?That's less than a Wii!

 

[mechadylan]

80$?That's less than a Wii!

Yup. Swap meets are fun. I talked her down from $150 bundled with games I had no interest in to $80 console ac plug only.

 

[nukeboy95]

Yup. Swap meets are fun. I talked her down from $150 bundled with games I had no interest in to $80 console ac plug only.

i really need to go to more swapmeets

 

[clonesniper666]

This is taken from Derfel over at CAG:

Chart:

FAT NAND SIZE

CECHA = 256MB
CECHB = 256MB
CECHC = 256MB
CECHE = 256MB
CECHG = 256MB
CECHH = 16MB
CECHJ = 16MB
CECHK = 16MB
CECHL = 16MB
CECHM = 16MB
CECHP = 16MB
CECHQ = 16MB

SLIM NAND SIZE

CECH-20..A = 16MB
CECH-20..B = 16MB
CECH-21..A = 16MB
CECH-21..B = 16MB
CECH-250.A = 16MB
CECH-250.B = 16MB
CECH-250.A = 16MB
CECH-250.B = 16MB
CECH-251.A = 16MB
CECH-251.B = 16MB

If you have one of the 256 MB models then you should be able to keep the activations after switching hdds but if it is a 16 MB model then you would need to go into the accounts and manually reactivate them.

 

[mechadylan]

Thank you, sir. Turns out it's a 16MB CECHL.

 

[Toasty]

So how does it feel to have a stolen PS3? =P

 

[Thomas83Lin]

So how does it feel to have a stolen PS3? =P

What makes you say it's stolen.? Swap-meet does not equal stolen.lol

 

[Toasty]

An extremely good price for an untested PS3 with the accounts still on it, I'd say it's most likely stolen. The thieves probably didn't even steal the cords that came with it.

Good find OP.

 

[irondoom]

Just curious what is a swap meet? Is it different from a flea market?

 

[Thanatos Telos]

Just curious what is a swap meet? Is it different from a flea market?

http://bit.ly/YPN4J5

 

[irondoom]

I tried Google, it takes me to flea market pages, but if its just a flea market why don't people just call it flea markets? makes me think there must be some difference? I been to flea markets but never to something called swap meet.