Sony disables PlayStation 4 back door that allowed Chinese users to download overseas games
- A back door in the Chinese PlayStation 4 allowed gamers to log onto foreign servers and download games from overseas versions of the PlayStation Store
- This secret feature appears to have been disabled in the latest system update, although some users say those who had activated it previously are not affected
In the latest system update this week, the back door – which could be exploited by holding down specific buttons while resetting the machine – appears to have been disabled, although some social media users noted that players that had already activated the back door were able to continue accessing foreign servers after the update.
Chinese gamers had been using the system back door due to the limited games available for the console in China, where all games have to be approved by authorities before becoming available to the market.
More than 4,000 PlayStation 4 games have been published worldwide, according to a post on the PlayStation blog in March, but there are significantly fewer games available in the China market. Sony said in a news release in April 2018 that more than 150 games were available for its Chinese console, and data from the State Administration of Press and Publications in China shows that the government agency has only approved eight PlayStation games since then.
As a result, the system back door was “a critical secret feature for anyone who has bought the Mainland China version of the PlayStation 4”, Charlie Moseley, founder of the Chengdu Gaming Federation, said.
Earlier this month, Reuters reported that a social media user on China’s Twitter-like microblogging site Weibo attracted heavy criticism from thousands of Chinese game enthusiasts by posting that he had reported the PlayStation 4 back door to authorities.
