Sony is threatening the nuclear option to deal with Playstation 3 hacking.

In a statement on the Playstation Blog, Sony says consumers should immediately remove all unauthorized or pirated software from their consoles. Otherwise, they’ll be permanently banned from the Playstation Network and from Qriocity services.

Sony hadn’t previously wielded the banhammer against jailbroken PS3s, but now the gloves have come off. I’m already seeing some reports of bans on PS3 hacker blogs.

This wouldn’t be unprecedented. A couple of years ago, Microsoft purged a large number of modified Xbox 360s from its Xbox Live service. (One report pegged the number of bans at up to 1 million users, but Microsoft denied that report.) Today, the understanding for Xbox 360 owners is this: Modify your console if you wish — Microsoft probably can’t stop you — but don’t expect access to Xbox Live.

Sony is essentially saying the same thing to Playstation 3 hackers. The company’s lawsuit against George Hotz and other hackers won’t be resolved overnight, and probably won’t deter people from finding and running the PS3 jailbreak anyway.

But now Sony has figured out how to tell if a user is running unauthorized software — for some methods, at least. Pirate or not, if you get caught, you’re off the Playstation Network for good. Seems like a fair trade-off to me.

 
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Read more: Hackers, PlayStation 3, Playstation Network, Sony