First post, by Kerr Avon
Owing to the (to me inexplicable) behaviour of virus/malware writers* we have to waste PC (and our own) time and resources on running anti-virus/malware killers. Fortunately there are some great free ones (I use Avast!, and recommend it to anyone), but I have wondered in the past if there were ever any viruses released for consoles. As far as I can see, up until the sixth generation (N64, Playstation, Saturn, etc) this would have been impossible, as the games were on un-writable (or rather, un-corruptable by malicious code) media such as cartridge or CD-ROM.
But when the original XBox came out, it had a hard-drive that contained the operating system, plus the XBox was (as far as I know) the first console to really have a large home-brew scene. So as far as I could see, there was a danger that some ****er could code a virus that would attach itself to an XBox homebrew program (be it an emulator, XBMC, or whatever) and wipe the hard drive when the program is run. Thankfully that never happened (I've been an XBox owner for about ten years now (the shop I bought my XBox from modded it whilst I waited, as I partly wanted it for MAME) and a regular at xbox-scene.com, and if such a virus/trojan did exist then I'm sure I would have read about it) and I've run dozens of XBox homebrew programs (my XBox is still my main emulation machine) with no problem.
But now, especially, with both the XBox 360 and PS3 having hard-drives and downloadable games, it does make me wonder if (or when) a console will be attacked by a virus. Modern consoles are picking up the bad side of PCs (games released untested and with bugs since the companies can release a patch later, no split-screen multiplayer, etc) and the threat of malware might one day be of concern to console only gamers too.
* I can understand people who write malware that steals your credit card information. I certainly don't support it, I hasten to add, but at least I can understand what they get out of it. But what does someone who writes a virus that just corrupts your games and data, or wipes the hard drive, get out of it? Just the knowledge that later on, some (innocent) users are going to lose their data and be put to the time and effort of trying to rebuild what they've lost? It baffles me.