AlexY: Oh wow, this is going to be good. Can't wait for the lawsuits and refunds.
I'm not sure I'd be convinced that they'd win. Consider there's no Playstation hardware, the PS1 isn't even supported anymore (
except in the PSN as emulated titles using unrelated software), and the
BIOS can be downloaded separately and not part of the main software package.
If you consider the
BIOS as only a set of functions, mostly for saving loading and other features that are required to make a game run. Unless Sony has rights to the game as an exclusive bought through the dev/publisher to stay only on sony systems, there might be counter suing if the publisher is legally allowed to put the game on other systems and Sony is being a dick about it.
When I'm thinking all this I can't help but think of the C++
STL (
Standard Template Library) and licenses applied to them. Although Microsoft might own the
STL for their visual studio version, and likewise for other well known compilers (
can't think of any), quite often the license on the programs written with them don't belong to the authors and companies that made them (
STL and libraries), otherwise people couldn't sell their own software because they made it using those libraries and having a standard library would be meaningless (
unless you didn't mind paying royalties or being forced to have licenses that were somehow compatible with the overlords decisions).
What I'm saying is the
BIOS doesn't make the game, it's just required to be there as part of the framework. Worse comes to worse a homebrew version of the
BIOS could be made that's totally compatible (
although not written identically), just to get around stupid legal issues. Who knows, maybe they already did that...
I wonder if my argument makes sense... (
or when I re-read it tomorrow if it will make sense still compared to my currently dead brain tired state at this second)