There's been so much written about the PlayStation 3 jailbreak in recent weeks that it's all too easy to glaze over the facts and put it down as another victory for piracy. But after numerous commentators speculated that this is one exploit Sony can't fight back against and that the PS3 is actually 'cracked for good' what does this mean for the future of the console? And does it mean we're likely to see the PlayStation 4 a whole lot sooner than we were meant to be?

With the release of Sony's Move controller and Microsoft's Kinect camera, the two big console developers were clearly hoping to extend this generation's life-span above and beyond the traditional 5 year cycle. Phenomenal sales of the Nintendo's Wii have proved that consumers are extremely receptive to innovation and forward thinking, regardless of whether it comes at the expense of driving technlogy forward. And in a Western world where HDTV and broadband penetration is still surprisingly low overall, Sony and Microsoft were no doubt quite pleased with the extra time afforded to them to develop their next generation of consoles and controllers.

However, with the PlayStation 3 being blown open in such a way and with the inevitable rampant piracy that's inevitably going to follow, for how long will support for PlayStation 3 remain profitable and sustainable? And in an ironic but ultimately cruel twist of fate, will this jailbreak actually lead to a massive increase in sales of the console?

On a day when Activision publicly stated that there's little, if not nothing, it can do to combat the hacking of its Call of Duty servers, public confidence in the console is surely at an all-time low.

Robert Bowling of Infinity Ward told Eurogamer that: "Games rely on the security of the encryption on the platforms they're played on, therefore; updates to the game through patches will not resolve this problem, unless the security exploit itself is resolved on the platform.

"Regretfully, Call of Duty games are receiving the bulk of the hacker's attention, due to its high player counts and popularity. However, the number of legitimate players severely outweighs the bad apples."

Of course the biggest concern should be that if Sony does set the wheels in motion and hurries the PlayStation 4 out of the door before it's good and ready, will the quality of its hardware suffer a similar fate to that of the first 360 consoles which were terribly prone to red-ring failures. Or, will a reduced development period lead to another slap-dash attempt at securing what could be a make or break console release for Sony? Only time will tell.

No one wont get banned anyway If they ban everyone who has JB there PS3 they will be losing out in sales

In what ways would they lose money if they ban Jailbreaked PS3s from PSN? That would force people to buy new ps3s to play online, therefore making them get more money. They know people with Jailbreaked PS3s wouldn't buy new games anyways since they can be pirated, what do they got to lose for banning jailbreakers?