A theft victim claims he tracked down the guy who made off with his PS3 and several video games by using his PSP to turn on his console from afar and use the camera to snap an image of the bad guy.

The story is a fascinating example of technology in action, but bear in mind it wouldn’t have worked unless the thief hooked up the camera and stared into it just as the victim turned it on remotely. The odds of that happening are slim, since there are almost no PS3 games that require the camera, so there’s very little reason to have it hooked up.

From the PlayStation.com message boards:

So this past Wednesday Dec 16th somebody broke into my apartment while I was at work and stole about 24 ps3 video games, 45 ps3 games, 52 snes games, all of my consoles including my PS3 and components including a PS3 camera. What the thieve didn’t know is that I had my PS3 connected to my PSP. As some of you know, once you hook up your PSP to your PS3 you can remotely control your PS3 through your PSP through a local or internet connection. I tried every day, every hour to see if by any chance the thieve connected the PS3 to the internet, surely on Friday Dec 18th at around 11:30pm I was able to turn on the PS3 from my home by using my PSP using my internet connection. I opened a chat room, turned on the camera and surely enough I got to see a close look at the thieves face! (probably looking at it wondering why the PS3 had turned on by itself!!!), with my digital camera readily available I took a picture of the PSP screen with the thieves face!! Called the police and they quickly recognized the person!!!! LONG STORY SHORT, I GOT MY PS3 WITH NO DAMAGE WHATSOEVER AND ALL OF MY GAMES WERE RECOVERED!.

Have you ever caught a thief thanks to his own stupidity?

MY PS3 REFUSED TO BE A VICTIM [PlayStation.com]
(Thanks, Ben!)

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