Extra Copy Protection Added by Developers?

A thought crossed my mind when using the 3k3y/test_patcher programs. What if certain developers rig their games to break if they aren't played on an actual console?

For example, DICE attempted to deal with piracy by making Mirror's Edge impossible if it detected that it was pirated. Is it possible that certain developers have done this for PS3 games?

If you look at The Sly Collection, specifically Sly 2 and Sly 3, the crazy graphical glitches don't look like normal texture corruption as those textures don't resemble anything related to the game. Sony was aware of the success of PS2 emulation, so maybe this is them low-key trying to prevent emulating their games.

I have no proof of this, but I thought it was worth bringing up.

Yes, this is possible. But you can have two different types of protections:
- Games can have piracy protections that show up on the actual console when the game detects its being pirated;
- Games that use PS3 quirks that are difficult to emulate as an attempt to prevent the game from being emulated (Dolphin found this on three Wii titles);