Perhaps so, but they were clueless: The PSP was so easy to mod and run pirated games and emulators with that I'm not sure if I've ever tried to run a UMD in the one I have.
I was in the scene when the pandora's battery was discovered and to say it was huge was a understatement. After years of playing cat and mouse with Sony over exploits, not only was every PSP to date now forever hackable, but it also allowed previously bricked consoles to be brought back to life.