D421 - The software version is a profile field, not a kernel constant

Status: assumed Date: 2026-08-31

sceKernelGetSystemSwVersion presents Machine::software_version, read from the active profile like the firmware version, instead of a value compiled into the kernel.

Why: A profile already supplies the machine's firmware and kernel-release strings; the software version is the same kind of fact and must vary the same way. Storing both the display string and the packed integer, rather than deriving one from the other, avoids inventing an encoding no lawful source documents. A machine with no software version set refuses the call rather than answering a made-up value.

Rejected: deriving the packed integer from the display string by stripping dots and reading hex - happens to work for one sample and is not a documented rule.