It’s been a little while since a PSJailbreak story bubbled up from the underbelly of the Internet, but prepare yourself for more to come over the next few days. Today it’s being reported that the PSJailbreak USB dongle (and potentially its compatible rivals) now works with all PS3s, even those on the latest firmware. It appears to work by enabling the downgrade of the 3.50 or 3.42 firmware which up until now haven’t been exploited, to 3.41 which is fully open to such devices.
When PSJailbreak and its clones were first released it enabled the PS3 to run homebrew apps, one of these apps made it possible to backup (copy) games to a hardrive, Sony were quick to act, firing off lawsuits at all resellers and importers of such devices to reduce the impact of its release. They then updated the PS3 firmware to prevent the USB devices from even being recognised by the PS3. It is this update which has now been worked around, and the impression is given that future firmware updates are also likely to be unsuccessful in preventing such devices from working.
Whilst some readers may rally to the cause of the noble homebrew developer, it is an unfortunate fact of life that the chief use of homebrew is often to enable the piracy of games through creating backup managers, along with programs which enable the running of those backed-up and copied games. In the past Sony have let everyone know that they can tell when a console is running a pirated game and will take action against anyone found to be doing so by banning their asses.
We abhor piracy here at TheSixthAxis and highlight such potential bannings as a warning to those who may be contemplating using the device. Don’t. If not for your own enjoyment of games, then for the wider gaming industry which undoubtedly suffers from piracy.
Thanks eytimo
Grey_Ghost13
ahh crap GT5 will now be delayed again to put another firmware version on it!
red_H
I think they should start working on a patch for the release date …. if is ever gets out
cc_star
Nope, this exploit appears to only work by downgrading the PS3’s firmware. 3.50 remains uncracked as far as I can tell.
However in doing so the crackers, hackers, whizzkids & pirating types appear to have opened the door in such a way it will prevent Sony from shutting it again with future FW updates.
Stitch
Won’t games require the latest firmware to run?
cc_star
I wonder that when a game is copied to a HDD and its file system is open to be edited, whether it will be easy to ‘trick’ it into thinking its running on 3.50 or whatever.
Bilbo_bobbins
my mate has had his jailbroken for months. using an ipod he just downloads games from the web, and converts them using an App from the App Store. Simple and easy to do, he just can’t go online with them.
Flaming Turkeys
Your mate is a bad, bad man bilbo!
fps_d0minat0r
if 3.50 can be downgraded isnt that enough to call it “cracked”?
sony should just do what they did with PSP, block the console from psn. im sure no-one will pirate games if they cant even play online.
Uhyve
But if you need to downgrade from 3.50 to a hackable firmware, then they are essentially blocked from the PSN anyway.
Regarding forcing games to run on an older firmware. That’s what they were doing on the PSP for a while, but newer games are now needing some of the improvements from the newer firmwares. So the hackers are making custom firmwares using the old firmware while adding the capabilities of the newer firmwares. While that’s all well and good for the hugely compromised PSP, I’ve got the feeling it’ll be quite some time until we start seeing custom PS3 firmware…
Although, now I think about it. Imagine if someone made a custom PS3 firmware where they disable the security SPU and enable it’s use as a normal SPU. How annoying would it be if they’re consoles had higher framerates than the legit ones…
MrTwP
OK, lets just get this straight just because the Iphone/touch used the word jail broken doesn’t mean that everything that gets hacked is now ‘jail broken’. The name comes from breaking awesome features out of restrictions, in no way does ‘jail breaking’ your ps3 give you awesome features, it just takes them away…
cc_star
What are you talking about?
The product is actually called PSJailbreak, no one is inferring it means anything other than a product name
But with regards to your comment about nothing being added – Theres loads & loads of homebrew apps which enable a multitude of things ranging from customising your xmb, to enabling psp remote play on ALL titles (its just a simple checkbox present in ALL game’s code apparently) theres also several competing ‘app stores’ to push the variety of apps at you as well. sadly a few of the apps also assist piracy but thats the way the homebrew cookie crumbles
gybrocker
cant they just put some code on the game disk? like BFBC2 so if you use the code for that game you cant use it again unless you buy new code.???
warp10ck
This is not good Sony is gonna go nuts damn you hackers.
tonyyeb
So any new game will still not work online (or even offline?) due to the reliance on a later firmware than 3.41?
squashme
yep thats situation need the latest software to play online or face the consequences of not being able to play online
squashme
will these people ever learn there jus delaying GT5 for people which it proberly will be delayed now tossers
red_H
Mouse is out and playing again …now where is that big Cat!!!
Rabid-Coot
Looking for Froggy.
Erroneus
*sigh* This means Sony now have to spend more time on a new security update, rather then features.
But at least people running 3.41 is still not able to go online and games requiring firmware over 3.41, like GT5 can still not be used.
YOURMUMANDME
I now know somebody that has this, they took my dads ps3 and plan to keep it offline permanently. I’m a bit pissed off if there’s a chance my dad might not be able to use it anymore and all because they’ve borrowed it to experiment on.
Do we have a police force on TSA yet ? I’ll maybe send around Michael with his huskies to terrorise them a bit….
Erroneus
What are you talking about….
Who are they? What experiment? Crist your post doesn’t make any sense.
YOURMUMANDME
My dad lent out his ps3 to someone that plans to jailbreak it for a few months then give it back.
Erroneus
Okay…. then when it comes back, update it to latest version, problem solved.
Erroneus
Also this is worth noticing, that it’s actually a new USB device, people needs to buy, to perform the downgrade, so this is mostly for new PSJB customers.
cc_star
for now, until the downgrade s/w itself is cloned, which it probably will be by the end of the day
Erroneus
Indeed and they are properly also going to hack the limitation, that PS Downgrader can only be used once.
Darth Newdar
There are some positives. At least 3.42 and 3.5 haven’t been hacked, so people can’t play these games online, and games requiring 3.5 (GT5!) are safe.
3shirts
I don’t think is as bad as the original hack as it still means running an old firmware so no online gaming or PSN access. Personally, even if you ignore the morality of piracy, I think it loses it’s value when you can’t do those things.
cc_star
The underlying impression is that Sony can do nothing to prevent ANY PS3 either now or in the future from being downgraded and then have the ability run copied games if used offline only. This may not be true because the people making these claims have a vested interest in shifting units, quickly, but it is the impression I get.
I also wonder that when a game is copied to a HDD and its file system is open to be edited, whether it will be easy to ‘trick’ it into thinking its running on 3.50
3shirts
True enough I suppose but it would, at least, be easy to hash the game files so they can keep hacked versions offline.
At this point, I fear it’s all they can really do.
Dany2Step
or possibly run custom firmware after the downgrade, like the HEN ones from the psp days.
PriceKitty
Down with Jailbreak!