The PS3 Has Finally Been Hacked
The PS3 has long stood as the last bastion against piracy. The console, which has a LOT of cool functions such as universal USB support for mics, controllers and other devices, the PS3 media server, and of course free online play via the Playstation Network, has lagged behind in sales in the past. This is partially because the console has been ludicrously expensive, partially because it had gotten no support from the homebrewing crowd. There is a substantial population of gamers out there that buy systems just to screw around with their insides, and the PS3 hasn’t been fruitful for these hackers … until now that is.
OzModChips.com, a mod chip retailer in Australia (where copyright laws are more lenient than our own) has started advertising the PS Jailbreak, a USB stick that supposedly acts as a holy grail for homebrewing hackers. The chip plugs into your Playstation and, supposedly, fools your console into thinking it is a developer console. From there you can install new operating systems, homebrew programs, and even play backup games. Yes, you can now rip the entirety of a PS3 game to your consoles internal hard drive, or even an external harddrive, and play it without the original disk. However, perhaps the best thing of all about the PS Jailbreak is that it doesn’t alter any of your system’s internal files. Instead, it runs the hack totally through the Jailbreak Stick, leaving no evidence of its use behind. No voiding warranties. No getting banned from online play. Nothing except pure home brewing goodness.
Now, there are a couple of problems with this miracle stick. First of all, PS3 games are large. If you plan on ripping games to your hard drive you will find yourself filling it up before you know it. Second of all, it is expensive. Like the PS3 itself, this homebrew stick costs much more cash than it is worth. You can get one for a cool $150, and that’s not even factoring in the obscene Australian shipping costs. Third of all, Sony will probably not take this whole thing lying down. Most likely they will start coming up with ways to block this homebrew hack in the near future, which means it’s possible your $150 purchase will all be for nothing. Finally, there is the elephant in the room, piracy. This new mod chip stands to make pirating PS3 games extremely easy, and we are sure Sony does not want that.
That being said, the little Jailbreak stick is one of the most elegant homebrewing designs we have seen in a while. It’s low impact, it can update its firmware through your PC, and it makes no modifications to your game console. It works on older phat and newer slim PS3 models. Now if only it didn’t cost so damn much.
The shittiest thing about the PS Jailbreak is that it might be a gigantic hoax. There was a similar USB device that supposedly unlocked your PS3 that was all the rage a while back, but it turned out to be nothing but a scam to make tons of money off of unwitting hackers and homebrewers. OzModChips.com has confirmed that this new product is legit, and they are a very trusted site, but there are still many more people who are calling bullshit on this new device. We will just have to wait till it is publicly available to see.
One thing is for sure, Sony is going to see one hell of a sales spike for PS3s.
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