Dark Alex and ps3 debug firmwares

Dark Alex's blog has been updated with an interesting home page concerning debug firmwares.
In fact, Alek, the blog's webmaster is answering some questions about the installation of ps3 debug firmwares on retail systems. There are some very interesting answers, and one of these refers to the possibility of a future M33 Custom Firmware for Ps3.

Check Dark Alex's blog for more informations.

[conjurdevil]

could be the start of something because this guy has a lot of experience with psp and ps3 uses xmb too so he must have got a basic idea of what to do but with psp you need to download images of the games but how in the world would everyone download 20-50 GB games?!
lets see what happens with this!

[Jamie Foxx]

im too scared to mess about with my ps3,electronic devices are tempremental

[Fishy Fingers]

Dark_aleX custom firmwares offers much more than just being able to play pirate games.

[conjurdevil]

@1.1 I know I mean consoles have become too expensive to tamper with
@1.2 Yeah but main reason is to run pirated games and believe me globally people are going crazy to run pirated games on ps3

[ice_prophecy]

Even so, 30-50gb is a lot to downlaod for a game. Thats my monthly download limit hahaha (well 5gb more than my limit).

I for sure would Like to be able to see N64 and MAME. they are my all time favorite features of the Xbox mods.

[solidt12]

You could download 20-50 gigs from the browser. I have a 250 gig drive so I could get a few games on that but, but I wouldn't mess with my firmware at all. I believe in paying for games. I support the developers as long as they continue to make great games.

[FreeMonk]

The only way to run a 20-50gb game who be to either buy a Blu-Ray recorder and black media which are still very expensive or run them from a seperate Hard Drive, maybe which can be ran from a USB port??

The Blu-Ray player is not a very fast reader, so I'm not sure if a USB HD would be as faster or faster than a Blu-Ray player, but it's a possibility.

If not, it would have to be some sort of hack to the PS3 to run it. It won't be as simple as pirating games for the PSP which can fit games onto a cheap Sony Memory Stick.

[season007]

but heck, who can deny that more people want pirated games than ones who want the extra features?

back to the topic, if indeed a custom firmware is out, the first thing to encounter would be reversibility....if it can't be reversed to official firmware, no one would try it

[shazam]

your hopes and dreams of being able to pirate most ps3 games are shattered.

the ps3 formats the hdd with the fat32 file system. in the fat32 filesystem, no 1 file can be more than 4GB minus 1 byte. an image file is a single file. so any image larger than 4 gb will not be able to be dumped to the ps3 hdd. it would need to be dumped to an external one.

[Mc Fadge]

Can somebody tell me what M33 Custom Firmware is?

Also, I never got a PSP, let alone saw the possibilities of hacking it. can anybody tell me what advantages hacking the PS3 will bring? And free games is not included here. People tout Homebrew quite often. Definition?

[ice_prophecy]

Homebrew : basically programs/software written by home users (non Commercial etc)

generally they bring extra features to console eg: my psp can watch all formats of video files instead of the limited ones.

One of the most popular homebrew group is the emulators. So being able to play SNES N64 GAMEBOY MAME games on your console. this feature interests me the most. I have mame running on my psp.

Of course, When hackers are able to break the protection code to write homebrew software, it creates a byproduct of allowing people to pirate games (generally). So although I see the benefits, I also see the problems.

[hades07]

Should do what the did first when you could run homebrew on a 2.71 psp. I remember being able to run certain emulators like the gba and snes one but I couldnt run pirated games because the firmware wasnt cracked enough. If they allowed homebrew but no pirating it would be a great idea.

[djt23]

when they fin hack ps3 like they did for psp i am going to buy one on the spot

[Vojkan]

Put him in jail and execute him. Damn parasite.

[ice_prophecy]

Although, I understand your frustration.

But I hope, with good faith of course, that DAX created these with intention of enriching the PSP experience by bringing forth new features and functions and not for the purpose of pirating.

Ignorance is Bliss. No?

[season007]

with the talent of dark alex, i believe he CAN do a custom firmware just with more features and WITHOUT pirating games at all

face the reality and stop making excuses, stop lying to yourself that pirating games isn't one of his objective..

[ice_prophecy]

you are probably right.

[SIX]

just put this guy on your pay role already.

[tweaker]

If that happens, it will be the end of M33 firmwares.

[name]

I need emus for PS3. I wanna play some snes games. And since sony refuses to put ps1 games people actually like on psn I'll have to emulate games like silent hill 1 and resident evil.

[Lumbo]

Install linux and use one of the HUGE library of freeware emulators for linux ..

there, one popular excuse less

[Mu5afir]

To run any application you want.. so why do you have to hack the XMB other then to pirate games? You can rent games on the cheap now, so pirating games is kind of lame at this point.

[ice_prophecy]

Well all I want them to do is To Hack the RSX from the Linux side, so I can play N64 games. Else its pretty much a complete system ^^.

Even better, If they integrate them hahaha. Im asking for too much i know.

[tweaker]

This will only open up cheating and hacks for online games. It will ruin the PSN for everyone. Homebrew apps like Code 9 killed the PS2's online DNAS system.

Stick to the PS3's built in option for linux to run homebrew applications and emulators.

[Tony240ZT]

Agreed, this is one of the big reasons why I don't like playing PC games online anymore.

[PirateThom]

PS3 still needs to connect to the internet for playing online, that's a bit of a monkey in the wrench. You basically can't play online ever again.

[SickNick85]

50 GB of download is difficult...i hope CF arrive only for supplementary feature...

[TheMART]

First off:

not every game on the PS3 is or will be 50GB's of data...
second, don't know about your country, but overhere 20Mbps without datalimit one can get for 20 Euro's a month..

[titntin]

Its not going to happen. The answer 'probably' in regards to 'will we ever see a CFW like M33 on the PS3?' tells you all you need to know. All the big teams and hackers have been trying and saying 'soon' for nearly 2 years and have failed.
If there were any sign of a breakthrough, the answer would have been 'definately - its just a matter of when'.

So theres absolutely no merit in saying 'a custom firmware is coming'. Theres no way could infer that from the one word answer that was posted.

[Fishy Fingers]

Your right, as usually.

[Marceles]

It makes the PSP the best handheld system of all time.

I doubt M33 will come out on the PS3, but if it does I'm sure that would be the last straw for Sony

[kspraydad]

it makes the PSP a system that will never reach it's full potential as a gaming machine as developers flee from not being able to sell a decent number of games into a 30million inistalled base.

[Alexander Roy]

All I really want from Sony is to erase that retarded region lock for PSX and PS2 games. Just because I am European I am forced to miss out games like Grandia 3 or both the MegaMan compilations. That's bull**** and you know it Sony. That's why I personally root for DAX to release a CFW just to show Sony how it can be done.

[tweaker]

From what I recall, removing region lock isn't as simple as disabling. It conflicts with licensing and agreements for PS1/PS2 titles between the devs and Sony.

But hey, at least this time around we have all PS3 games that are region free. It's the best thing to happen to the Playstation because in my case, I travel a lot and I bring one of my NTSC PS3's with me all the time.

[spandexxking]

i know what you mean. i live in the uk and i wanted a ps3 so bad i bought a japanese ps3. i cant play any ps1/2 or dvds plus it also dosent like certain blu-rays. would/could custom firmwares solve this? oh and it dosent play certain games like oblivion/GT/GTA unless i have a HDTV but i guess thats something to do with its native resolution output(480 instead of 576).

[Alexander Roy]

CFW would most likely solve this, seeing that CFW removed the region lock for the movie UMDs on the PSP.

[chasuk08]

It will never happen, sony have been very smart with the ps3 and there will never be a custom firmware that allows access to the playstation network. Also all is Sony needs to do is send a cease or decease letter to Dark alex and it will be all over.

[Lumbo]

sending letters require you to have a physical address to send them .. first *rolleyes*

[chasuk08]

Also this DA is an asshole for causing piracy, look at the replys he got on his blog

"hi alex i hope u can hack Ps3 asap coz the game price is way too expansive in malaysia and not many people can afford to buying the games for long term"

"Again, please hack it. :( And please make it possible to run ISO backups on it, and if possible, straight from the HDD because bluray blanks are F*CKING expensive. :( Not to meantion the cost of a single bluray writer... "

Its obvious people are gunna pirate games and it makes me sick

[zslash]

Don't get your panties in a bunch. He isn't even hacking the PS3.

And this isn't D_A's blog (he doesn't have one), it's written by Alek, a friend of his.

[Fishy Fingers]

Like I said above, CFW's do a lot more than allow pirate games, YOU choose to download the CFW, YOU choose to download the games, YOU choose to install and play them.

YOU, YOU, YOU, not Dark_aleX, should you blame Henry Ford for your speeding ticket because he gave you the opportunity to break that limit? No.

[spandexxking]

i will always buy my games but i would really like cfw. need because ive got a japanese ps3 and i cant play ps1/2/dvds!

[Qdog]

That said, while the general consensus dictates, that homebrew and custom firmwares allow for far more expanded support, for Indy developers with a dream and not alot of cash, the majority of those that use custom firmwares, are looking for a cheap way to play games, instead of supporting the developers, hard earned efforts(i.e. piracy). Even out of that said majority, some are starting to feel the effects of piracy, as the gaming lineups are growing slim on the psp, and countermeasures, that dumb the system down, and potentially rob it of certain features get implemented. So I stand completely against custom firmwares, because people as a whole, tend not to be responsible enough to purchase titles, when the option to get them for free exists. Personally I want the gaming side of my PS3 to flourish, and not be blemished, or held back, by back-door or shade tree programmers. I feel that everyone that has INTEGRITY and enjoys the games that developers work hard for probably feels the same...

[Lumbo]

the CAUSE for piracy is "selling stuff for money that some cheapos want for free"

Therefore the CAUSE for piracy is the companies SELLING games instead of giving them away for free. If games where free piracy would not exist. Though at the same time this would prevent high profile games from being created in the first place....

Or are you actually telling us that the CAUSE of theft is thieves? The hen or the Egg, what is it now? Theft is a result of poverty or unwillingness to pay a certain amount of money for special amount of goods. Like theft, hacking and piracy is a RESULT of the market. Whenever something is only be had for money you will find those that want to have the goods without paying.

Piracy is the CAUSE of useless copy-protection software though. Without piracy the games would not get these pointless and non-working copy protection garbage on the PC scene they have today ... With online activation and a sh#tload of BS a honest customer has to accept whereas the thief gets the full version without the system breaking garbage.

[RAM MAGNUMS]

Everyday the xbox 360 is looking more & more Generic.
Till this day all Xbutts talk about is gears.
Please...

Maybe since Microsoft is just giving money away to people to use their search engine they should just have rrod repairs send people back a PS3 with a apology letter saying; Sorry, we tried.

[Expy]

Yea, can't wait for 20GB+ iso's.... (not)

[Qdog]

Thank you for providing some feedback, and wonderfully complementing my post. Now allow me to elaborate on what I said. I do NOt beleive that the cause of theft is theives, however theives are undeniably a contributing factor, as I beleive piracy and custom firmwares ability to play pirated software is. I am not a rich man by any means, I am an army veteran awaiting a medical discharge because I was wounded in Afghanistan, but I am by no means hurting for gaming. I have expensive electronics because I saw their value, budgeted and saved to get them individually. The same applies to each game in my collection. Therefore I see no value in pirating a game, or maybe by extension those who pirate games, so that legitimate hard working guys like me have to pay a little extra to make up for a percentage of expected yearly loss, due to piracy. So no I dont believe that piracy is only the fault of the pirates, but poverty, which is basically the braket I am in now, is only an excuse (not a valid reason) for a lack of maturity and integrity(piracy).

[LightofDarkness]

First of all, I don't care about pirating PS3 games because to secure the bandwidth necessary to download a 20GB PS3 game in any reasonable time period would require me to hi-jack the entire internet bandwidth of a small island nation, like say, Ireland (where I live). But I digress.

People here seem to, once again, be jumping to the defense of billionaires and publishing companies with wanton disregard for the fact that they basically hold you by the ankles and shake until they can squeeze every ounce of coinage from your pocket that they've convinced you, the customer, is a perfectly reasonable price to pay for their software/music/movie. The system of publishing companies is absolutely absurd and is also completely redundant in this day and age. These companies make their money from the blood sweat and tears of actually talented and capable individuals such as artists and game developers by doing, well, nothing.

Software programmers, like musicians, see about 2% of overall sales of their product. Something THEY created is being sold by someone else and that someone else gets to keep the money. Software developers get paid for the amount of work they put into the project calculated their salary/wage. Musicians, also, make their money by actually performing, not by selling CDs, and possibly merchandise if they had the foresight to secure lucrative merchandising rights.

Production/distribution companies were necessary before the internet, because the artist had no means by which to distribute their music or film, they didn't have a record "burner" or anything of that sort. Such machines were huge and expensive at the time, well out of the price range of the many musicians on a pauper's salary. This is where greedy and scheming little buggers came in and convinced the artist they could sell them to world for only 90% of the profits. Hurray for production companies.

Thus we have the problem of licensing and DRM and exorbitant prices for discs made of plastic that may or may not contain something of value. To demonstrate the preposterous nature of this business, consider this analogy. It's like having a plumber come over to your house and install a toilet. Once the work is done, the plumber then demands that you pay a license fee for every person who intends to use that toilet. Now if this ever happened in real-life you'd have hit that plumber so hard that his jaw would be swinging past his feet but yet for some reason people continue to jump to the defense of their real-life intellectual property counterparts for reasons unknown. It's a crazy world eh?

[TheMART]

Are broadband connections that slow in Ireland?
Overhere 20Mbps without datalimit one can get for 20 Euro's a month, a average PS3 game (from 20 to 50 GB) could be downloaded in what, 5 to 10 hours or so.

But hey, I like Dark Alex especially for his work on the PSP, enabeling homebrew which is more important to me.

[Qdog]

Hmm. Maybe I misread your post, but for the record, please indulge me. Are you by chance trying to justify or minimize the act of piracy, in saying that publishers charge an exorbitant amount of money for the intellectual property of the developer, and then give the developer close to nill for said IP? If so that would be ludacris, because instead of recieving commission or royalties for sold software, they would truly recieve nothing for pirated software, so surely that's not what you meant. Please my friend, elaborate what your point was.

[Lumbo]

IT is actually sad how you completely miss the point why DEVELOPERS choose to use DISTRIBUTORS to sell their games.

1.) Who is paying the developer in the 3 years he needs to build his game? you? not very likely.
2.) who bears the risk of FAILURE (look at wikipedia near 'Lair')? The dev? not very likely.
3.) who pays for marketing and production of the media? Some nice fellow who just wanted to do so? ... don't make me laugh.

As it seems popular you blame the distributors of being evil and robbing developers of their deserved money. But at the same time you conveniently black out all the FAILURES that have been released to the market. Look at Haze, it swallowed millions of $ of said evil distributors CASH and the devs handed them something mediocre at best that will most likely NEVER earn a single dime back. Where are you now, shouldn't you cry for justice for the poor robbed distributor who gave the devs so much money only to se them flush it down the drain? But NONONO they only got what they deserve, right? The evil distributors deserve to bleed for robbing the creative .. wait a second, the devs dropped the ball, and the distributor is at fault?

Are you REALY cursing your grocery shop around the corner for robbing the poor poor farmer of his money? That seems highly unlikely.

Distributors shoulder the RISK in the modern game development. They provide the resources for the devs to be DEVS full-time. And as a result we can play a lot of great games.

PS: all of the above is untrue for 'JoWood' as that IS a real evil distributor. And of course EA, as they tend to buy up devs and destroy the creative teams by forcing them to code yearly repetitions of their old game with close to zero added value.

[Exorgasm]

Your justification of piracy by comparing use of a toilet to ripping and sharing software is a bit flawed. A company who has released a completely new product after putting a lot of thought and love into making it a work of art is not comparable to plumbers installing a product that hasn't really changed in decades.

The money spent on games goes to paying back the people who put all their effort and time into making something for you to enjoy. It ensures that publishers still see enough profit to keep making good games now and then.

I get really sick of people whining about the intrinsic value of the disc and how it's so overpriced. You're not paying for the plastic but the experience within and the hard work that was put into making it.

Why not just say " I'm just lazy and don't work/have **** for ethics."? At least that would be honest.

[UltramanJ]

Now you're going to ruin the PS3 by giving pirates exactly what they want/need to play games they do not own. I can already see the pirates bragging about how they installed a 500gb hd and loaded it with PS3 games, because that's exactly what this crap leads to. Asshole.

[TheMART]

First off: Dark Alex made homebrew possible on the PSP, probably on PS3. That's not a bad thing

Second: the 360 has been hacked from about 4 months after its launch. It still has the highest attach rate of original games per console. Piracy doesn't have to kill software sales.

Dark Alex rules. Sony should wish they had a programmer like him that made the PSP and PS3 at least get better software.

[Exorgasm]

Even If they did manage to put cfw on the ps3 Sony would no doubt include slightly different system updates in every new title. Getting through or around that many barriers would require constant effort from the hackers who would eventually give up because I doubt they have the time and resources Sony has.

With all the software sales lost on the psp they would put up a serious fight to avoid it again. Someone above also mentioned never being able to play online again also which would kill the fun of owning most games these days.

[Lumbo]

They are not even TALKING about working on custom firmware at this time. If people would READ the source instead of blindly firing their fanboy missiles they would have seen that DA himself said that the news he was commenting upon , namely the "decryption of the original firmware" has already been done a year ago and should not count as news.

Additionally he said that he does not see ANY form of custom firmware or hardware mod working on retail PS3's in the foreseeable future. The self signing and packaging of every piece of software for the system is seen as secure for now.

The only thing he talks about is the possibility for SONY to free some aspects of the RSX via the hypervisor in upcoming firmwares. The 'decrypted' firmware itself has no value as ANY change to it results in a broken signature and hence it will be rejected by the system. The only way to avoid that is to use a dev-unit PS3 cause they do NOT enforce signed code. Basically you can run unsigned code on a dev unit, but not on a retail unit. The two units are different hardware wise.

As usual a lot of fuss for no reason.