PS3 Possibly Jailbroken

An Australian mod group this week claimed to have finally gotten unofficial downloaded copies of PlayStation 3 games running on the system from the hard drive. If this proves effective it could open the door for piracy on the one platform thought safe from it – if the same incentives still prevail on it.

OzModChips.com has revealed their PS Jailbreak – a $170 (Australian) USB device that backs up PS3 games from the discs and then lets users play the backups from the hard drive. It’s not unlike the Xbox 360s’ install-from-disc feature except the PS Jailbreak doesn’t require any further use of the original disc.

To try to prove it isn’t a hoax, OzModChips posted a couple YouTube videos clearly showing backups of games running while the disc tray is occupied by a different game.

The first video showed a backup of Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction running with an Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune disc in the tray. However, it didn’t show a big enough picture to quite skeptics, so OzModChips posted another video with both the PS3 and the display in full simultaneous view throughout.

The group that will sell the chip later this month couldn’t divulge all the details on its origin, but they suggest it came from China or Hong Kong. It is unclear how exactly the device works but OzModChips thinks that it tricks a retail PS3 into thinking it’s a debug unit which can run images of games without discs. The device works with PS3s running firmware up to version 3.41.

If this device truly works, theoretically it would allow PS3 owners to also run downloaded copies of PS3 games. Not as many PS3 owners may want to however compared to the piracy rates on Xbox 360 or Nintendo DS.

Part of the reason the PS3 has been the sole game platform this generation to escape piracy is that it removed much of the incentive for people to pirate games.

One reason people pirate some Wii games like Tales of Graces or Fatal Frame IV with its homebrew channel is to both play import games and run translation patches. The PS3 is already region free however.

Secondly, downloading most video games is relatively easy because their file imprints are never larger than a few gigabytes, even for Xbox 360 games. The average PS3 game however is over 20GB – a cumbersome download for most internet connections, because the extra space on a Blu-Ray disc gives developers room for things like uncompressed textures and audio. Metal Gear Solid 4, according to Hideo Kojima, nearly filled a 50GB dual-layer Blu-ray.