Sony’s Playstation 3 is one powerful piece of electronics. The gaming console packs a powerful processor that allows it to churn out excellent graphics. Coupled with a growing library of impressive games, the PS3 has become quite popular. One of the strengths of the console was its reputation for being unbreakable to hacking. Hackers took almost five years to finally break the security features of the PS3. But…they’ve finally found a way, and now you can too.
Breaking the security features of the PS3 means that owners can now jailbreak the install custom firmware and also install various applications that will extend the capabilities of the PS3 – like transforming it into an FTP server, introducing more video and audio codecs, turn it into a media player, among others. Of course, broken security also means that backup games can now be played on the PS3.
If you are interested in tinkering with your PS3 and experiment with a jailbroken PS3, here’s how you do it.
First, you have to make sure that your Playstation 3 has firmware 3.55. At present, consoles that have the latest firmware cannot be jailbroken. Make sure that your console has firmware 3.55 by going to Settings – System Settings – System Information. The current firmware of the console will be indicated here.
Now what you need to do is to get a USB drive that has been FAT32-formatted. Insert it into your computer and make folder with the name ‘PS3’. Open this folder and create a new folder and name it ‘UPDATE’.
Download three files on the internet, the custom firmware and two .pkg files – lv2.pkg and the multiman backup manager. Just search for these files on the internet.
After downloading the files, rename the custom firmware you’ve downloaded to PS3UPDAT.PUP and put it inside the UPDATE folder. Put the two .pkg files on the root directory of the USB drive.
Now insert the USB drive to your PS3. Go to Settings – System Update and select Update Via Storage Media. The PS3 will detect the custom firmware on the drive and will prompt you. Click on the Agreement that will appear to continue the installation of the firmware.
After the firmware has been updated, the PS3 will restart. Now go to the Game tab of the XMB, and press the Triangle button on your controller on the Install Package Files option. This will install the packages.
Your PS3 is now jailbroken. Remember that in order to make the jailbreak functional, you should always go the LV2 patcher and run it every single time you open your PS3. If you don’t, your console will not run the backup manager.
Photo from giantbomb.com