PS3 Firmware 3.55 vs. PS3 Jailbreak

Sony has tried any kind of method to stop PS3 Jailbreaking since the first PS Jailbreak USB dongle was released in this summer. Now, apart from previous firmware 3.42/3.50, Sony has released the Firmware 3.55 on Dec 7 with the announcement – "This is a minor update that adds a security patch." But it has been confirmed that the firmware 3.55 disable the PS downgrade and jailbreak.

Let's have a brief review on recent PS3 Jailbreaking. Sony has already updated the firmware version to 3.42 in Sep, which is a mandatory updating against PS Jailbreak dongle. The most fatal move is to make the new games need to run on the newest firmware, which keeps the PS3 homebrew gamers away from the game GT5. Next, the firmware 3.50 with the support for Blu-ray 3D Disc Playback also updated.

In the early Nov, the hackers who released the PS Jailbreak dongle hit back. They announced on their official website that they have successfully hacked PS3 by downgrading the firmware 3.50/3.42 to the previous version. And then gamers can use the PS Jailbreak USB dongle to play homebrews on their PS3 game consoles.

Not long after PS3 Firmware 3.50 was compromised by PS Downgrade, another hacker team X3 released a video to show that their victory on jailbreaking Firmware 3.50 with their X3 Max USB dongle in last weekend, which allows PS3 to run homebrews on the firmware 3.50. The exploit is significant, because unlike the PS Downgrade dongle, it was allegedly run homebrews on the PS3 game console without downgrading it. They also announced that X3 Max USB dongle can let users update to the latest hacked software freely, but the update one hasn't announced yet.

However, that is another story now. It's definitely no doubt that the firmware 3.55 is released against the newly PS Downgrade and jailbreak.

It has been confirmed that gamers can use PS Downgrade to enter the Factor/Service mode. "The system continues to boot into Factory/Service mode, even with the modified 3.41 PUP and the first Lv2diag.self file loaded alone on a USB drive," said Greg from PS3-Hacks.com. However, the next steps 5 to 10 (referring to the tutorial here) are unavailable, and the system has no response to the first lv2diag.self file. It indicates that gamers can not (currently) downgrade from firmware 3.55 in the Factor/Service mode. Fortunately, Sony PS3 system has response to the second lv2diag.self file which allows PS3 system to exit from the Factor/Service mode to the retail mode.

A few forums also showed that proxys are working against it currently, yet might be unavailable soon once Sony confirmed that the firmware has no major bugs. At present, there is no way to downgrade firmware 3.55. Gamers who want to run homebrew applications are stuck with no PSN access again if they still choose to wait for the future PS3 jailbreaking instead of installing the firmware 3.55. Therefore, Sony gains the upper hand temporarily. While hackers will never stop, the hacking of PS3 will continue.