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First off, we would like to wish all of our American visitors a very Happy 4th of July 2008 today!

But for more explosive news (who doesn't love a pun?) we recently received two special PS3 PUP files from a VERY nice guy. As pictured below, they are PS3 Debug 1.00 (65.5 MB (68,765,224 bytes)) and PS3 Debug 1.50 (72.2 MB (75,762,080 bytes)).

These PUPs, which are the special downgrade PUPs, allow a user to downgrade their PS3 TEST from any version down to it. For example, with the 1.00 SPECIAL Downgrade PUP a user can be on 2.40, install it, and after a reboot be on 1.00!

1.00, which lacks just about every feature but ON/OFF functionality, will then let us upgrade to any DEV firmware above it.

Which brings us to 1.50... Through examining numerous Sony documentation recently, we have read that in the 1.60 Firmware the PS3's kernel memory and user memory are separated, leading us to believe that the kernel m... More »  


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Earlier last week, one of the PS3 Devs sent his PS3 Debug/TEST unit off to another resident Dev (who also successfully did a PS3 Retail Flash dump early last year) to have the PS3 Flash dumped.

Well, it has been done! In an amazing feat taking all of 10 minutes, Courier pulled the two PS3 NAND Flash chips from the PS3 TEST and dumped them. Nothing like a hot air rework station in the hands of a professional!

So, the PS3 TEST Flash has been dumped! We also had a chance to do a preliminary analysis on it as we have seen and catalogued nearly 15 seperate PS3 Retail Flash dumps- and there is only (1) constant string in the section we are examining in all of them.

But in the PS3 TEST, it differs!!

More information will be posted soon, but the plan is now to replace said data on a Retail PS3 system, and by doing so modifying its identity to pass the update verification so t... More »  


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According to rumors in the PSM3 magazine, we are going to have to wait a few months to see in game XMB. The magazine also states that Sony may soon make a big announcement about Home, that will reveal achievements to rival the Xbox live system.

To quote: Dubbed ‘the man who knows too much’, their insider teases us with some of the latest PlayStation murmurings:

- In game XMB will be coming, however not for a few months yet.

- He tells us to expect a ‘big’ announcement involving Home, including information about ‘trophies’ or achievements “to rival the Xbox live system”.

- A sequel for a popular Xbox 360 title will be ‘received’ soon, and that it will be making its first appearance on the PS3, he also states this isn’t Lost Planet.

- He also suggests that any big 2008 announcements which Sony has for the PS3 will not come in the form of new games, however there are surprises in store, and they will fo... More »  


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It was revealed last month that a Blu-ray disc wasn’t big enough to hold all languages for the upcoming Metal Gear Solid 4. Since all previous Playstation 3 games have resorted to the more constricted 25GB Disc, it was unclear whether MGS4 was to stray from this trend.

In a Konami retailers meeting yesterday, it was exposed that the game would be produced on a 50GB Blu-ray disc.

Ryan Patyon announced on the Kojima Report Podcast that US/European copies of MGS4 would not contain a Japanese voiceover and visa versa:

Unfortunately because of disc space, we don’t have the space to include other languages, other voice over files for the respective versions.

So the Japanese version’s not gonna have English voiceover, and the North American and European versions won’t have Japanese voiceover.

Many presumed that Kojima decided to go with a 25gb Blu-ray disc to save on costs, but it was yesterday revealed in a Konami reta... More »  


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We announced this notice some time ago, now I would like to show you a picture of the tool I compiled to do the job. You need the Infectus mod-chip on your PS3 to downgrade. This mod-chip allows you to take a backup of your current PS3 Firmware that can be restored.

The news is that before it wasn't possible to downgrade without a previous dump of your own PS3 console's Firmware, but now things have changed. :)

Using this tool you can modify a NAND backup in order to let the console think it has a lower Firmware version, so later you can use an official Sony upgrade PUP file to "downgrade" to the version you need.

It has been tested to patch all PS3 Firmware dumps up to 2.10 so far, but is a work-in-progress as we still need to test re-updating more thoroughly.

I would like to thanks to Gigi and Mainman for their support in this tool, and all the other PS3News Devs for helping us in ... More »  


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Update: Per Jeff Rubenstein (Social Media Manager, PlayStation Blog): In case you were wondering what it’s all about, the operating stability of some online PS3 titles has been improved. Hope that clears things up!

It's now official- Sony has indeed skipped a retail release of PS3 Firmware 2.15 (Debug) in lieu of PS3 Firmware Update 2.17 which is out now via Network Update or below!

Download: PS3 FW Update 2.17 (US) / PS3 FW Update 2.17 (EU)

There isn't an official changelog available yet, but it appears to be... More »  


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While we await the start of our PS3 KeyVault Project for retail PS3 consoles, below is a screenshot of something else I have been tinkering with recently via Debug.

As hinted by PS3News already HERE, it is a Backup Launcher for a PS3 Development Unit as shown. At the moment it it still pre-Alpha and very incomplete, however it allows:

- Boot PS3 Games from HDD
- Boot PS3 Games from DVD/BD-ROM
- Copy Original PS3 Games from DVD/BD-ROM to HDD
- Patch the executable on some games to run from HDD

Note: This will ONLY work on a DEVELOPMENT CONSOLE, not a RETAIL PS3 unit!

To be added soon:

- Read PARAM.SFO for name/titleid, patch to menu (Alpha is hard-coded)
- Support for deleting games from the menu
- Support a few more games to start (Alpha is hard-coded for four)
- Po... More »  


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A bit of unexpected news on this LEAP YEAR DAY indeed.. a nice guy has leaked PS3 Debug Firmware 2.15 today! A picture of it on my TEST console is below, and also there is an unpacked FileList of it for those interested. It adds a new "vm" folder to the PS3 HDD among other things, but we have yet to thoroughly look through it.

This is VERY cool news mainly because (as we all know) even the retail PS3 Firmware 2.15 isn't available yet from Sony!

For other PS3 Devs to examine, we will be adding the 2.15 Firmware to our PS3 Downloads this weekend as it's a bit sizeable weighing in RAR'd at 103 MB (108,852,452 bytes).

PS3 Debug Firmware v2.15 FileList:

Directory of ..2.15_DEBUG

02/28/2008 05:38 PM .
02/28/2008 05:38 PM ..
02/28/2008 03:46 PM 3 dots.txt
02/28/2008 05... More »  


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