PS3 update: What you need to know

Update: Sony announced Tuesday the released of PS3 update 3.55, which it says "is a minor update that adds a security patch." No word yet on whether the new release will cripple the 3.50 jailbreaking.

PS3 firmware 3.50 is now jailbreakable without a downgrade.

Jailbreaking Sony’s PlayStation 3 console was easy as pie before Sony broke the exploit in firmware version 3.42, meaning that anyone who wanted to run games that required a firmware version above 3.41 had to go through a convoluted process of downgrading to 3.41, jailbreaking, then upgrading from there.

It was a pickle, but never underestimate the jailbreaking community’s resilience: Team X3 has just managed to jailbreak the PS3 official firmware 3.50 using the X3 Max PS3 dongle, without any downgrading beforehand.

It’s great news, albeit to existing owners of the X3Max PS3 jailbreaking super dongle: the ability to easily hack 3.50 PS3 devices should be a free update for existing customers. Not only will the jailbreak run homebrew, but it’ll also allow you to run games like Gran Turismo 5 that depend on firmware version 3.50 in order to function.

It just goes to show: once the cat is out of the jailbreaking bag, there’s just not a lot you can do to keep the hackers down. Sony’s lost this battle once before with the PlayStation Portable… looks like they’re about to lose it again with the PlayStation 3.

Read more at Shoutpedia

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