The Sony PlayStation 3 is dead. Long live, the PS3! On May 30th, 2017, Sony officially discontinued the PlayStation 3 worldwide. In 2006, riding high on the success of the PlayStation 2, Sony was untouchable. With 60% of the market share in their favor, the PlayStation 3 was released in November of 2006, one year after the Xbox 360, for the price of $499, which, incidentally, was $200 more than the Xbox 360 Core Edition. As part of the seventh generation of home consoles that shared many of the same hardware features as the Xbox 360, the PowerPC architecture, for instance, but it also had some custom features that developers complained was hard to develop for. In 2007, Gabe Newell, the president of Valve, famously quoted that the PlayStation 3 was "a waste of everyone's time". But Sony countered this by saying that the system had huge untapped potential that had plenty to offer. And that wasn't an untrue statement. And we saw this, especially later in the PlayStation 3 life cycle, with games, such as Gran Turismo 6, Resistance 3, Uncharted 3, and The Last of Us by Naughty Dog. But for many AAA releases at the PlayStation 3 went toe-to-toe with the Xbox 360, many of the games looked and played the same, but there were some well-known disasters, such as Bayonetta and Red Dead Redemption. So, the story goes. The PlayStation 3 was hard to develop for, but it was also very hard to hack. Sony is no stranger to modded systems and software piracy. Before the PlayStation 3, the PS2 and the original PlayStation were easily modded. And going back further, most used PS1s you buy off the street have some type of modchip built in. They were everywhere! And Sony was determined to enhance security on the PlayStation 3, and they did so in a big way. So, when it comes to hacking, if we compare the Xbox 360 to the Sony PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360 was quickly defeated in the first 12 months of its lifecycle, with the original DVD firmware exploits that allowed you to play backup DVD copies of retail games which, initially, were undetectable on Xbox Live. But Microsoft got wind of what was going on very quickly, and started to ban people from Xbox Live. And then in 2007, or early 2008, was the first public JTAG exploits that allowed the user to execute unsigned code on the Xbox 360, and, at that point, the system was pretty much busted wide open. Now, this was a huge blow to Microsoft, and their ego, and the time and money that they invested in the Xbox 360 security mechanism, because the Hypervisor is meant to be the all-seeing almighty gatekeeper that is supposed to stop any unauthorized tampering, and stop the ability for any unauthorized code to be run on the system. But this was worked around and ultimately defeated. Now, the Sony PlayStation 3 also has a Hypervisor, but because it was a Blu-ray drive. There was no easy way to exploit the DVD firmware and patch a updated firmware which allowed backups to be played. So, initially, hackers turned to the Linux distribution on the PlayStation 3, known as "Other OS". Now, Sony got wind of this very quickly and decided to patch out Linux on Firmware 3.21 and higher. So, what ended up happening was by early 2010, four years after the Sony PlayStation 3 launch, the PlayStation 3 was set to become the most secure console ever made. Before we talk about what happened next, we need to discuss Other OS and Yellow Dog Linux. When Sony announced they would be removing Other OS in Firmware 3.21, on April 1st, 2010, they were very sketchy about the details. There was no explanation given other than: "It was removed due to security concerns." But Sony was well aware of the hacking that was occurring under Linux. And they were worried that a user could gain Hypervisor access and the keys to the mansion. But removing an important feature that was advertised as a selling point for the console did not sit well with consumers. On April 27, 2010, just three weeks after Linux was removed, a class-action lawsuit was filed, claiming: "The removal of Other OS was unfair and deceptive." Sony ultimately settled, and users, who purchased a PlayStation 3 from launch in 2006 through April of 2010, were eligible for compensation of up to $65 per console. Incidentally, the suit only recently concluded earlier this year, in 2018. Sony was more than happy to take the hit for the removal of Linux and lost millions in the process, but they did so knowing that patched up the biggest potential security flaw on the PlayStation 3. But all that changed in September. A modchip, known as "PS3 Jailbreak", was announced that boasted a very simple method. With a device that plugged into the USB port, it could push a payload to the PS3 which permitted unsigned code to be executed. Initially, the group that developed the PS Jailbreak did not want their secrets discovered. But with proper USB packet capture tools, it was quickly reverse-engineered. Exploiting the USB port was not a fluke. You see, Sony had a method in by using an authorized USB device can boot a PlayStation 3 into Development, or even Recovery Mode. This was likely used for repairing PS3s in their service center. Hackers exploited this approach, and, by injecting code to make their PS3 believe that a single USB device was plugged into a 6-port USB hub, a payload is pushed that executes codes during the challenge response of the USB layer, and sets up unsigned code execution to run on the PS3. And, then, came in the one-two punch. Just a few short months later, the team, known as "fail0verflow", a hacking group known for reverse-engineering of security models found in consumer electronics, performed a presentation, at the 27th Chaos Communications Congress technical conference, of their accomplishments with the PlayStation 3. They presented their methods they devised for having successfully penetrated the device's security model, yielding the PlayStation 3's private root key. The main weakness, as it turns out, was in the random number code generation, which yielded the exact same result every single time. With this known variable, it meant that the group worked backwards from the generated keys, and made it trivial to determine the private key. And with this private key, it enabled the signing of code opening the door up for custom firmware development. So, with those two pieces, the PlayStation 3 was busted wide open all in the space of a few months in late 2010. After being dubbed "unhackable" for the first four years of its lifecycle, the PlayStation 3 system was on life support. Sony attempted to mitigate the damage, but it was too late. Sony did manage to patch both of these exploits after Firmware 3.55, but the damage was done. Even in 2018, you can still buy a 3.55-equipped PlayStation 3 on eBay very easily without too much trouble. Now, there was a lot of talk on the Internet about how difficult the Sony PlayStation 3 was to develop for. But that didn't stop some very innovative homebrew emulators and applications that were developed for the PS3. So, with an exploited PlayStation 3, developers went to work on developing homebrew, and probably the most popular piece of homebrew for the PlayStation 3 is multiMAN. Starting out as a simple game launcher and file manager, it fast became the Swiss Army knife of any modded PS3's arsenal. multiMAN is a game launcher, homebrew launcher, web browser, FTP server, file manager, has the ability to dump PS3 games to hard disk, launch emulation ROMs directly without requiring an emulator first. It can play many different varieties of media, including MP3 and most video formats, you can also play PlayStation 1 ISO images and PlayStation 2 ISO images direct from the USB drive or a hard drive. TL;DR, multiMAN is excellent, and every modded PlayStation 3 needs to have a copy of multiMAN installed. The PlayStation 3 also has a very capable media player, which was known as "Showtime" and later renamed to "Movian". Considering the Xbox 360 never had a homebrew media player, Movian is excellent. It supports MKV, MPEG, MP4, DivX, and many other popular formats. It's skinnable, has a built-in FTP server, and the best part is it's fully-integrated with multiMAN. It also supports plugins, and popular ones include Twitch and YouTube. Movian does tend to struggle with the more advanced video codecs, but what's here works very well, and it's definitely worth installing on your modded system. Now, of course, we have to talk about emulators. And on the emulation front is the very popular emulator known as "libretro", with the RetroArch front end. This emulator actually started its life on the PlayStation 3, and, in 2018, it's on just about every single device there is. And just like the Xbox 360, console emulators really hit the next level on the PlayStation 3. Leveraging the power of the PlayStation 3 GPU, pixel shaders were introduced to replace the old method of software filters that relied on the CPU. And this provided very awesome visual effects at little to no cost, whatsoever. libretro and RetroArch are still being maintained for the PlayStation 3, and the emulator is a must-have, if you are considering picking up a modded system. It runs most things exceptionally well. And, of course, you, guys, know by now that I couldn't keep away from this development scene myself. So, I made a port of Final Burn Alpha, or FBANext, to the Sony PlayStation 3. When the PlayStation 3 was hacked in 2010, I worked on a port of FBANext. One thing I remember was how simple it was to port over from the Xbox 360 version. But it was also very apparent that the PlayStation 3 didn't have the same CPU processing power as the Xbox 360, and I guess this is where the criticism comes from. Without leveraging the power of the SPEs, which are very complex to develop for, a straight port from the Xbox 360 will always run slower. But with other methods, such as multi-threading and pixel shaders, performance can be improved and sometimes significantly. Still, FBANext on the PS3 is a great port, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. So, in conclusion, don't take away Linux from your consumer device. Sony really payed dearly for their mistakes with the PlayStation 3. But it was still considered as successful system. And Sony clearly learned their lessons with the PlayStation 4 which has all, but dominated the market. But looking back, the story of the "unhackable" PlayStation 3 and the events that unfolded in 2010 will go down as one of the most interesting set of events in recent videogame history. Well, guys, I hope you enjoyed this look at the Sony PlayStation 3 and how it was dubbed the most "unhackable" console on the market, until it was completely blown apart in 2010. And, of course, we took a look at the homebrew and emulators and applications that were developed for the system, some really awesome stuff that was built for the system. So, guys, let me know what you thought about this video in the comments below. As always, don't forget to Like and subscribe, and I'll catch you guys in the next video. Bye for now. [Outro song]
