PS3 Jailbreak - Can someone tell me why I should bother?

[NayusDante]

It's great and all that the PS3 has been hacked, and I really smiled today when I saw the hack running on a TI-84, but for the life of me I can't understand why I would want to do it myself. What is there to gain? I've already run Linux on it, and that was rather pointless. Backing up my games might be nice, but I can live without that. I'm not a damned dirty pirate so there's no benefit in playing backups. About the only thing that sounds really promising is unlocking PS2 emulation, but I have a 60gb, so it's nothing new for me.

Can anyone convince me that it's worth the hassle of keeping up with the homebrew firmware and possibly losing online functionality? The only internet functionality that I bother with on PS3 is Netflix, but still... The only thing I can think of is playing imports, which isn't a huge deal for me right now.

[kedawa]

You really come off sounding like a dick.

[NayusDante]

Well, that's not my intention. I'm honestly trying to figure out what the benefit is, because there seems to be such a hullabaloo going on right now.

[TonyTheTiger]

What do you think people can say, though? Right now all it seems to allow is for possibilities. We don't know what kind of apps or enhancements will come out of this, if any. I'm personally waiting to see if we can get OtherOS back along with maybe region free PS1/2 functionality. If those two things come to fruition that's going to be my cue to jump on board. How it affects PSN is also an issue. The value of exploits depends on how they're used. This jailbreak is in its infancy at the moment. I think the best option is to take a wait and see approach.

[kedawa]

Unlike the deprecated other OS function, this exploit allows for complete access to the hardware, i.e. no lockout on the video processor. It also doesn't force an absurd partitioning scheme the way the other OS feature did.
It also allows full installs of games to the HDD, or to an external HDD, making it unnecessary to ever swap discs to play a game.
It also opens up the possibility of any application you can imagine, although it's rare that homebrew software ever really lives up to the potential of the hardware.
Personally, I think the most promising uses would be making the system completely region free, not just for games, but also for movies, and giving the homebrew community access to everything that is possible with the Move hardware - augmented reality, motion tracking, etc.

[NayusDante]

-Is it possible to play imports or backups right now?

-Is it possible to reverse?

-What happens if you do a firmware update without reversing the hack?

[kedawa]

I'm not sure if region unlocking has been done yet, but games can be played from the hdd, and I think from backup discs too.

The exploit itself doesn't change anything in your console, so there's no need to reverse it. It's a hack that is applied via USB at startup, so if you remove it, or just boot normally with it connected, your PS3 will boot normally.

However, it may be possible to use the hack to make changes to the firmware at some point. No custom firmware has been developed yet, but even if/when that happens, it would be reversible.

I think the biggest thing you could mess up with the exploit right now is the contents of your hard drive. I haven't heard of this actually happening, though, and even in the worst case scenario, a reformat would correct any damage.

[Dr. Dib]

Didn't Sony just update the PS3 to block jailbreaking? I'm pretty sure if you are running 3.42 you cannot jailbreak.


-Is it possible to play imports or backups right now?

-Is it possible to reverse?

-What happens if you do a firmware update without reversing the hack?


-Yes it is possible to play backups. Other projects are underway, but that was in the first video. Your PS3 can already play other region's PS3 games without modification, but I don't think the hack allows for region free ps2/ps1/movies yet.

-Your last two questions I don't know and don't think have been tested. As with any unsupported modification, you may be able to or you may not. People are probably too afraid to test updating/reversing because they don't want to loose their investment in the PS3.

SPECULATION BELOW!

I'm not positive how the jailbreak works really give you a straight answer on what happens. I can guess that either Sony will brick your console (intentionally or unintentionally) or it will delete unauthorized content.

If you have jailbroken and want to try reversing, such as if you need repairs, it may be able to be done by reformatting the hardrive. I find this unlikely though since I think the software for the OS is stored somewhere else. A special tool would probably be needed to unjailbreak.

[poloplayr]

They're already making progress on ports of PS2 and DC emulators.

Very exciting.