Remember this? Well the same person has been in contact with an Italian team called DiGiTaLAnGeL and through twitter they have announced that they managed to downgrade a PS3 slim from 3.70 down to 3.55 CFW using the well known NAND/nor flasher Progskeet. This looks like good news for the scene and people stuck on 3.70. They have said that a tutorial will be released soon.

It has also been announced by uf6667 (developer behind Progskeet) that a surprise is waiting for 3.56-3.70 users.

[VIA DigitalAngel Release Site]

[VIA Twitter]

After various requests I have finally gotten around to adding a arcade section on the forums. You can view the arcade HERE (must be logged in).

The arcade system stores all highscores between forum members, and the highest score for each game will earn a Platinum Trophy icon displayed on the forums (for your e-peen entertainment). There are also beta tournaments that I will be testing, which I plan will hopefully lead to interested future competitions/prizes.

Please note that AdBlock will interfere with highscore saving for some games.

Please report any bugs in this thread, and good luck

>> Go to PS3Hax Arcade <<

In case you don’t feel like checking your email, here it is:

If your a lurker within the scene, then chances are you are not aware of the problems that have been going on recently with the PS3 scene (mainly due to everything was being censored). Now I really did not want to post this, but there is a limit for everyone and I believe that limit has been reached and the public needs to be told.

Recently two PS3 scene sites most of you are familiar with, PSX-Scene and PSGroove where bought out by a media company that also owns QJ.net. The new administrations lack of knowledge on PS3 scene has quickly spiraled the scene development downward, leading to the departure of many well known PS3 devs to other websites.

It has been unveiled that PSX-Scene is now bribing their lost developers back (Microsoft anyone?), and even trying to buy back ex-staff which were forcibly removed and banned in helping other scene sites.

What is even more disturbing is what was uncovered in the new TOS (terms of service), under the new PSX-Scene.com administration brought to light by well known emulator developer Squarepusher2, and Halsafar.

To summarize, the new PSX-scene TOS states that by posting your work at PSX-scene.com you waive your rights to what you post. Meaning any theme/emulator/backup manager/homebrew/anything you post at their site, it is the property and ownership of PSX-scene.com and you give them the right to sell, redistribute, and do as they please with it.

To quote TOS:

“User Provided Content, License. You are solely responsible for all content or materials that you post, submit to, or transmit through the Service. By submitting materials or content to PSX-SCENE.COM, you grant PSX-SCENE.COM a license to copy, use, display and create derivative works of the material or content submitted for any purpose, including, without limitation, the promotion and marketing of the Service and the operation of the PSX-SCENE.COM system. By submitting materials or content, you automatically agree (or, to the extent you do not own all rights to such materials or content, you represent and warrant that the owner of the content or materials has expressly agreed) that without any particular time limit, and without the payment of any fees, PSX-SCENE.COM and anyone it permits may reproduce, display, distribute and create new works of authorship based on and including the content or materials. You may not submit content or materials trademarked or copyrighted by anyone other than yourself.”

You can read up more information detailing the TOS at Squarepusher2′s blog here. And if you thought that was bad, read this. You can also read more at Dashhacks here.

Its disappointing to treat respectable homebrew developers like dogs, giving them a bone to fetch – holding them by a leash.

Homebrew devs are welcome to post their work at PS3Hax, where we actually have a staff that is passionate and knowledgeable about the scene, and treat you with respect. We don’t have any of this crap in our TOS related to ownership, we are in it for the passion, and fun – not the money.

With the recent scene changes, I am glad to bring PS3Hax visitors and loyal members some very exciting news. Various PS3 devs including drizzt (Gaia Manager/f*ck PSN), Mr.Goodfrag (DOS Emulators), Rogero (Rogero Manager) and you loved deank (multiMAN) have brought their “big guns” and releases, to here at PS3Hax.

We are very excited with these changes, and I look forward in working with the devs in bringing the best possible experience for them and the scene

With that being said, as per request we have expanded the width of the forums (lower resolutions will retain smaller forum width), hopefully bringing you high-res monitors a more pleasurable reading experience (this will be implemented later tonight).  A new multiMAN category has also been added which will be dedicated to support and new releases related to multiMAN.

So please give a warm welcome to these devs whose contribution makes the scene possible to PS3Hax, your fastest source for PS3 news.

UPDATE 1:

Forum expansion is now live. In addition, the entire forum categories have been reorganized, and new sections have been added such as PS3 | Technical Development and Coding Area, PS3 Game eBoot/Fixes/Patches and Scene Drama. So let me know what you think

So the man behind a lot of work on several great emulators, Squarepusher, has opened up shop full time at the Homebrew Cafe.  After having set up a blog with several other Devs to make it easier to find out what is going on with said emulators.

They have opened up the Homebrew Cafe forums to the public, which you can find here to better help with bug fixes, suggestion, and many other things related to these emulators. Very soon we should see many great things coming from here!!  I will let Squarepusher’s blog post explain more.

Qoute from Homebrew Cafe blog:

This forum will serve a variety of purposes – there is a PS3 emulators section where users can post questions, suggestions, bug reports, requests and whatnot to do with the PS3 emulators.

There are also other boards of a more slightly technical bent where porters/devs can get into contact with me or others – or simply idle tech talk if that’s what people prefer.

Source: Homebrew Cafe + Twitter

3 new moderators (including a news poster) have joined the PS3Hax staff today to help make PS3Hax the best source for PS3 hacking news.

Please welcome: Thelostdeathknight (news poster), Annelies (moderator), and Wolfie708 (moderator).

As always you can find the current PS3Hax staff on the bottom of our forums, or by clicking here.

Roberto Bender has updated his NJ Media Server, an open source PS3 UPnP/DLNA Media Server.

Download NJ Media Server – 1.0.6.1

Download NJ Media Server – 1.0.6.1 Plugins
Official Site: https://sites.google.com/site/njmediaserver/

While various scene sites are selling out, I figured its time to go through another round of updates and improvements here at PS3Hax. So I am asking you guys what changes you would like to see made around PS3Hax, what features do you want PS3Hax to offer, or remove, or change. Do you want a VIP usergroup, maybe a member arcade system. or do you want to see more PSP news…all suggestions are welcomed and will be taken into consideration.

Please keep your suggestions constructive and post them via reply below, I am committed and making PS3Hax.net the best source for your PS3 Hacking needs

Sony PSP sold to date ~70 million units, and today (after various leaks), has officially announced the next PSP portable, PS Vita. The PS Vita is priced at $249 for WiFi version, and $299 for 3G version (exclusive to AT&T). Expected release date is end of 2011.

PSVita brings many new features such as dual cameras, OLED touchscreen, and touchpad on the back, dual REAL anaolog sticks (finally), and sixaxis motion control – all for the same price and better features compared to the Nintendo 3Ds.

 Loading ...

Previous reported specs:

Well i have been going on about E3 for a while now and according to the official E3 website, the dates were 7th to 9th of June, but it so happens to start today, below i will list the times of the Live feeds regarding the conference:

Today:
9:00AM PDT
Microsoft: 9:30AM to 11AM PST – 5:30PM – 7PM GMT
http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/e3
http://www.youtube.com/user/E3
http://e3.gamespot.com/press-conference/microsoft-e3/
http://www.ustream.tv/gamespot

Sony: 5PM to 6:30PM PST -1AM – 2:30AM GMT(Tuesday Morning >.<)
http://www.youtube.com/user/E3
http://e3.gamespot.com/press-conference/sony-e3/?tag=content_nav%3Bvideo%3Bsony
Playstation Home

Tomorrow:
Nintendo: 9AM – 10AM PST – 5PM GMT
http://e3.nintendo.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/E3
http://e3.gamespot.com/press-conference/nintendo-e3/?tag=content_nav%3Bvideo%3Bnintendo

EDIT:

Here is an image courtesy of Kotaku.

Well its almost here, the most exciting time in a gamers year and what make it all the more exciting, is when a new piece of hardware is showcased.

During E3 this year, Sony will be showcasing their recently announced Next Generation Portable(NGP), which has recently been rumoured to be called PS Vita, if you wish you can vote on weather you like the name or not here NGP > PS Vita ?.

Here are the specifications of the NGP, note that some of these on the final E3 product, may have changed since the console first revealed:

CPU:
ARM® Cortex™-A9 core (4 core)

GPU:
200 MHz SGX543MP4+
133 MPolygon/s
4 GPixel/s fill rate

Memory:
512MB, rumoured to have been halved already.

Storage:
16GB internal storage, rumoured to have been removed.

Media:
NVG Card – a small flash memory based card, dedicated for NGP software titles. Taking advantage of the flash memory feature, this innovative card can store the full software titles plus add-on game content or the game save data directly on to the card. By adopting flash memory based card, SCE will be able to provide game cards with higher capacity in the future, allowing developers to store more game data to deliver rich and immersive games.
NVG game cards will be available in 2 GB and 4 GB sizes.

Display:
5-inch OLED capacitive touch screen.
24-bit colour.
960 × 544 pixels @ 220 ppi.

Input:
Touch screen.
Rear touch pad.
Six-axis motion sensing.
Three-axis electronic compass.
D-pad.
12 × Buttons
(Triangle, Circle, Cross, Square, L, R, Start, Select, Home, Volume ±, Power).
2 × Analog sticks.

Camera:
Front camera.
Rear camera.
Both cameras feature face detection, head detection, and head tracking capabilities.

Connectivity:
IEEE 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi
3G
Bluetooth 2.1+EDR

As you will notice from the above specs, the NGP will have a new game medium, which is dubbed an NVG Card, so UMD is gone, which unfortunately means for all of you with UMD’s, wont be able to play them on the NGP, that is not the only thing that is gone, the famed XMB is gone and has been replaced with LiveArea, here is a quote about it from one of the sources:

(more…)

Well whatever it is going to be finally called, there is no doubt that it will be showcased at this years E3 presentation, starting this Tuesday the 7th of June, as usual, companies try and keep silent about specs and details, though inevitably information is leaked, here are leaked/rumoured details.

CPU:
Quad Core Custom IBM Power 6 Chip, Clocked @ 3.5GHZ.
Each core is two way SMT capable.
175.9 GFLOPS theoretical peak performance (single-precision).
87.6 GFLOPS theoretical peak performance (double-precision).

Memory:
Main Memory – 512MB XDR2 DRAM.
Video Memory – 1024MB GDDR5.
eDRAM – 16MB.

Storage:
2.5″ Sata HDD 250/320GB models available.
External Storage SD/SDHC of up to 64GB.

Media:
Custom Blu Ray up to 50GB.
Gamecube/Wii Discs.

Display:
HDMI.
Component.
D-Terminal.
Scart.
S Video.
Maximum Display Resolution – 1080p.

Control Pad:
Dubbed “Wii 2 Pad”.
8 Buttons.
6.2″ Touch Screen.
Front Facing Camera.

Source of above image.

Source Engadget And IGN

Remember nothing has been confirmed, so these are just rumours.

An anonymous hacker has contacted us today (not to be confused with Anonymous) releasing a PDF theory which will help hackers learn more about 3.6x firmwares, which in turn can lead to the 3.6x key decryption…hence custom firmware.

Please not before continuing that this a highly technical document, and is a theory at the very least so we are labeling this as a rumor - but this information should hopefully get us in the right step towards 3.6x CFW

ATTENTION: 05/23 Anonymous hackers release PDF theory for dual firmware PS3; Could lead to 3.6x+ key decryption/CFW!

05/23/2011 For Immediate Release:

The beginning of dual-firmware PS3:

http://www.ps3hax.net/downloads.php?do=file&id=678

The technique outlined in the .PDF will help people learn more about 3.6x firmwares.
The solution relies on the implementation of a second NOR/NAND Flash.
Some technical limitations have been identified. But time will help us to remove them.

The information in the document is still theoretical for the moment, however please post results from your testing.

We believe knowledge and information wants to be free.
Learn what you can and help contribute to making the PS3 scene a better place.

Released by No_One.

[Download PDF Theory Here]

Read the title alone may have set some of you off, well its true. It seems PSN is now down further until May 31st, most likely due to the recent attacks which showed that Sony still fails at security. Looks like the “final security testing” was a bit of a lie

To quote from Sony spokesperson:

“Sony is uncertain when it can resume the services,” Tokyo-based Sony spokesperson Shigenori Yoshida is quoted as saying in the report. “The company is in the process of adopting an improved security system and its plan to restart the services fully by May 31 is unchanged.”

In further PSN news, Anonymous has denied their involvement AGAIN with PSN attacks as Sony seemingly has found a target to blame.  In response to the recent credit card issues, Anonymous points out that Sony is in direct violation of the PCI compliant and that Sony has been accused of false billing of customers:

In order to process credit cards, every company needs to be PCI compliant. “If you are a merchant that accepts payment cards, you are required to be compliant with the PCI Data Security Standard” [4]. Since Sony’s network was “unpatched and had no firewall installed” [5], that is a clear violation of the PCI standards and ongoing reviews [4], thus likely to be criminal negligence [see Further Reading]. More importantly, “I can’t think of a major data breach where the company was PCI compliant,” said Ira Rothken, the lead attorney handling the class action lawsuit [6].

You can read the full press release below: (more…)

According to online reports, Sony had fired ~200 employees from SOE a few days before the PSN massive attack which led to the compromise of user personal information. A 2 week notice was handed out on March 31st, 2011 which gave whomever enough time to think, plan and act on the PSN attack – and would have all the clearance to easily to do it . Whats even worse is that if it DID turn out to be a inside job then the ex-employee could potentially have the tools to un-hash the stolen passwords and possibly even have the tools/resources to decrypt the important information such as your credit card numbers.

To quote from The Hollywood Reporter:

Sony Online Entertainment has closed three of its game studios and laid off 205 workers as part of a massive restructuring.

All possible steps are being taken to ensure team members affected by the transition are treated with appropriate concern.”

To quote from Wikipedia:

On March 31, 2011, SOE has confirmed that “it will eliminate 205 positions and close its Denver, Seattle and Tucson studios.”

On April 27, 2011, Sony, the parent company of SOE, released statements regarding an intrusion, on or about April 18th, into the PlayStation Network, and the potential theft of up to 77 Million subscribers personal data. Sony maintains that PSN and SOE are hosted and run on completely separate subsystems and that the PlayStation Network intrusion had no major affect on SOE’s online services.

On May 2, 2011, SOE completely interrupted their online services. Over the previous month several intrusions of PSN have caused the developers to post messages of concern and apology, but also assurances the SOE servers and systems were not compromised. This most recent development has shut the service down entirely with the message: “We have had to take the SOE service down temporarily. In the course of our investigation into the intrusion into our systems we have discovered an issue that warrants enough concern for us to take the service down effective immediately. We will provide an update later today (Monday).”

Things are tumbling downhill fast for Sony, and PSN up this week looks pretty grim. Maybe a movie will be made about this entire fiasco

What do you guys think, could this really be the result of an inside job?

[VIA PSX-Scene]

Millions of gamers and PS3 owners have been without PSN service for over a week now. As of today May 1st they held a press conference that started at 1 am EST and the topic of that conference was the much anticipate return of the PSN. Among the things detailed in this conference tonight was what the loyal PSN users would get in compensation for going with their online gaming.

So what is my compensation for PSN downtime? For starters all PSN members will get a free month of PSN+ (current PSN+ members will get an extra month of service for free) and they will also be giving out “selected PlayStation entertainment content” for free downloads. More details to come at a later point this month. Current Music Unlimited subscribers will also be getting a free month of service.

The PlayStation network should be making a partial return next week, with it being fully restored sometime by the end of the month. A firmware update will of course greet you when the network comes back online. And of course you can expect that Sony did a complete revamp of their security so your data should now be “safe”.

Some other points of interest are:

• They stated again that they don’t believe any CC numbers were taken but they said you should keep an eye on your credit card statements.
• They will be working with the FBI to conduct a full criminal investigation
• Out of 77 million users, about 10 million had active credit cards (ONLY 10 million?)

Still no explanation on what happen and no apologies for not securing your data properly. Do you think Sony is doing enough with what they have promised?

Rumor has it that the PSN database that was stolen from Sony has now hit underground forums and is for sale. The database contains 2.2 million Credit Card Numbers with the much-needed CVV2 code. Some underground “financial” trading forums make note of the database for sale.

The database was also offered to Sony to buy back but Sony didn’t wanted to pay money to get back what belonged to them. Thiefs don’t buy things back from other thiefs, that is not how it works. Criminals go after you if you steal something from them.

Rumors are also that a very big part of the German database is stolen, which makes some people point to Graf because he is also German. Personally I think Graf has problems enough already and has nothing to with it, but maybe someone wants to make some money to pay for the “criminal” 1.000.000 euro claim

Kevin Stevens, Security Researcher tweets that this indeed is NOT a rumor and it IS for sale (but nothing to confirm if database is legitimate or not).

Here are some interesting screenshots of the so called “underground” forums and snippets of convo taking place.  Remember PS3Hax.net does not support this activity and we ask all links related to this forum to not be linked here. (more…)