Jailbreak & Play Hacked Games on your PS3

Having a PS3 (fat or slim) running firmware v3.55 or lower can be a boon for our resident haksters, especially when you can run game backups. The following guide will cover all the basics of getting you up and running on a jailbroken PS3 and then playing your backed up or downloaded games with ease.

Section 1 – Which firmware to choose?

Firstly you need to understand that there is no “best firmware”. What is best for you depends on what it is you want to do on your PS3. Below is a list of the most popular custom firmware’s (CFW) and what they do:

1. Geohot CFW

Geohot CFW has the ability to launch signed homebrew using geo and f0f tools, it doesn’t have any kind of patching, therefore lv2 is unpatched not allowing you to run backups.

Summary:

• No backup managers.
• Only signed homebrew.

2. Wutangrza CFW

This CFW came after Geohots CFW, the intention was to add peek and poke to lv2 (to allow for backup games). Flukes found that lv1 controlled lv2 and provided the instructions to build the firmware. Wutangrza followed his instructions to build the firmware. This allowed the added improvement of peek and poke.

Summary:

• Backup managers working (Using kmeaw patch).
• Only signed homebrew.
• Peek and poke was added to lv2

3. Waninkoko CFW

This release had a hard patched lv2 without checking lv1 first, which lead to a massive brick in the last days, but some of the machines survived. This CFW had peek and poke integrated and makes use of syscall 36 that allows the use of backup managers.

Summary:

• Backup managers working.
• Launch signed homebrew.
• Peek and poke and syscall 36 added.
• High percentage of bricks.

4. Kmeaw CFW

A day after the release of Wutangrza CFW, came Kmeaw with PL3 implementation into a little PKG, it would inject pl3 into the PS3 memory so people using Wutangrza CFW could start using syscall 36 and using backup managers. Kmeaw not only released this little package, but also released his own CFW with PL3 implemented, that allows for backup managers Peek and poke and all the good stuff. This would have to be our favourite out of the four.

Summary:

• Backup managers working.
• Launch signed homebrew.
• Peek and poke added as well as syscall 36
• No bricks and most compatible

Section 2 – Jailbreak your PS3

First and foremost, make sure you are running firmware 3.55 or lower. If you have any other version higher than 3.55 then you are out of luck as there is no way to safely downgrade to 3.55 at the moment.

Before you begin, you will need the following:

• PS3 OFW 3.55
• kmeaw CFW 3.55 Patched PUP
• A backup manager (We recommend: multiMAN or Gaia)
• A USB flash drive (Minimum 1GB in size and formatted as FAT32)

Now let’s get started:

1. First, extract the PS3 OFW 3.55 your downloaded to your desktop. You should have a file named “PS3UPDAT.PUP”.
2. Plug in your USB flash drive to your computer. Inside the flash drive create a folder called “PS3”.
3. Now, inside the PS3 folder you just created, make a folder called “UPDATE”.
4. Next, transfer the PS3UPDAT.PUP you extracted in step 1 into this UPDATE folder on the USB flash drive.
5. Head on over to your PS3 and plug in your USB flash drive. In the PS3 menu, got to Settings > System Update > Update via Storage Media
6. The PS3 should detect the firmware on your USB flash drive and prompt you for the update. Follow the on screen instructions and run the update.
7. Delete the PS3UPDAT.PUP file from your USB flash drive and desktop.

You should now be running on a stock PS3 v3.55. Next we install the custom firmware:

1. On your computer, extract the kmeaw CFW you downloaded to your desktop. You should have a file named “PS3UPDAT.PUP”.
2. Transfer the PS3UPDAT.PUP you extracted into this UPDATE folder on the USB flash drive.
3. Head on over to your PS3 and plug in your USB flash drive. In the PS3 menu, got to Settings > System Update > Update via Storage Media.
4. The PS3 should detect the firmware on your USB flash drive and prompt you for the update. Follow the on screen instructions and run the update.
5. Delete the PS3UPDAT.PUP file from your USB flash drive and desktop.

You should now be running on the kmeaw jailbroken custom firmware v3.55.

Section 3 – Install a Backup Manager

We must now install a backup manager app on your PS3 so that you can play your downloaded or backed up games.

1. Download your favourite backup manager
2. Extract the “filename.pkg” file onto your desktop
3. Plug in your USB flash drive and transfer the “.pkg” file into the root or main area of your flash drive.
4. Head on over to your PS3 and plug in your USB flash drive. Under the Games menu, you will see a folder called “Install Package Files”. Press X on this folder and your backup manager package should be listed.
5. Press X on your controller to start the installation of the backup manager.

Once installed, you should be able to FTP into your PS3 and transfer any game to the “GAMES” directory. Once transferred, these games can be launched using the backup manager you have installed.

Hope this guide helped clarify how to jailbreak and play backed up or downloaded games on your PS3.

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