A couple weeks ago, folks over at Wololo.net had discovered Brazilian mod chip stores offering pirated retail games for PS4 consoles. Most people cried false, and with some news trickling from Brazilian sources it's becoming more and more likely it's legitimate...and now, a Brazilian news site UOL Jogos, has confirmed the PS4 "hacks" are indeed real!

PLEASE NOTE: AT THIS TIME, THERE IS NO USER-AVAILABLE PS4 HACK. SEE BELOW FOR DETAILS ON HOW THIS "HACK" IS PERFORMED.

The process, as described by Brazilian modchip stores, is close to what we have explained before: a Dump of a “legit” console with a dozen games on it is performed, and copied to the target console. In addition to a copy of the hard drive, it is safe to assume a dump of the NAND/BIOS is performed as well. It seems the dump is performed with the help of a regular raspberry pi, as this had been implied the first time we uncovered this story.

Unfortunately, these methods don't break any encryption on the PS4, so at this time all that's allowed is purely pirated content, no homebrew. Definitely a shame, and it's almost a guarantee Sony will end up fixing these "hacks" soon, but at least it's a start.

Source

 

[lytro]

PS4 is yet to have a stable quality library of games and this is what they're focusing on? Pirating PS4 games?

It just feels strange that they wouldn't do something better with it like allowing to play emulators, make the Blu-ray inside region free, perhaps allow in some way to play PS1 and PS2 games and so on.

So if someone hacked the Wii U I'd hope they would do something creative rather than just the games.

you read the OP(source) yes?

 

[Margen67]

They are, of course, keeping the technique a secret, in order for it to not get patched, but also so that they can run a profitable business reselling pirated games.

You don't say

Spoiler

inb4 PS4 scene devs say "We aren't paid by whoever we're just coincidentally not releasing anything related to piracy due to Legal Reasons (tm)/morals/ethics/excuses/etc."

 

[beenii]

So, just for laughs, because i dont get any of this stuff, but wouldnt it be theoretically possible to "clone" a Dev-unit, which even plays unsigned code to have the perfekt console instantly?

But the one big question is, how difficult is this process? sure there would have to be soldering required.....

 

[Walker D]

I could just go to one of this stores that do this hacks... ...ask them to teach me, and then, share here with everyone ...

But, meh .-. I much more prefer to stay at home and eat some pizza


Also: ...the only guy that I knew was doing something to break the PS4 was x-s4nd3r (obviously there's more people on it though...). Don't know if he started it.....

 

[Pedeadstrian]

Such a shame. By the time games that I actually want to play are out, they'd require a higher firmware, and by then this (or any derivative) would be patched. We can't do much without a way to break the PS4's encryption.

 

[tech3475]

Surprised, id have thought there was something in the system to prevent this eg. Per console key, etc.

Shame its just a piracy hack.

 

[Amadren]

Can't wait for a how to do it

Also anyone knows what version is required?

 

[MisterJohnson87]

There is so much hype in this thread for nothing at all here.

This is nothing more than game sharing. This is non-news.

 

[Pedeadstrian]

There is so much hype in this thread for nothing at all here.

This is nothing more than game sharing. This is non-news.

From the source:

It needs to be emphasized that this is not the well known “account sharing” trick, but a new kind of hack.

It involves copying the NAND and/or BIOS from one console and applying it to another. What advantage that has over simple game sharing, I don't know.

 

[Arras]

From the source:

It involves copying the NAND and/or BIOS from one console and applying it to another. What advantage that has over simple game sharing, I don't know.

The advantage is that there's no limit to the amount of consoles you can do this to, I assume. The disadvantage is that A. it's a pain to pull off B. I'd assume you run into issues if you want to play content other than the shared pirated games.

 

[Pedeadstrian]

The advantage is that there's no limit to the amount of consoles you can do this to, I assume. The disadvantage is that A. it's a pain to pull off B. I'd assume you run into issues if you want to play content other than the shared pirated games.

Doesn't Sony already have something in place that limits the amount of consoles you can have tied to your account? Or is the limit only on the number of active consoles? If the latter's the case, I'm sure Sony will change that ASAP.

 

[Arras]

Doesn't Sony already have something in place that limits the amount of consoles you can have tied to your account? Or is the limit only on the number of active consoles? If the latter's the case, I'm sure Sony will change that ASAP.

Yeah, but like this from what I understand of it you kind of activate the second console, connect online to get games, deactivate your account (and disconnect internet), then somehow copy the activation data from the first console to the second. To Sony it looks like you only have 1 active console now, you actually have 2. You probably can't go online with the second one anymore without issues though.

 

[mixelpixx]

So I am confused. I see some posting that it is the NAND / Flash that is being copied/cloned and others saying its just an EEProm that has basically a table of active/legit purchases thats being copied. Or is it both? Is this EEP being read and written to a separate component?

 

[Steena]

Wait who makes money from allowing the pirating of games? I suppose you might find a few people in our scene more inclined to buy the system if it's been hacked, so in this case, Sony might get a few more customers buying the PS4, but I don't think that really nets Sony a lot of money at the end of the day.

You are american so it was generally different there, but in places like italy, spain, brazil, videogames stores used to have PS1 modding services and even sell you pirated discs, let alone private users advertising themselves on either forums or notice boards. It was a decent business. My cousin profited off it for the entirety of the PS1 life just selling backups and installing modchips as his only source of income.

Immigrants that nowadays sell trinkets, lighters and socks, used to sell backups of PS1 games instead, fake cover and all that, in bulk.

In my classroom, out of 21 people, 20 had a gaming system and 19 of us owned a modded PS1 as their only system. It was only me and the remaining dude that owned other systems as well. It was a mainstream thing, at least in italy, probably because games here used to cost a lot back then.

I can only imagine it's a similar situation currently in brazil, I hear the prices are even worse than they were here 20 years ago.

 

[MegaV2]

Small electronics store in some streets of Sao Paulo will charge from R$ 300 to R$ 400 (about $100 to $150) in order to install 10 pirated games on your console. The UOL journalists have confirmed the hack to work on their own console.

Oh wow, that's pretty much the entire PS4 library for just ~$120

 

[fudgi]

just out of curiosity... why a RasPi? What does a RasPi have, what other "computers" dont?

 

[cracker]

A bunch of IO lines and standardized hardware.

 

[Kippykip]

In my classroom, out of 21 people, 20 had a gaming system and 19 of us owned a modded PS1 as their only system. It was only me and the remaining dude that owned other systems as well. It was a mainstream thing, at least in italy, probably because games here used to cost a lot back then.

I can only imagine it's a similar situation currently in brazil, I hear the prices are even worse than they were here 20 years ago.

Well in my area at the time, I was the only one with a modded ps1 with a crapton of these copied games with cheap labels my dad used to get overseas.
While everyone else had like 3 games (which would've been PAL/50hz ugh)

 

[FAST6191]

Was PAL in the PS1 era that bad? You certainly do not have to sell me on the 8 ad 16 bit era being less than stellar for most pal folks but the PS1 stuff was not quite as egregious.

 

[Bi99uy]

Was PAL in the PS1 era that bad? You certainly do not have to sell me on the 8 ad 16 bit era being less than stellar for most pal folks but the PS1 stuff was not quite as egregious.

Yeah, it was pretty shitty. Almost every game had the horrible black borders, and "slow" games like Resident Evil were almost unplayable.
Hell, even up to the PS2 days the PAL region was shitty. I remember having to use AR codes in order to play FFX in regular speed and that messed up the cutscenes. I resorted to importing a NTSC console and had a friend send me games by mail overseas.