No, there's no typo in the title. It's 2020 and Sony's second home console, the PlayStation 2, got a new exploit; and an interesting one at that! Aptly named FreeDVDBoot, this exploit allows users to run burnt homebrew games on an unmodified PS2. Just slide in a DVD into the console as you would with any other game and boot it without any additional tools.

@CTurt , the software engineer behind FreeDVDBoot and fellow GBAtemp member, explained in length his method that exploits the console's DVD player functionality in a blog post. He also made all of FreeDVDBoot's code available on GitHub, along with a step-by-step guide.

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In case you're wondering about actual PS2 games rather than homebrew titles, yes, FreeDVDBoot also enables you to run backup copy of those. CTurt shared a video using his exploit to run a backup of Shadow of the Colossus:

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It doesn't end there either. CTurt further goes on to speculate that this method could potentially work on every single PlayStation home consoles and that he will investigate this possibility in the future:

There's really no reason this general attack scenario is specific to the PlayStation 2 as all generations support some combination of burned media: from the PlayStation 1's CD support, to the PlayStation 3 and 4's Blu-ray support, with the PlayStation 4 having only removed CD support. Hacking the PS4 through Blu-ray BD-J functionality has long been discussed as an idea for an entry point. This may be something I would be interested in looking into for a long-term future project: imagine being able to burn your own PlayStation games for all generations; 1 down, 3 to go...

SOURCE
FreeDVDBoot code and guide on GitHub

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

DVD+/-R isn't free, but I still think this is a really simple approach that's a lot more doable for the average person.

Yes, but it's something most people* are probably going to have still in their house somewhere, and same with a DVD burner.

*people who are interested in modding older consoles, anyways.

 

[Jokey_Carrot]

So I can burn a save manager to a cd and finally delete SC3 glitched save?

Japanese government wants to know your location.

 

[Rioluwott]

would this work on an unmodded phat ps3 using the backward compability?
asking for the sake of knowledge rather than wanting to use it

 

[Foxi4]

Very cool. I remember having to look for exploitable games or a friend who already had FreeMCBoot, to the point that forum goers would offer preparing and sending FMCB memory cards as a service. This makes things significantly easier, well done!

 

[Valery0p]

Man, this thread is a mess. You can use the premade image with uLaunchELF and load the FMCB installer from USB and never use the disc anymore, as long as your DVD player version is supported.
Patching your isos to load through this exploit was just a Proof of Concept, not the ideal use case.
We have OPL guys...
As others have said this is a lot easier to replicate on your own, without the need to buy any special purpose hardware.

 

[Clydefrosch]

shouldn't that enable people to make a fmb stick/memory card too?
ah, should've looked closer.

well, i got mine already, but it was kind of a chore getting it back in the day without access to ebay.

 

[spectral]

Will this exploit be a one-time installer, or do you have to boot it up before inserting a game, which was what Dreamcast did?

Its neither of those things. You don't install anything, that's the point. Its something you do to the disc image before burning it and the disc will load in the PS2 without having to do anything else. It's brand new though so there isn't really anything available that uses it yet.

 

[PatrickD85]

It's never to late for such news now is it

 

[gamesquest1]

have to wonder if some sneaky sneakies will start churning out repro PS2 games in china utilising this exploit to create mastered copies of the really expensive titles like rule of rose in the hopes of passing them off as genuine games

while there isn't too many expensive games for the PS2, it does open the door to things like repro's of expensive games popping up like they do with NES/SNES games

 

[Foxi4]

have to wonder if some sneaky sneakies will start churning out repro PS2 games in china utilising this exploit to create mastered copies of the really expensive titles like rule of rose in the hopes of passing them off as genuine games

while there isn't too many expensive games for the PS2, it does open the door to things like repro's of expensive games popping up like they do with NES/SNES games

The compatibility list is kind of spotty at this stage, the exploit doesn't work on all models/drives, but then again, sneaky sneakies don't necessarily care about quality.

 

[gamesquest1]

The compatibility list is kind of spotty at this stage, the exploit doesn't work on all models/drives, but then again, sneaky sneakies don't necessarily care about quality.

yeah I wonder if once this is worked on a bit more and refined to the point there could be expanded into a single universal exploit, or if its always going to be a 10 different versions setup, I hadn't thought about that fact, if each build would only work on 1 specific player version that kills the mastered repros idea

 

[Foxi4]

yeah I wonder if once this is worked on a bit more and refined to the point there could be expanded into a single universal exploit, or if its always going to be a 10 different versions setup, I hadn't thought about that fact, if each build would only work on 1 specific player version that kills the mastered repros idea

I guess you could still do it if the repros were "made to order", but that's extra steps. You're right, it would have to be universal.

 

[Valery0p]

yeah I wonder if once this is worked on a bit more and refined to the point there could be expanded into a single universal exploit, or if its always going to be a 10 different versions setup, I hadn't thought about that fact, if each build would only work on 1 specific player version that kills the mastered repros idea

About that

Decided to try to merge support for 3.10 and 3.11 (all regions) into a single hybrid ISO and managed to get it to work! Looks like it _might_ be possible to make a single unified disc for all firmwares after all :)https://t.co/RhOoSplGLJ

— CTurt (@CTurtE) June 29, 2020

 

[gamesquest1]

I guess you could still do it if the repros were "made to order", but that's extra steps. You're right, it would have to be universal.

yeah plus the cost would be a lot more if they had to make 10 different batches of each game, from what I understand of the exploit it would be fairly difficult to have all the different players exploited with a single exploit setup, maybe the best you could hope for is having a few that are similar enough to each other that the majority of them might get bundled, but I would imagine a few exotic player versions that completely change how the exploit plays out and needs its own version

About that
https://twitter.com/CTurtE/status/1277664806523285504

lol, just as I was writing the post above, nice to see its possible to at least merge some of them, fingers crossed it gets to a point where all of them are covered or at least most of the common versions

 

[kristianity77]

Out of curiosity how is this free mcboot thing this days, has it ever been updated on say the last ten years? I tried it once and found compatibility to be a bit spotty. I remember the getaway not streaming assets in properly, tiger woods not playing sound etc.

I would actually buy another PS2 if someone came out with a dvd drive emu thing like they have for other old consoles.

 

[Valery0p]

Even if it's not possible to make an automatic-boot all version disc, Cturt suggested using the interactive video menus to select a different video file(and so a different loader) for your respective version

 

[DJPlace]

i wonder if my old ESR burned games would work on this setup it's a shame you can't do out of region games sadly.... and CD games also (i wonder if making a CD game to ISO would work)

 

[Deleted User]

have to wonder if some sneaky sneakies will start churning out repro PS2 games in china utilising this exploit to create mastered copies of the really expensive titles like rule of rose in the hopes of passing them off as genuine games

while there isn't too many expensive games for the PS2, it does open the door to things like repro's of expensive games popping up like they do with NES/SNES games

Well, now that the idea is out there, they will.

 

[gamesquest1]

Well, now that the idea is out there, they will.

its a pretty obvious idea, I remember having a mate in school who bought printable black backed CD-R's and tried to pass them off as genuine PS1 games to a shop, pretty sure he did a few times too.....or at least he claimed he did even though they wouldn't have booted in a none chipped console, once you have games that will boot in a unmodded console the next logical leap for repro-makers etc is to try pass them off as genuine

now if the PS1 gets a similar exploit you wouldn't even need to worry about the little PS logo that appear on the PS2 DVD's

 

[HaloEffect17]

Can you run games off a usb using this method?