How to keep a console on 9.00

[asdfmann]

I want to buy a PS4 Pro from ebay that is still on 9.00 to get the newly discovered homebrew support. I asked a couple of sellers about the firmware version and they all told me, it'll get updated to the newest version after a wipe, no matter what.

Is this true and if yes, is there a reliable way to avoid it?
What instructions do I need to give to an ebay seller, so he can have his privacy by wiping the console, and I get the firmware version that I need?

 

[godreborn]

that is untrue if you use the recovery pup.

 

[Hayato213]

As long you don't update it to 9.03 or above then it would stay at 9.00. You can either reinitialize the system or do a full wipe via 9.00 recovery.pup

 

[asdfmann]

So that I understand you correctly: If the seller just uses the menu like so
Settings -> Initialization -> Initialize PS4
the firmware will not be updated?

Does the "recovery pup" mean the PS4UPDATE.PUP for the intended version (here 9.00), or is it something else?

 

[Hayato213]

So that I understand you correctly: If the seller just uses the menu like so
Settings -> Initialization -> Initialize PS4
the firmware will not be updated.

Does the "recovery pup" mean the PS4UPDATE.PUP for the intended version (here 9.00), or is it something else?

Yes firmware won't be updated if you initialize the ps4, as for the recovery firmware they are about 1GB in term of size, standard update firmware are about 450MB

 

[asdfmann]

Looks like the people I contacted got it wrong then. I was a bit worried there. So I'm just going to ask them not to update and that's that.

Thank you for the clarification :3