Xbox 360 closer to homebrew? PS3 exploited?

James Delahunty
1 Jan 2007 5:53

The title of this article touched on two questions that have caused a stir in the last few days. To begin, we'll take a look at a video that can be seen on YouTube that apparently shows an Xbox 360 exploited into running code (specifically a Linux coming soon message) while running Peter Jackson's King Kong. The video has got a mixed reception from the community; some believe it is real, some believe it is just another bluff.
Those who doubt it point out that it could simply be a custom modified shader created to give the illusion that there was a discovered exploit to run homebrew code. This is possible since hackers found that the vector shaders in the King Kong demo on the Kiosk Disc could be modified (also on the final game).
However, this was shown at the Chaos Communication Congress, an annual meeting of the international hacker scene, organized by the well known Chaos Computer Club. It was shown during one of the "Lightning Talks", a daily event that consists of one hour of several short (limited to 5mins) talks.
Here is the video...

As proof that this was actually shown at 23C3, you can check out this link. Under "Day 4 - December 30th" is "Console Hacking Suprise (XBox360)", with the description "The XBox360 was live hacked in front of the audience - running Linux and Mac OS coming soon. Stay tuned - a Linux kernel is already booting.."
You can also download the 560MB WMV video of the complete Lightning Talks Day4 presentation from this link.
PS3 Exploited?
This is older news and no doubt the PS3 enthusiasts here have already read about it and discussed it. We reported that PS3 games can be dumped and that titles are already available on BitTorrent sites and on Usenet. In the NFO file for the release MotorStorm_JAP_PS3-PARADOX, there were some interesting notes made by PDX.

| cOMPANY : SCEI | rELEASE DATE : 27 Dec 2006 |
| sYSTEM : PlayStation 3 | sIZE : 120 x 100mb |
| tYPE : Racing | vIDEO MODE : NTSC/JAP |
| sUPPLIER : Huey Lewis | cRACKER : Wireless B/G? |
| mEDIA : Blu-Ray | pLAYABLE : Yes they are ;-)|

The important part to see here is the "pLAYABLE : Yes they are ;-)" claim but even more interesting is a further hint that was given...

| sPECIAL nOTE: |
| |
| Happy new year to all members who helped in the past and present! |
| And a question to all, is there a bug in the system software from |
| the playStation 3(R) Yes there is ;-) Nothing to add more.. |

It will be interesting to see what comes of this.
Another item that we forgot to mention over the holidays is the unlocking of the PSX emulator on the PlayStation Portable by using the 3.02 OEB custom firmware from Dark_Alex. The custom firmware allows for games that are not available at the PlayStation store to be played and the "Popstation" utility easily converts PSX game ISOs to a proper Eboot for the PSP system. I felt like, even though this is old news and there are quite a lot of threads in our forums about it, it had to be mentioned. For the record, I have been thoroughly enjoying it.
If I missed any further updates or bigger developments, my apologies. Happy New Year.