Re-discovering the PS3

Posted by Evan Rodgers on November 1, 2011 11:28 am 8

The PS3, at least in my experience, currently resides in second place compared to the Xbox 360. As such, I believe it very likely that you, sexy and insightful reader, have a 360 sitting and home and not a PS3. Both the PS3 and the Xbox 360 aspire to be more than just a console, but one can do much better than the other with just a little help.

It's time to give the PS3 another look.

I'm sure that most of you are well aware that the PS3 has been hacked. You were there for the month long Sony vs. Hackers battle of internet lore. However, you might not be fully aware of how functional a hacked PS3 is for activities not related to piracy.

So here is what you can do:

 

1. Play your favorite retro games (Including but not limited to: NES, SNES, Genesis, Turbographics, etc)
2. Have a kick ass media center using Showtime.
3. Backup your library of legitimate games to your HDD using MultiMan.
4. Use MultiMan as a visually pleasing front end to your emulator/rom collection.
5. Play a blossoming library of homebrew games.

 

Requirements:

 

1. A PS3 with firmware older than 3.55 (Check craigslist, the pawn shop, and eBay)
2. A flash drive of 256mb or greater.
3. One hour.

It is illegal to download modified versions Sony's firmware (filetype: *.pup) so you will have modify a copy of the original 3.55 firmware. Go here and download the included patch, then read the readme. The result will be a modified firmware file. If you are on a firmware below 3.55, you can simply upgrade using this file. If you are running 3.55, you will have to drop into recovery (search google) and "update" to this modified firmware.
After that, head over to your favorite PS3 scene website and pick up some emulators, Showtime, MultiMan, and possibly look into installing PS3 Media Server for some serious HTPC competition. Download those *.pkg files, put them on the root of a flash drive, install using "Install Packages" on your CFW PS3, and go to town!