In a world where games preservation is a constant struggle and older systems are abandoned in favor of the new, it’s surely something to celebrate when we see a company maintaining support for its age-old devices. So hooray for Sony, which just rolled out an update for the 20-year-old PlayStation 3? Well, it’s more complicated than that. Because this is a move that both aids and prevents preservation at the same time.
As spotted by PlayStation Lifestyle, PS3 system software update 4.93 was rolled out this morning, updating the 2006 machine for the first time in exactly a year. The patch notes, as has been the case for the last four years running, read in their entirety:
“This system software update improves system performance.”
Which sounds like a good thing, right? How splendid that Sony would want to keep the two-decade-old PS3 in working order, despite currently developing the PS6. Except this is actually a bit of a secret code. This will, in fact, most likely be an update for the encryption keys for its Blu Ray drive, which is designed to both ensure Blu-ray discs continue to work in the machine, but also to break mods for those who have jailbroken their ancient consoles. If the update is installed, all those who’ve committed terrible crimes will find that firmware exploits will stop working, and it could even brick your device. The modders will eventually catch up and roll out their own 4.93 versions, but in the meantime so-called “CFW” (the initialism for custom firmware) will need to stay on 4.92. For those with unmodded machines, however, this is positive news as it keeps your physical game library working.
Jailbroken
Jailbreaking consoles is, of course, a violation of the EULAs people sort-of agree to when using a console (the legality of EULAs remains very dubious, and is mostly untested in courts). While people like to use terms like “homebrew” when rationalizing hacking a console (one of the most popular pseudo-CFWs for the PS3 is “PS3HEN,” short for “PlayStation 3 Homebrew Edition”), this is most often a euphemism for playing “pirated” games, or “back-up games” as the community likes to term them.
When it comes to current consoles, this is more unambiguously problematic for the likes of Sony and Nintendo, given it allows people to download and play new games without paying for them. However, when it comes to a system released a fifth of a century ago, for which games are no longer manufactured nor sold as new, it enters a very different moral territory.
On the one hand, it’s fantastic that Sony ensures the Blu-ray encryption keys stay up-to-date to prevent your physical media becoming useless. On the other, it makes it far harder to maintain access to games that are no longer for sale and hard to source as physical copies. Which Sony cares more about is your guess.
Of course, the need for the Blu-ray updates is caused by anti-piracy measures in the first place. The AACS keys are designed to expire such that encryption hacks stop working for new media, meaning those who have meddled will no longer be able to play new games or watch new movies in the drives. This is a constant game of cat and mouse, as the modders quickly update their tools to crack the latest encryption keys, but the logic is that it slows things down and puts people off using the exploits. This, again, makes corporate sense for new devices, but feels perhaps somewhat vindictive when applied to otherwise long-abandoned ones.
In my ideal world, such DRM systems would be entirely patched out after a sensible amount of time, such that games no one can make money from either way are made easily accessible for future generations. In the meantime, at least this way you can keep playing your physical PS3 games on the device they were made for.