Recently there were claims that a new jailbreak dongle could crack the PS3, allowing it to play burned games as well as load unsigned code. On Wednesday, the official name of that dongle and the specifications of exactly what it can do were released. The device is named "True Blue" and it appears it can do exactly what was advertised, if the right conditions are met.
True Blue was originally coined JB2 because it was the second iteration of the original PS3 jailbreak. Sony squashed the original crack relatively quickly by requiring firmware version 3.60 or higher for newly released games to run. The original hack would only work on firmware version 3.55, so all newly released games just wouldn't boot up with the jailbreak in place. True Blue fixes that problem. The solution still requires firmware version 3.55 but it can run games that were released after firmware 3.60. Originally, many questioned whether the new dongle was real and if it actually worked.
The official specs of True Blue were laid out in a forum post on PS3crunch.net and it appears to work as advertised. The post states,
'True Blue' features:
- Booting of games from v3.6+ (up to v3.73) from special BD-R discs available from official resellers
- Runs games up to v3.56 from HDD in conjunction with 'backup managers'
- Does not require the Power/Eject trick
- Custom v3.55 Dongle firmware behaves like OFW when 'True Blue' is not inserted
- Manufactured from highest grade components and Actel based
- Durable and high quality metal case design
- Tough and durable plastic packaging
- Further features to be added as they are developed
- On board 2 MBytes SPI flash
- Supports Fat and Slim consoles currently running any firmware up to v3.55
- And any PS3 which can be downgraded from v3.6+ to v3.55 (NOTE: Requires other tools,'True Blue' currently can't downgrade a Console)
- Supports all regions of consoles
- Supports all regions of ISO’s to be released
- Rock solid crystal oscillator on board for flawless timing
The 'True Blue' dongle allows booting of the latest the ISO’s (3.6+) from special BD-R discs which can be purchased from all official resellers.
The discs can be burned by any BD-R recorder and there are no special requirements on either PC or BD burner types.
Whilst we can disclose that the discs are specially manufactured to allow booting of the latest ISO’s, further technical information on the way by which the BD-R discs can allow booting cannot be provided, for obvious reasons."
One interesting note in that information dump is the fact that True Blue can't downgrade a console to 3.55, currently. This implies that perhaps there is something in the works that will allow the system to do the firmware downgrade, which would make this solution even more valuable and easy to use.
The biggest takeaway from this release is the confirmation that if a game requires firmware 3.60 or higher to run, then you'll have to burn it to a special BD-R disc. The post clarifies that the discs being sold do not have pirated games burned onto them, they are simply specially formatted disks that contain whatever information True Blue needs to work its PS3 hacking magic.
The post also details that there are quite a few games that will work on this system and that the official list of those games would be released as soon as verification can be performed. Originally, only five games were claimed to work with the dongle.
A price for True Blue was not confirmed, nor were any details about where to obtain the dongle (currently only available in small Indonesian mod shops). One would imagine that kind of information will come quickly along with a list of supported games. The biggest question is how will Sony react to this news? Until now the company has stayed silent about this crack, but if this makes its way to major markets and supports a large number of games, Sony is going to be forced to find a way to fight this crack just like they did with the original PS3 jailbreak.
