Reports are emerging that the PlayStation 3 has been hacked once again in the form of a successor to the original PSJailbreak, dubbed "JB2".

Similar to the first hack, JB2 apparently takes the form of a USB dongle that plugs directly into the PS3 and compromises the system on power-up. Videos released so far of the device in action appear to show an extended boot -up period before the XMB finally appears, featuring a number of options only available to developer consoles, allowing for the installation of unsigned code.

The hack is curious in that unlike the older Jailbreaks, newer games cannot be run from the hard drive: instead, burned Blu-ray discs are used instead with the PS3 appearing to recognise them as legitimate pressed games. Older titles that pre-date the 3.60 update that locked out current piracy methods allegedly work from the hard drive as normal. This opens up the unpalatable suggestion that not only will the makers of JB2 make money from selling the dongles, but a black market of burned software could also emerge. Alternatively, it may simply mean that a debug console - which can work with BD-R discs - was used to create a fabricated video.

According to sources, the dongle has undergone a small launch in Indonesia ahead of a global roll-out, with a small range of pirate games including titles like PES 2012, Driver: San Francisco, God of War Collection Volume II and FIFA 12 being made available. The notion of limited titles being available may suggest that the games are being reverse-engineered, and that only some games may work with the new hack. Alternatively, the makers may simply be releasing the latest games first in order to maximise revenues with the small window of opportunity available before Sony legal gets on the case.

Previous "custom firmwares" could allow for the modification of game code and assets, allowing for an unfair advantage for cheats accessing the PlayStation Network. Although it appears to run new games, JB2 is apparently based on the same 3.55 firmware as older hacks, so there's a very strong possibility that PSN access will remain off limits for those running pirate software.

It's still unconfirmed beyond all doubt whether JB2 is the real deal or not. However, the evidence piling up over the last 24 hours does suggest that Sony's successful anti-piracy measures - which kicked off with the release of Portal 2 and the 3.60 firmware just over six months ago - may have finally been overcome.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-playstation3-hacked-again

Sony, after nearly two years on standing firm on PS3's price, dropped the console to $249, and it's been having an immediate impact. GameStop has already noted a 'significant' increase in PS3 sales, while big box retailer Target confirmed an 'immediate lift' in sales and recommended PS3 as a 'great option' for its customers. Not only that, but leading e-tailer Amazon saw PS3 sales explode by 400% in the days after the price cut. All told, in the months ahead, analysts are expecting Sony to see as much as a 30% sales bump for PS3 this holiday season."

http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/08/19/0457219/PS3-Enjoys-Retail-Wide-Sales-Spike-After-Price-Cut

Sony announced a global PlayStation 3 price cut at GamesCom on Tuesday so there's never been a better time to pick up the console. But before you excitedly shuffle off to your local store or online retailer of choice, take a few moments to check out our round-up of the best deals available right now.

Play.com has the 120GB and 160GB versions of the console on their own for £185.99 and 189.99 respectively. But your best bet is probably one of its bundles. For £234.99 you can pick up the 320GB console along with the PlayStation Move: Starter Pack. Or for the same price, you can choose the console with Uncharted 2 and Killzone 3, or Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time and ModNation Racers.

GAME has also put together a few pretty good bundles for in-store pick-up. The PS3 320GB with Ferrari Challenge, FIFA 11 and either Infamous 2, Killzone 3 or Motorstorm will set you back £249.99. If that doesn't win you over you can pick up a 160GB Slim for £179.99 when purchasing any new or pre-owned game or opt for a 320GB Slim for £229.99 when buying a new or pre-owned title. Trade in an original PS3 you'll get £100 trade-in credit towards a new Slim model.

Amazon has three pretty good bundles on offer. A 320GB console with inFamous 2, Virtua Tennis 4 or LittleBigPlanet 2 is priced at £215.20.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/316060/ps3-slim-wheres-cheapest-following-price-cut/

You could use PlayStation Vita as a controller for PS3 games, Sony has revealed.

This Wii U-like capability was explained by Sony Europe R&D manager Phil Rogers at the Develop Conference 2011.

"What could you do with all of this?" Rogers asked a room of developers and Eurogamer. "Here's a few boring technical ideas: you could drive a display from a PS3 game, for example.

"PS3 can send data down to Vita and Vita can display it. You could use the unique features [of Vita] - gyroscope, touch front and back - as a control device for a PS3 game.

"You can run software on both devices and use the network to sync the game states. And that's pretty good, because you then have the processing power of PS3 doing that work, Vita [doing] fancy graphics - however you want to do it. You're not sacrificing the PS3's CPU to be able to have a rich experience on Vita."

Rogers said this was "a fairly new idea", and encouraged developers to talk to Sony if they have any ideas for it. "Most of the time we'll be OK with it," he said.

Another thing Vita can do is cross-platform play. This was demonstrated with WipEout 2048 on Vita talking to a bespoke compatible build of WipEout HD on PS3. The two games connected via PSN and, after a lengthy wait for the Vita version to load, worked together seamlessly. The PS3 version had a visibly higher frame-rate and was the better looking of the two games, although the difference at a glance was minimal.

Rogers mentioned that pool game Hustle Kings will also support cross-platform play. He also confirmed Vita Remote Play support for platform launch, whenever that will be.

"At launch we're going to have some PSN features that work across both platforms."
Phil Rogers, manager, Sony Europe R&D
"At launch we're going to have some PSN features that work across both platforms," said Rogers. "You could access data on each side and access scoreboards, for example. We're building on that.

"Obviously we had to bring certain things on and make sure that servers work against all the features and it doesn't break the PS3 experience, because there's a lot of PS3 users.

"For launch we'll also have Remote Play, which does look good on Vita - I saw an early version of it running recently."

Remote Play allows the Vita to receive encoded video output in real-time from PS3.

One of the more ambitious and alluring PS Vita capabilities is called Continuation Play. This allows a PS3 game to be played and then taken on the move on PS Vita.

"We have a system called Title User Storage, which allows 1MB of data on our servers for games," explained Rogers. "And that can be accessed on both platforms; you can access that same data.

"You can save your game on PS3, go over to Vita, pull that data back and swap it between them, so you can play a game at home, take it on the train and continue."

"You can save your game on PS3, go over to Vita, pull that data back and ... take it on the train and continue."
Phil Rogers
Rogers said Ruin, a Diablo-like action RPG, was the only announced PS Vita game that currently uses Continuation Play. "But there's probably a few that we've seen via the support site that we can't talk about," he teased.

"The feature is there," he added. "We've told developers that you can use Title User Storage to push the game data across."

The connection between PS Vita and PS3 will be handled via Wi-Fi and through the PlayStation Network.

"The important thing to note, and people always forget this, is that the Network exists; you don't need fancy cables, you don't need to have that there," said Rogers. "You're connected over an access point; send IP to each other - it just works.

"We did support USB, but [there's] not really much more point for that - wireless is fairly decent."

Further down the line, Rogers said developers will be able to retroactively patch-in support for Vita in existing PS3 games.

He also said Sony was making a concerted effort to encourage developers to use these new ideas arriving with PlayStation Vita.

"There's a push from our third-party team for encouraging licensees to be having those features [cross-platform, continuation play] in game," he said.

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A been a while since we heard anything about a Nintendo DS Emulator for the PS3 but an anonymous developer has provided PSX-SCENE with an early build and here is your EXCLUSIVE look!



It is running very smoothly. I loaded up some games and they all played fine with the exception of the sound, which is not working in the current build.

Sorry for the short video. The noise in the background is my fan, as it really hot here these days, but it was not easy holding my 7" Samsung Galaxy Tab in my hand, while using the PS3 Controller on my lap.

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PSHax member - Pirate had finished his water-cooled notebook PS3 mod. He replace the heatsinks water-cooling. It had a built-in keyboard and speakers, a 500GB hard drive, and a 720p / 1080i screen. Pirate's put it on eBay for $1,500.

Well after 3 years of working on it, I am finally ready to unveil my second PS3 portable which I am titling “Pirate’s PS3 Water-cooled Portable/Laptop”. As the name suggests this is a water-cooled PS3 in a portable form, fully equipped with its own reservoir, pump and radiator.

Features in this portable include:

* Water cooled with easy accessible reservoir
* HD: 720p/1080i screen (via HDMI)
* 4x USB
* 500 gb HDD
* External PSU
* Built in keyboard
* Built in speakers with volume controls with 2.5mm headphone jack.
* The stock PS3 was a 40gb SKU (there was no PS3 slim when I started the project).
* Dimensions are 16.75”x13”x2.5” (16.75”x13”x3.5”with lid closed)
* Weighs ~15lbs.

The case was all constructed from scratch. It features an aluminum base plate, and the rest of the material used was sintra/komatex. The case was routed via CNC machines with designs created in Adobe Illustrator.

The questions some of you may be asking why water-cool the PS3? The reason for water-cooling the system was to redesign the cooling to fit in a small case (which is significantly thinner than previous portable I made). Water-cooling the PS3 allowed me to get rid of the clunky heatsinks which was responsible for cooling stock PS3s. Only 4x40mm fans were used in cooling the entire system.

Another question I often get is why does a PS3 game/CD go backwards? That is because it was the only way to get the drive to fit inside the case without having to manually extend the PS3 bluray cable/ribbon.

I did not follow any tutorial when creating this, nor will I be providing one – it was done all for fun, and experimentation (why is why it took so long -.-). For those interested you can check out my work log of this project HERE. Also a shout out to the members at Overclock.net for helping me find many of the components, research and techniques I used to make this project possible. If you’re interested in tackling a project such as this feel free to ask on the forums and I will be more than glad to guide you in the right direction.

This PS3 Laptop/Portable is on sale at eBay, so if you’re interested, there’s a link below to the bidding. If you wish to buy it now, contact me through the forums (here) and we can talk from there :) . A percentage of the funds (minus costs) will proceed to relief efforts for the Joplin, Missouri tornado and rest will go to server/renovations to PS3Hax.net

Thanks for looking, let me know what you guys think

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The first game in the series is Capcom's Monster Hunter Portable 3rd HD, which will be available in summer. The remastered version will incluide a collection of opening movies and promotional videos for the Monster Hunter series.

Sony announced the PSP Remaster series for PS3, selected PSP titles will be remastered with full HD visuals, along with Dual Shock 3 support, exclusive contents, Ad-hoc party, stereoscopic support and other features. The PSP and PS3 versions of the same game can also share save data, this allows player to play on the PSP outside and continue playing on the PS3 in HD at home. The first game in the series is Capcom's Monster Hunter Portable 3rd HD, which will be available in summer.

Jailbreak PS3 3.61 is a file manager that will allow game play of homebrew PS3 games and as well for game backup into the system hard drive without the need of having the game disc. Jailbreak ps3 3.61 will bypass the security check using a exploit which occurs with USB devices that allows the execution of certain codes breaking the barrier. So when you learn how to jailbreak PS3 3.61 which is one of the most popular homebrew used, it will allow you to save and then execute any games from your hard drive. Thanks to how to jailbreak PS3 3.61, it can also execute applications that are based to run in a native mode.


How to Jailbreak PS3 3.61 For Free - PS3... by GamesToday

Anyone looking for a USB PS3 jailbreaking device can order it from here.

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Here it is folks, courtesy of graf chokolo and Geoffrey Levand comes the PS3 Dual Boot GameOS/Linux Custom Firmware which allows users to dual boot on both the GameOS and OtherOS (Linux).



Note: Currently to start OtherOS. boot_otheros.pkg then reboot.pkg and that will load petitboot. Slim users (Version 1.0-r0) you must unload the slim usb drivers in order to boot.

ps3mfw/tasks/patch_profile.tcl is to be considered unstable and should not be used at this time.

Firmwares:

PS3 Dual Boot GameOS/Linux CFW 3.41 (md5 9b439b04c4c0b841ae50c3af18bb584d)
PS3 Dual Boot GameOS/Linux CFW 3.50 (md5 74b4291615ceb394e0d64078d775a93d)
PS3 Dual Boot GameOS/Linux CFW 3.55 (md5 fac423010dc8e20030f28145a42627fb)

Firmware Mirrors: (If the above links are overloaded)

PS3 Dual Boot GameOS/Linux CFW 3.41 (md5 9b439b04c4c0b841ae50c3af18bb584d)
PS3 Dual Boot GameOS/Linux CFW 3.50 (md5 74b4291615ceb394e0d64078d775a93d)
PS3 Dual Boot GameOS/Linux CFW 3.55 (md5 fac423010dc8e20030f28145a42627fb)

Tools:

create_vflash5.pkg (md5 d76700a04cd58b29970d752b73dc6a0d)
create_vflash6.pkg (md5 4ccea493c87299c3fe75ec3b093091f8)
create_vflash7.pkg (md5 78e432917ed972c415b3a0a703f4acaf)
delete_vflash5.pkg (md5 83f32c6fdf9d532c2a8203bce3852e86)
delete_vflash6.pkg (md5 573b587f04d21d40837688c39c8587bd)
delete_vflash7.pkg (md5 8366318a4fafbd769bc9df0b6e528ea1)
resize_vflash.pkg (md5 9a5cb0bcd819788749d2926111df6870)
install_otheros.pkg (md5 9e5e79fa0450e34071223c40c34a8e8a)
boot_gameos.pkg (md5 7377d1c89f4f67957cafe18a2e58d006)
boot_otheros.pkg (md5 bf425926d3d55ab59828d5b6c2a2c333)
reboot.pkg (md5 450fba966321445ec50360b21b9fa99b)
dtbImage.ps3.bin (md5 761faa303c97d1801a9ecceb472321d0)
boot_linux.sh (md5 6d00a46cd5586042c59c51f1f98e31f9)

All tools beep twice if they succeed !!!

Source code for all tools and patches is freely available. Create your own dual boot.
git.gitbrew.org/ps3/

Features:

• Into HV integrated OtherOS bootloader loader (compatible with OtherOS bootloader on 3.15)
• OtherOS bootloader is booted directly from HV, no GameOS is involved.
• Process of booting OtherOS bootloader loader is very similar to 3.15 method
• Booting Linux from HDD/USB/BD/Network
• Linux with GameOS rights
• Full access to all HV SS services (Dispatcher Manager) from GameOS or Linux
• Full access to all System Manager services
• Ability to create/modify/remove repository nodes in LPAR 1 (e.g. with ps3dm-utils or ps3hvc-utils).
  This ability gives you much power over the whole system because many layers of PS3 use repository nodes to exchange information.
• Enabled QA mode in Update Manager
• Downgrading without USB dongle or Service Mode
• Ability to deactivate/activate HDD/VFLASH encryption (e.g. with ps3stor-utils)
• Support for ps3-utils. You can flash new OtherOS bootloader from Linux e.g.

Notes:

• Tested 3.41 and 3.55 on PS3 Slim with Gentoo and Debian Squeeze but should work on PS3 Fat without problems
• Bug reports are welcome, send it please to geoffrey.levand@mail.ru

Work in progress:

• Creating OtherOS partitions directly on HDD (not VFLASH)
• Permanently disabling HDD/VFLASH encryption
• Mapping of HTAB with R/W permission
• SYSCON access from LPAR 2
• FreeBSD support

Installing OtherOS bootloader

• Tested ONLY on PS3 models with VFLASH
• During deleting of VFLASH regions GameOS will ask you to reinstall firmware, don't do it, just press PS3 button and continue
• I use petitboot as OtherOS bootloader. You could use a different one.
• The following order of steps is important
• Delete VFLASH region 6
• Delete VFLASH region 5
• Create VFLASH region 5
• Create VFLASH region 6
• Install OtherOS bootloader on VFLASH with "Install OtherOS"

Booting OtherOS bootloader

• Run "Boot OtherOS"
• Reboot GameOS with "Reboot"

Creating a VFLASH partition for Linux

Notes:

• Works ONLY on PS3 models with VFLASH
• Warning: All your HDD data will be lost, so make a backup
• I'm currently working on a solution for PS3 models with NAND flash
• Resize VFLASH (creates a 40GB free space on VFLASH, if you need more then feel free to recompile it)
• Reboot GameOS
• Create VFLASH region 7

Installing Linux with petitboot

Installing Gentoo GNU/Linux from a Unix/Linux System

Partitioning with fdisk

Notes:

• I used petitboot to install Debian and Gentoo on VFLASH
• I used fdisk to partition ps3vflashh
• Make sure you create a swap partition
• Creating a ready to use Linux distribution images is a work in progress

Booting Linux with petitboot

Notes:

• USB driver in petitboot has problems on PS3 Slim. The problem lies in Linux USB driver.
• Currently i'm trying to fix this problem in Linux kernel
• I temporarily use my boot_linux.sh script to boot a Linux installed on VFLASH from petitboot

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The PSN is down, all accounts got dumped by an anonymous hacker and the community is cryin' for answers. 77 million accounts with password and sometimes CC info are worth a lot in several hack chans. This is a very huge case.

Now SONY engaged an external security company to discover the holes in SONY's system and find answers. As I was wondering if there may be some information about the actual case we can find out publically, I researched a bit myself.

One interesting point I found is a not secured access log of a PSN environment.
You will quickly notice the IP 214.1.211.251, which sends requests like a vulnerability scanner.
The IP points to the DoD Network Information Center, based in Ohio USA.

The first log entry of this IP is [03/Mar/2011:07:10:38 -0800]. As the DoD is knows as beeing easy to hack, the anonymous hacker could have used this as proxy.

Maybe SONY might want to take a look at this IP, I hope soon we get some news and details about the case...

- SKFU

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According to PSX-Scene former moderator, "chesh," the now six-day-long PlayStation Network outage is the result of a particularly exploitative custom firmware (CFW) modification for PS3. In a post on Reddit, chesh claims that a CFW known as "Codename: Rebug" had given its users the ability to log into PSN as if they were doing so from a developer console (or "debug unit").

As a result, chesh contends, this same exploit allowed its users to add funds from "dummy" credit card accounts into their PSN wallets, ostensibly giving them the ability to "unlock" (read: steal) certain PlayStation Store content. Joystiq's research into the purported exploit has turned up multiple tutorials detailing the process, which appears alarmingly easy to execute on consoles running the Rebug CFW.

The hack does not allow its users to access the credit card or other personal information of PSN users, chesh adds. Nevertheless, as we reported earlier today, Sony is working to rule out information theft as part of its investigation during the maintenance outage in which the company is also implementing new security measures.

Sony has not yet responded to our request for comment on this story.

Source

Sony Computer Entertainment and George Hotz have settled their hacking legal dispute, according to a joint statement.
Sony had been taking legal action against Hotz for publishing and distributing security circumvention for the PlayStation 3.
Hotz has now consented to a permanent injunction and said that "it was never my intention to cause any users trouble or to make piracy easier. I'm happy to have the litigation behind me." He added that he is not involved in any of the recent attacks on Sony websites and services.
Those attacks are from a loose collective of hackers linked to Anonymous - the settlement between Hotz and Sony was agreed in principle on March 31, days before Anonymous threatened Sony for its legal actions against Hotz and other notorious hackers.
Said Riley Russell, general counsel for SCEA: "Our motivation for bringing this litigation was to protect our intellectual property and our consumers. We believe this settlement and the permanent injunction achieve this goal."
Despite a press release focused on cooperation, Hotz has now said he is boycotting all Sony products in the future.
Sony has not revealed any details of its pursuit of hacking group fail0verflow, which it was also taking legal action against at the same time as George Hotz.

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Awesome hack job by Shantanu. He gather all open source kinect related project and make used of the available DIY PS3 Controller with recent PS3 Hacks. Even it still early work, still awesome work to make kinect cross over the various platform.

This post describes my first attempt at making Kinect work with a PS3. Microsoft’s new XBOX 360 accessory, kinect has made a powerful entry into the market, becoming the fastest selling gadget of all time. Looks like their “You are the controller” tagline is working. Of course, Sony’s “similar” accessory Move is selling well too but is far behind kinect adoption probably because nothing beats the lure of making something work with just “The Force” ;) .

Now, of course, kinect doesn’t work with PS3 obviously but then if we can’t break the rules, we can at least bend them a little towards our way. I’ve created a mashup that allows you to use kinect as an input controller for the PS3.

Please note that this is pre-alpha quality software currently. I haven’t updated to a lot of recent code for the below libraries and also haven’t done most of the performance/feature improvements yet. The axis performance specially needs lot of tweaking and it works well only while sitting. Putting this out purely as a proof of concept. For the things that I plan to add soon, please see the Todo section below. Follow me at @shantanugoel for latest updates.

Demo Video:


The program makes use of several other programs in order to provide this functionality. To compile/use it, you also need the following programs:

1. OpenNI Libraries – To get data from kinect

2. NITE Libraries (Choose “Middleware” on the page) – Builds on top of OpenNI to provide gesture detection etc

3. PrimeSense Libraries for kinect – Kinect drivers to get raw data

4. DIYPS3Controller – The main component for PS3 connection and also known as sixaxis emulator. This emulates a DS3 on the PC and send the inputs to PS3 through bluetooth.

Installation/Compilation/Usage

1. Make sure that the above 4 things are installed on your machine and working fine.

2. Download the source of this project to the NITE Samples directory. You can even place it anywhere else but you would need to tweak the makefile to account for the changed paths.

3. Make any changes to the source that you need.

4. Change the included ps3 controller config xml file and place it in one of the locations where diyps3controller can find it.

5. Run make -f kinect-ps3.mak

6. The executable will be available in Samples/Bin directory of NITE.

7. Run kinect-ps3 (without any arguments)

8. Run emuclient (from ps3 controller software) and choose the new xml config file

9. “Become the controller” :)
Default Config:

Menu Profile – This is the default profile that kinect-ps3 starts with and allows to operate the PS3 menus. Moving hand in any direction will move the ps3 menus as if you were using the DPAD with those directions keys pressed. If you run out of the kinect’s watched space, then just do a backward push with your hand, bring your hand to center and then again do the backward push and continue scrolling. This is like you lift your finger up and then start dragging from edges of a laptop’s touchpad.For selecting any item, make two successive push movements with your hand without changing any x-y direction.
Game Profile – This profile can be switched to by doing 3 successive backward movements of the hand while in Menu profile. Right now I’ve implemented only directional controls in game profile because I’m still struggling with multiple hands detections and skeletal tracking. A full profile will be activated soon enough. Currently, the your hand’s x/y movements and directly translated to right stick x/y movements (e.g. this is looking in different directions in various FPS games). Moving the hand towards or away from kinect (z-axis) translate to left stick y movements (e.g. this is moving fowards or backwards in most FPS games).
Issues/Queries/Suggestions

Please direct them to me by commenting here or emailing me at shantanu AT shantanugoel DOT com

Coming Soon/ToDo

-Full Menu and Game profiles

- Skeletal tracking for better game profiles

- Switching back to menu profiles from game profiles

- Easier way to specify user custom profiles instead of changing code for the same

- Performance improvement for game profiles

Full source code of the project has been released at https://github.com/shantanugoel/Kinect-PS3 under GNU GPL v2.

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PS3 usercheat(CHT dongle)is the latest product released by official PS3 break team.It is the first dongle which supports PS3 game roms and PS3 AR cheat perfectly,With PS3 usercheat, it is no necessary to buy the expensive genuine blu-ray game CD, you just need some free game roms.Because of its special effects, you are unbeaten in the games.

Features

1, support game rom without the genuine blu-ray game CD.
2, support AR cheat function, perfect effects include "infinite energy, the strongest equipment, never game over"
3, 100% upgradeable, Compatible with all PS3 models – Fat and Slim.
4, Onboard SLC NANDFLASH Memory of 128MB. 5, High speed 32 bit CPU processor clocked at 500MHz
6, fully updatable via USB on your Windows PC using a very simple and intuitive process.
7, A microSDHC slot is inbuilt which supports up to 32GB for future expansion.
8, regularly updated to provide our users with the latest features at no extra cost.
9, Simple step-by-step guide available on the site will show you how to use and install CHT dongle and our support team will assist you with any problems you may encounter along the way.
10, Easy-to-use software for backing up, managing, and playing games from external USB Hard Drive or the internal Hard Drive your PS3.
11, Playing games from HDD gives you loads of benefits, including faster loading times and reduced strain on the lens of the Bluray drive of your PS3.



PS3 usercheat FAQ

Q1:Is CHT dongle easy to install?
A1:Installs in seconds without the need of opening up your PS3.

Q2: How to use CHT dongle?
A2: When CHT Dongle working properly, dongle built-in program named "Code Manager" will guide you to start the game.

Q3: CHT dongle support upgrades？
A3:100% Upgradeable，Compatible with all PS3 models – Fat and Slim.

Q4: What is the warranty?
A4:PS3break is sold with 1 year warranty. All our resellers will take care of warranty issues.



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