Hackers play Pokemon and run Linux on jailbroken PlayaStation 4

Although PC's and consoles share a similarity in hardware, consoles are much more closed off and limited to first-party firmware. Today marks a possible end to these restrictions, as hackers have finally jailbroken Sony's PlayStation 4 console.

As you see in the video above, the skilled homebrewers at Fail0verflow successfully ported Linux over on the PS4, which pretty much opens the door to Sony's console transforming into a full-fledged PC. The hackers further demonstrated the flexibility of the exploit by emulating a Pokemon Game Boy Advance game and playing it on the PS4.

To get a stable port of Linux running on the PS4, Fail0verflow used Cturt's recent PS4 kernel exploit. Using the gateway provided by the exploit, the team was then able to rewrite over 7,000 lines of code. Be advised that the crack is based on PS4's running v 1.76 firmware, so don't expect it to work on PS4's running the latest v3.11 updates.

This massively complex undertaking shed a ton of light on the PS4's internal guts. According to the hackers, the engineers at Marvell Technology were "smoking some real good stuff" while designing the PS4's southbridge. They further note that the NOP command is broken on the PS4's GPU.

Sony will likely push out a new firmware update to steamroll over the exploit, as an open homebrew-powered console goes against the ethos of console gaming. It's still great to see that homebrewers are pushing against the tide to free up the restrictive nature of games consoles, and in other exploit news, Mario Kart 8 is now fully playable on the Cemu Wii U emulator.

2