PlayStation 4 jailbreak update: game titles could soon be free — thanks or no thanks to a hacker

PlayStation Official

Just when one thinks that jailbreaking devices only applies to smartphones, news comes out that gaming consoles may also go through tweaks.

A hacker who identifies himself only as CTurt confirmed that Sony's PlayStation 4 (PS4) can indeed be jailbroken, Hacker News reported. This would only mean that PS4 players can now enjoy tons of free games in the game console.

The hacker took to Twitter  last Saturday to announce that the console has been "officially jailbroken" using a kernel exploit. The exploit allows dumping of RAM from other processes and permits installation of custom firmware that should make the console able to run applications that are not approved by Sony.

Hacker News gathered that the jailbreak may only be applicable to consoles that carry the firmware version of 1.76.

However, it doesn't mean that the more updated version of the console cannot be tweaked further to make it jailbreak-ready.

While news of a jailbroken PS4 would certainly make a lot of players in the gaming community happy, it won't be such good news for Sony.

The company is expected to improve its security efforts to prevent such hacks from happening to the more updated PS4 firmware.

Tech Times also reported that Sony could take action and file a lawsuit against the hackers who will make the PS4 a console that could soon run on custom firmware and homebrew content.

A jailbroken PS4 only welcomes piracy not only from games, but also from movies and songs. But more importantly, the existence of a jailbroken gaming console would cause major harm not only to Sony but also to big game developers, who have been dedicated to bring great content to the entire gaming community.

But fortunately for Sony and the gaming industry, not all gamers would want to take advantage of the hack. Gearnuke reports that gamers in their community are responsible and will not encourage the use of the kernel exploit.