Efforts to hack the PS5 picked up steam after Sony announced it would stop producing physical games in 2028, a controversial and highly anti-consumer announcement. Just a few days ago it was announced that SharpEmu was developing a PlayStation 5 emulator, and shortly after, Game of the Year winner Astro Bot was seen booting up in the software.
Now, to take it one step further, YouTuber Louis Rossmann is offering a bounty, currently worth over $16,000, to anyone who can bypass the PS5's hypervisor and boot an alternative operating system on the console.
A YouTuber is offering a huge bounty to anyone who can get the new OS to run on the PS5.
Louis Rossmann is an advocate for consumer rights and digital ownership. His YouTube channel has over 6.5 million subscribers, and he runs FULU, a non-profit organization that funds “transparent, verifiable work that restores digital ownership and user control.”
Rossmann said in a new video on his YouTube channel:
“We are launching a bounty program if anyone comes up with a solution that can modify or bypass the PS5 hypervisor to the extent of being able to boot an alternate operating system using a one-off implementation running on firmware 13.42 42 or higher that has access to the PS5's underlying compute, memory, and graphics. If this allows you to continue booting into the original operating system to play PS5 games, we will pay you a reward of $10,000.”
$10,000 is the amount FULU will contribute to the bounty. But others who want to make this dream a reality can also join. And they have a total bounty of more than $16,600 at the time of writing.
But it won't be easy. The hypervisor is the PS5's highest security layer, preventing unauthorized code from accessing both the CPU and GPU needed to boot the new OS. If someone succeeds, it will open up a variety of new options for the PS5.
For example, running Linux will enable native Steam and PC games on your PS5. This means you're potentially getting the best version of the game available on your console. This will also enable emulation, which I believe is the main reason for this bounty. There's no word yet on how long this challenge will take, but for something like the Xbox One, it could take some time.
Earlier this year, the Xbox console was hacked for the first time in 13 years since its launch. Hacking proved to be a huge problem, as it was once billed as “the most secure product Microsoft has ever produced,” but eventually someone did it. I'm hoping it won't be as long this time.
- brand
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sony
- original release date
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November 12, 2020
- Original MSRP (USD)
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$499, €499, £449, ¥49,980 (standard) // $399, €399, £359, ¥39,980 (digital),
- operating system
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Orbis OS
- processor
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Custom 8-core AMD Zen 2
- solve
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720p – 8K
