There’s a saying that a star shines its brightest right before it burns out. There’s also a saying that cockroaches are just extremely resilient and won’t f###ing die. You pick your choice, I decided to be nice this time.

The infamous piracy-enabling drm-protected True Blue dongle, which had been put out of production for a few months, is apparently back for a grand finale or something, as announced by a statement on their official website from a few days ago.

• Related read: True Blue discontinued, new “solution” in the works?

If you haven’t heard yet, dongles are not useful anymore since they cost money and only allow you to run a small selection of pirated games (the games that the people behind True Blue want you to run), while methods to convert your PS3 into a backups-compatible debugging unit (DEX) for free are now available.

• Related read: 3.6+ “backups” possible on DEX hack: the cat is out of the bag

Granted, the techniques to do so are not user friendly yet, but everyday brings a new DEX-dedicated tool in the PS3 scene, so it’s getting easier very quickly. And if touching your flash is not the thing you want to do, remember that the a-bit-more-scene-friendly-than-trueblue E3 team also announced they’ll have a dongle ready sometime soon (although the whole DEX thing might have changed their plans…)

• Related read: Will E3 team defeat True Blue?

My guess? True Blue have thousands of dongles already manufactured and ready to ship, and they have to sell them, so they’ll make you believe their tool is still the best option for backups. And again, if you’re one of their customer, good for them, but with free options now available, I really don’t see what convenience this brings to you. Finally, their “update” mostly sounds like they will add more malware in their releases to block potential clones (which, in the past, has meant bricked consoles and erases hard drive for uneducated customers who didn’t even know they had a clone). So, it’s your call, but it really seems to me True blue is now a thing of the past.

• Related read: Clone wars

And again, don’t get me wrong: I’m not blaming True Blue for creating a cash cow like that. The stupid ones here are their customers.

Here is their full statement from 07/23:

The True Blue team will soon be launching an updated version of our dongle, hence our silence and lack of news/updates. The changes include a new style casing to help differentiate clones from the authentic True Blue dongles. The new version dongle will be compatible with EBOOT patches released to date, whilst existing authentic True Blue dongles in the market will continue to be supported in the same firmware releases. You can expect a spate of EBOOT releases shortly after the new version dongle is released. We also plan to include a lot of extra features for our loyal True Blue user base in upcoming firmware releases. which will also function seamlessly on existing authentic True Blue dongles.

We would also like to bring to our potential customers and existing users attention that the website: truebluejb2.cc is selling FAKE dongles. We are in no way associated with them nor will we replace or support their fake dongles.

Information received suggests that they have not yet cloned our  new style packaging, so large qty’s of devices in the market which do NOT come packed in the packaging detailed  below (30-5-2012 news) are most likely fake.  We will continue to monitor the situation daily.

The upcoming new firmware releases will also block the clones and help users differentiate fakes from authentic dongles.

Upcoming firmware releases will block these fake devices and furthermore EBOOT’s will not support the clones. PB2 and JBking clone devices will also be blocked in the future and will not function correctly with our upcoming features!

We thank our customers for their continuing support and hope you will enjoy the coming features and EBOOT patches………

The clones sold by truebluejb2.cc can be differentiated by checking the PCB inside the casing using the guide below, as previously posted in news.

So, are you guys going to buy the upcoming True blue dongle? Or move to a Debug console ? Wait for E3 Team’s solution?

source: True blue official site