Apparently, it’s “release a mostly useless FW update” time at Sony because today, they released FW 4.85 for the PlayStation 3 just a day after FW 3.72 was released for the PSVita. Like the PSVita firmware update, FW 4.85 for the PS3 doesn’t seem to come with much and as a result, Joonie was able to create HFW 4.85.1 in a few hours!

Sony releases FW 4.85 for the PS3 and Joonie publishes HFW 4.85.1

With Sony pushing out seemingly meaningless updates, Joonie went ahead and created HFW 4.85.1 to lay the groundwork for fully hacking FW 4.85 (Image Source)

Earlier today, Sony released PS3 FW 4.85 which led some in the community to believe that it patched out the technique used to create HFW installations. However, it didn’t seem to patch anything and as per a comment by Joonie, the update comes with no changes to the kernel, VSH or isolated loaders. Furthermore, the changelog provided by Sony only reads “This system software update improves system performance.” which makes one wonder why this FW update was even released.

In light of this, Joonie released HFW 4.85.1 which is a custom PUP file that can be installed from a system running OFW 4.85. This custom PUP file contains everything from OFW 4.85 with the exception of ‘silk_webkit.skprx’ (module related to the web browser) as an older exploitable version is included. As a result, all PS3 models on any FW are still hacked since OFW 4.85 can have a fully exploitable FW installed over it.

Should I update?

Things are looking pretty good for FW 4.85 but if you want a smooth transition, waiting a few days is probably the best way to go!

As things currently stand, Joonie and other scene members are recommending PS3 owners to wait a bit before updating to HFW 4.85.1. This is because most tools haven’t been updated with offsets specific to FW 4.85 yet which probably render them useless on the firmware.

Thankfully, there is little difference between FW 4.84 and FW 4.85 so it’ll probably only be a matter of days before PS3HEN and popular tools like ManaGunZ are updated with support for the latest FW.

Conclusion

If you want to play online and/or access PSN, remember to spoof FW 4.85 via SEN Enabler on your hacked PS3. Stay tuned for news on tool updates and new FW 4.85-based custom firmwares in the near future 😉