Sony released PS5 Firmware 7.20 yesterday. As always, we advise against updating if you can afford it and if you’re hoping to hack or Jailbreak your PS5 eventually.

PS5 23.01-07.20.00 – What’s new

This is a pretty “significant” update as far as minor updates go, with more than the typical “stability improvement” message. Kind of.  From the official changelog:

Version: 23.01-07.20.00

• We’ve improved system software performance and stability.
• We’ve improved the messages and usability on some screens.
• We’ve updated the DualSense Edge wireless controller device software to improve stability.

Of course, there’s a possibility more has been changed under the hood, but we won’t know until hackers get a look.

PS5 7.20 patches some critical vulnerabilities – Is it worth it to get the update?

As always, if your goal is to jailbreak your console, you should simply not update. The recent history of PlayStation hacking tells us so: people who keep their console up to date do not get the Jailbreaks. However the choice isn’t simple, as not updating your console means you lose access to PlayStation’s official network services, in particular the PSN. This means no online gaming, no recent games, etc…

Zecoxao reports that this update fixes CTurt’s recently reported exploits. While this means 7.20 is now a pretty “secure” firmware, it also means some people might have a chance at doing a diff of the firmwares (assuming they have ways to decrypt the firmwares at this point) and reverse engineer the patches to understand the bugs in the first place. Lots of “ifs” in there but this means 7.20 will be an interesting Firmware to look at in the months or years to come, from a hacker’s standpoint.

As always, the decision is yours, but updating, in general, lowers your chances of getting a Jailbreak down the line

In an ideal world, you would have 2 consoles: one that you keep on a low firmware for a Jailbreak (or buy a low firmware one if you can find it – tips for finding a low firmware PS5 /PS4), and one that you keep up to date in order to play your current gen games and access PlayStation online services (At the time of writing, there is a promotion on the God of War Ragnarok bundle with a PS5 disc Edition). I know it’s easier said than done, but that’s how things are.