AfterDawn: News

PS3 game backups not too far off

Sony's newest console, the PS3 hasn't even been out for a month yet and already a group most people in the "scene" should know of has come incredibly close to unlocking its true potential.

Team Xecuter has been one of the biggest threats to Microsoft and Sony alike with modifications that enabled hard drive loading of your game backups. In a recent post on their website, they've revealed that they have connected a 750Gb hard drive to the PS3 and have successfully been able to pass data back and forth from it. Their newest development dubbed the Hyperdrive features the ability to connect any 3.5" SATA hard drive to your PS3 and they're currently working on an IDE solution. Additionally, it has USB 2.0 support for dumping data to and from the hard drive.



Upon connecting the drive, they have been able to get the PS3 to recognize it, format the drive to it's standards and store all the settings internally to the PS3 and not the hard drive.

What all this means is that its quite possible that Blu-Ray dumps to an external hard drive may not be too far off. Larger drives would be needed since games such as Resistance: Fall of Man have been seen taking up some 16Gb worth of data. It's an exciting time to see what these folks develop in the future. Could we see legitimate PS3 backups gracing the hard drives of the masses soon? Only time will tell.

Source:
Team Xecuter

Written by: Dave Horvath @ 2 Dec 2006 14:43

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• 35 comments

• AntiHer0

  Woohoo!!!!!!!! My heroes!!!!!

  2.12.2006 14:50 #1

• OzMick

  Some instructions on how to dump a game are on various sites already, with a couple games on bittorrent. Aren't bootable yet, but this is old news...

  2.12.2006 14:58 #2

• tatsh

  Awesome! As a total geek, I'm interested to see how different the structure of a PS3 game is compared to PS2.
  
  As for the larger games, I'm really wondering if that's mostly movies (what else could it be?). Therefore, the movies, especially since they are most likely MPEG2 (or even MPEG4) could definitely be downsized or maybe even blanked (for those who don't care for them) and then maybe games can be downsized to dual-layer (and hopefully some to 1 layer) DVD. And hopefully they would run that way. I highly doubt that the reason a game would be 16GB is due to textures or the main executable. Isn't the PS3 supposed to be able to render CG quality anyway? Looks to me like PS3 is still going backwards if a game has high quality CG videos prerendered.

  2.12.2006 15:01 #3

• kaosX

  yeah.. cat and mouse.. firmware update, hack, firmware update, hack...
  
  sounds promising though.

  2.12.2006 15:14 #4

• 3085

  ha that was fast

  2.12.2006 15:24 #5

• Ankoku

  Ok im starting the petition to Team Xecuter now, Please put this on the back burner and move onto something a lot of us want... Wii backups!

  2.12.2006 15:50 #6

• Oatesy

  Awesome, u guys are great.

  2.12.2006 16:20 #7

• csm11

  This is the exact thing that Sony was worried about with the PS2 and now the PS3. It is good news for people with small children to be able to make a backup of the games they buy.
  
  But, this is not good for Sony and the longevity of the system. Once the developers do not sell as many copies as they would otherwise, they will start looking at cheaper systems to produce for.
  
  This is good news for Xbox 360 and Wii owners though.

  2.12.2006 16:20 #8

• CiDaemon

  The .nfo team that I have worked for in the past has also expressed interest in anti-DRMing the ps3, so hopefully this will become a lage project pursued by many different people. I am glad that Xecuter has reached this point first, but I will be even more when it becomes a large-scale competitive effort. Besides being fun and in the interest of Fair Use consumers, multiple solutions will provide alternatives and drive the prices down.

  2.12.2006 17:20 #9

• AntiHer0

  Just downloaded the ps3 emulator and rom images...works great!
  

  Pessimism, from the Latin pessimus (worst), denotes a belief that the experienced world is the worst possible. It describes a general belief that things are bad, and tend to become worse; or that looks to the eventual triumph of evil over good; it contrasts with optimism, the contrary belief in the goodness and betterment of things generally. A common conundrum illustrates optimism versus pessimism with the question - does one regard a given glass of water as: "Is the glass half empty or half full? Conventional wisdom expects optimists to reply with half full and pessimists to respond with half empty.
  
  

  2.12.2006 17:50 #10

• xXxBG

  pointless post edited out by creaky

  2.12.2006 17:51 #11

• xXxBG

  SONY IS #1 IN GAAAAMMMMMMIIINGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  2.12.2006 17:52 #12

• WierdName

  @tatsh-
  The games are bigger due to the size of the levels themselves and the programming of all the various extras such as the more advanced artificial intellegence and such. Then theres all the media for the rendering(consider how with some games that even the little rock on the ground is rendered a little different from the rest). The videos due take up some space but not most.

  2.12.2006 17:54 #13

• SovMish

  sweet. That's why I'm waiting to get the PS3 in the summer (but the 60 gig in my closet is talking to me, I swear... it's saying open me, play me, connect me lol).
  
  Anyways, excellent news. Just like DevHook for the PSP.
  
  Can't the space problem be solved by plugging in an external HD into one of the USB ports?

  2.12.2006 19:21 #14

• SovMish

  Oh, and the game developers don't need to worry about not selling enough copies of the game.
  
  Because only like 1 out of every 100 people are going to do this... just like the PSP. All my friends have normal fully-updated PSP's, while I still have the 1.5 + Devhook.

  2.12.2006 19:23 #15

• OneMember

  Quote:Resistance: Fall of Man have been seen taking up some 16Gb worth of data...I bet it will be fun to dl ps3 games in future... :D
  

  
  
  Säännöt: http://keskustelu.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/2717
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  2.12.2006 19:28 #16

• tmfloria

  just how I thought it would end up being .. Hdloader for PS3.. Can't wait to see the full outcome
  
  

  2.12.2006 19:50 #17

• ZippyDSM

  *L*
  the PS3 is fancy computer making it litary even easier to bypass the DRM than a Nintendo or Sega console...ain't that a odd funny thing? 0-o

  2.12.2006 20:33 #18

• ZippyDSM

  a question about archiveing a BR so if a BR ISO is 24ish GB that means you need 2-3 DVD9 or 5-7DVD?
  

  2.12.2006 20:50 #19

• jutsu

  now the problem is..
  how to boot the image file, or back up BR game
  
  if someone can make the PS3 run Unsigned code like in "PS3 test version" or PS3 dev version...

  3.12.2006 01:39 #20

• spiesfan

  wow that was quick

  3.12.2006 04:44 #21

• Cinnjerm

  LOL, Sony!!!

  3.12.2006 06:08 #22

• ZippyDSM

  jutsu
  if someone could make a boot program and then run it off the HD then couldn't they just blacklist it or something unlike the older consoles this has full lunix,I wonder howmuch of the hardware protections can be overridden via software....mmmm

  3.12.2006 06:52 #23

• xXxBG

  I just bought a 320 GB Hard Drive for my PS3 and it works Flawlessly
  :):):):):)

  3.12.2006 08:15 #24

• Andrew691

  Most likely they will make a program for linux that is like daemontools, to "mount" an ISO to a virtual drive. Then all the need is boot code, to make a loader.(could be blocked in updates). Definitely not far away.
  Quote:Quote:Resistance: Fall of Man have been seen taking up some 16Gb worth of data...
  
  I bet it will be fun to dl ps3 games in future... :DJust read Blue Dragon (or something) for Xbox360 was going to be on 3 DVD DL disc. So even Xbox games are gunna take a while to get.

  3.12.2006 15:16 #25

• 0ldskool

  u gotta love them at eecuter :D

  3.12.2006 16:05 #26

• 21Q

  I'm gonna get a PS3 when the bugs are fixed and I dont have to connect to the internet to fix the bugs.

  3.12.2006 16:27 #27

• ZippyDSM

  21Q
  think abotu that....Sony will always be havning to fix something...

  3.12.2006 16:44 #28

• Mackadae

  I think it was too premature for Team Xecuter to reveal their status on hacking PS3. Considering the problems and feedbacks Sony is already receiving; PS3 is technically under development. I wouldn't be surprise if Sony come up with something to change all that. Then again, like kaosX said "yeah.. cat and mouse.. firmware update, hack, firmware update, hack..." But all in all, I applaud Team Xecuter.
  
  

  3.12.2006 18:49 #29

• xXxBG

  What bugs are u guys talking about, its working really good.

  3.12.2006 19:39 #30

• ZippyDSM

  xXxBG
  price lack of games thos BUG me pretty good :P
  
  it has a few glitches out of the box about 200ish main PSX titles don't work needs HDMI and High def patchs for all sort of small annoyances,in all the PS3 is better than the 360s launch so far but its still luke warm and alot of bugs yet to be found...its a unlike MS's Beta test of the 360 this is a RC1 not quite a full launch but not worse than others.

  3.12.2006 19:46 #31

• ianlov

  Well this is where the fun begins just look at the cheats etc on teh XBOX live! cause of tampered data on teh HDD all this is gonna do is ruin it for all of us hardcore gamers :(

  4.12.2006 04:58 #32

• ZippyDSM

  ianlov
  god games suck so bad you have to cheat to get any real fun out of it I hate the Xbox because it dose not have a cheat device(CB or AR) when I cheat its to try and balance a crappy game or make the game more fun,online cheating is pointless.
  
  They can do stuff about cheaters online from temp bans to stat resetting to all out bans.
  
  I hope the 360 gets one a (CB or AR)........

  4.12.2006 11:44 #33

• xXxBG

  WOW was i wrong! Well then, its normal for some bugs on such advance technology :P

  4.12.2006 14:23 #34

• ZippyDSM

  xXxBG
  meh :P

  4.12.2006 16:24 #35