The latest PlayStation 5 firmware introduced some changes that will heavily impact jailbreaking, making it difficult for users to continue accessing their digital libraries after taking their system offline.
As explained earlier today by well-known Souls series hacker Lance McDonald on X, the latest firmware update changed the "Restore Licenses" screen so that it is now only possible to download licenses for games that are already installed on the system. Previously, licenses for every owned game would be restored, even for games not installed on the console. This means that once a PlayStation 5 console has taken offline, users won't be able to play the vast majority of the digital games they have purchased, being forced to use pirated backups. This will also prevent users from making backups of games to be shared with others. While this won't be a major issue for any legitimate use cases, this will make jailbreaking the console and modding games much harder.
The screen used to look like this. You could download every single license to everything you’ve ever bought, even if it’s not currently installed. Then you could take your PS5 offline, jailbreak it, yet still have access to all your legitimately purchased digital games. pic.twitter.com/fxvbCQO4dT
— Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) October 3, 2024
Won’t have any impact on legitimate use cases. Just a pain in the ass for people who want to take their PS5 offline hoping in the future to jailbreak it and mod/hack digital games they own.
— Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) October 3, 2024
The latest major PlayStation 5 firmware update is update 24.06, which introduced the new Welcome hub, a personalized space that users can customize with various widgets, a new Party Share feature, personalized 3D audio profiles, and a new Remote Play setting. This update was soon followed by another that fixed issues for select games, such as Final Fantasy XVI, caused by some changes made by the 24.06 update.
About the author: Francesco De Meo has been covering video games and technology since 2012, starting his career at small outlets like Gamersyndrome and GeekSnack. After joining Wccftech gaming section in 2015, he quickly expanded his video gaming coverage with in-depth reporting, interviews with iconic industry figures such as Grasshopper Manufacture founder and No More Heroes creator Goichi "Suda51" Suda, Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Team NINJA's president and Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda, and Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, reviews and on-the-ground coverage of major industry events such as Gamescom and E3. When he's not reporting or reviewing, Francesco can be found playing the genres he loves most, spending time with his six cats, reading, writing music, playing guitar and drumming for his progressive rock band.
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