The PS Jailbreak – What Can You Do With The PS Jailbreak?

Along comes the PS Jailbreak. Some people call it the PS3 Jailbreak or a PS3 Modchip, but whatever the name, it’s one cool little accessory. It consists of a USB dongle that needs to always be inserted into your PS3 console and then it will let you install games to your PS3 hard drive and also load the games from the PS3 hard drive as well.

It actually reminds me of the USB Modchips that were out for the Playstation 2 console. They too were very easy to install, just plugged into the USB port on the PS2 and did their magic.

The PS Jailbreak for all intents and purposes works the same way, at least as far as installation goes, as the ps2 modchip did. A quick plug in of the USB dongle gets your Playstation3 ready. You also need to have another flash disk drive plugged into the USB port (And USB Stick will do) in order to install your homebrew games and applications as well as the backup manager.

Many people didn’t think that a PS3 modchip was possible, as it’s been several years since the release of the PS3 console itself, and no modchip for the PS3 ever surfaced.

What is shocking to myself at least, is that absolutely no wiring is needed.  

Most modchips for any other consoles, certainly first generation modchips, always required installation by way of solder anywhere from 10 – 40 wires internally on to the main board of the game system. I’m stunned, and very thankful, that this is NOT the case with the PS Jailbreak at all. It really is just a simple plug in and play solutions.

There is also a small bit of software included.  The backup manager is the software that actually RUNS the modchip / jailbreak. After you’ve installed the dongle, you also have to install a piece of software called the Backup Manager, don’t worry – it’s included with the PS Jailbreak from what I can tell.

Once the backup manager is installed on to the menu of the PS3, any time you insert a game disc, it will ask you if you wish to install it on to the PS3 hard drive. Once selected, you can see the progress bar as your game is being installed on the Playstation 3 hard drive.

The time to install the games is different for each game.  But I have to say so far I have not seen any game that took more than just a few minutes.  MOst games are actully under 4GB in size, which was shocking to me.

And now the fun begins. Now that your game is installed on to your internal or external hard drive, you’ll once again be able to go into the backup manager and it’ll show a full list of all of your games already installed. Once you’re back in the backup manager, just push the button on your controller to load the game you want to start playing.

I am finding it much faster to load and play my games directly from the hard drive.  Drakes Fortune was always one of my favorite games, but one that took ages to load.  With the game on the hard drive, it takes less than one third of the time to load the game and levels. What you’ll notice right away is that games load super fast.  SO fast that you’re going to wonder how you ever played the game before the hard drive. You’ll also notice that there is almost NO load time during the game, between levels and such.

If you already have a PS3 console, grab this little gem while it’s available.  And if you don’t yet have a PS3, but plan on buying one, make sure you set aside some money to also add the PS Jailbreak to your must have accessory list. It allows you to game faster, but also protects your expensive game collection from scratches or damage that you would have during regular use.