PS3 hack could see reintroduction of backward compatability

The imminent PS3 hack, which has been discovered after five weeks of work by renowned hacker George Hotz, could allow pirated games to be played on the system and should also allow PS2 games to be played on the later models.

The PS3 was backward compatible, but recent versions of the system have been stripped of this feature.

Hotz, who shot to fame as a 17-years-old after hacking the then-AT&T locked Apple iPhone, said he will be posting details of the hack online in the near future, and has described the hack as something that will be difficult for Sony to patch out.

He announced the hack was "5% hardware and 95% software".

"You can use hardware to inject an insecurity and then you can build on that," he said. He also said that he will publish details of the system's root key, a master code that, once known, makes accessing the system's potential much easier.

He stated that although he had technically hacked the system, he still didn't access to all the components, including the system's protected memory.