Why can’t we run AI on gaming consoles? Announcing Our PS5 Bounty.

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The RAMpocalypse is upon us. The AI industry’s seemingly insatiable appetite for memory and storage is cutting into consumer supply. As a result, Dell raised prices for corporate clients, Samsung hiked the cost of new Galaxy phones, and Apple scrapped it’s entry-level Mac mini model altogether.<br>Some 26 million Americans already have 16GB of memory and at least 512GB of storage—specs that match the now-cheapest $799 Mac mini—sitting underneath their television in their PlayStation 5. But Sony uses digital locks to limit which software device owners can use. That puts certain non-gaming uses such as running AI coding tools out of reach.<br>If people own the hardware, why can’t they do what they want with it? Our newest bounty aims to square this circle.<br>Let’s get Linux on PS5’s latest firmware.<br>The AI Impact<br>The explosion of artificial intelligence has led to a global shortage of memory chips, commonly known as RAM. Wherever you fall on the spectrum from boom to doom to gloom that we’re even talking about it, the AI-caused chip shortage is already raising hardware prices for consumers.<br>Consumer adoption is a piece of this. On a May earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook (conveniently) blamed consumers “snapping up Mac minis and Mac Studios to run artificial intelligence” for the mismatch in supply and demand. People are vibe coding everything from websites that plan wedding seating to fitness apps that block access to TikTok and Instagram until you get your steps in.<br>But the main driver of the chip crunch and resulting price increases is AI companies’ data center expansions. And there’s no end in sight. Data centers are projected to consume 70% of memory chips made in 2026; a deal inked last October by OpenAI calls for approximately $70 billion worth of RAM to be delivered in 2029.<br>All this means that people will need to make the most of the computing power that they already have. If you own a fully functioning car, the manufacturer can’t tell you where to drive it, who can ride in it, or whether you use it for your work. Why should your game console any different?<br>The Other OS Saga<br>The idea that you should be able to choose how to use the computing power in your console isn't new. In fact, it used to be a selling point for PlayStation.<br>Sony sold a disc to run Linux on the PS2 starting in 2002. PS3 owners could also install alternate operating systems through the Other OS feature on their consoles’ main menu. But in 2010, Sony pushed a firmware update to PS3 consoles that nuked Other OS—after promising that they wouldn’t. Device owners that wanted to maintain access to online multiplayer features were forced to give up Linux.<br>This unleashed a saga that went on to involve the hacker group Anonymous, a class action lawsuit, and all sorts of frustrated device owners. George Hotz, the hacker who first cracked the PS3 months before, launched a new jailbreak in early 2011 that restored Other OS while disabling the ability to run pirated software. “This is the struggle of our generation, the struggle between control of information and freedom of information,” Hotz told The New Yorker in 2012.<br>He was promptly sued by Sony for, among other charges, violating Sec. 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The case settled out of court.<br>Ever since the initial jailbreak and Sony’s subsequent patch, the PlayStation community has looked for ways to jailbreak the device and return it to its former glory. YouTuber Dammit Jeff recently released a video of his jailbroken PS5 running Linux. Unfortunately for the thousands of gamers in Jeff’s comments that expressed the desire to unlock their console as well, the jailbreak is only possible for consoles running a firmware from 2023. Users that have since updated their firmware were out of luck.<br>Make PlayStations Computers Again<br>Sixteen years ago, Sony put in motion a series of events that have stripped console owners from being able to fully use the devices they already own. Today, we say enough is enough. It’s time to restore promise of Other OS for the latest version of PS5 firmware. It’s time to make sure Play truly has No Limits.<br>FULU will be putting up the first $10,000 of the bounty pot, and will match up to $10,000 more in community donations. We believe that solving this bounty is spared from Sec. 1201 under its reverse engineering exemption (not legal advice), and we will leave it to any winner to decide whether or not to make their solution available to the public. See our bounty site for full details on solution criteria and submission guidelines.

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