Featured Image Credit: Sony
Topics: News, PlayStation, PlayStation 5, Sony, Tech
Sony is not having the best start to 2026, as the ROM keys for the PlayStation 5 have been discovered and uploaded online.
Earlier this week, somewhere around New Year's Eve, the console ROM keys for the PlayStation 5 were leaked onto a website that I am definitely not going to link here for very obvious legal reasons.
Now, I will admit right out of the gate that I’m not technically minded enough to fully appreciate exactly how this will affect the PlayStation 5 jailbreaking scene (although I would wager that a very, very small percentage of the gaming community is).
However, I can run you through the basics. You probably already know what a ROM is in the context of a video game ROM file (the type that can be used with an emulator), but technically, “ROM” keys in this context are somewhat different.
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If you were to take a look at the leaked PlayStation 5 ROM keys for yourself, all you’d see is a string of letters and numbers. If you want to understand the technical ins and outs of that, I highly suggest giving this write-up from Tom’s Hardware a look (because someone much smarter than me wrote it).
To the regular person, the PS5 ROM keys are completely useless. To those who wish to jailbreak the PS5, however, this is sort of like discovering the keys to the front door of Sony’s house.
The worst part of this (for Sony, anyway) is that this isn’t the type of thing that can be fixed with a firmware update.
As the ROM key data is directly attached to the PS5’s hardware, a firmware update would be useless. Sony could potentially fix the issue by manufacturing new PlayStation 5 consoles, but that’s not going to help fix the issue for the 80 million-plus PS5s they’ve already shipped.
In terms of what this means for the jailbreaking scene moving forward, this is obviously a pretty big deal.
Sony could always patch the vulnerabilities that modders and jailbreakers discover through the use of the console ROM keys, but that would be akin to a long, arduous game of whack-a-mole.
In short, it may take some time for us to see any direct results from this discovery, but this definitely marks a turning point for the system’s jailbreaking scene.
Now, if someone can somehow use this information to get Bloodborne running at 60fps on PlayStation 5s, I’d very much appreciate it. We're joking, Sony, honest.