PS4: Abkarino announces upcoming PS4 Syscon Tool (demo video)

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Developer Abkarino (originally of PS3 Team Rebug fame) has announced the upcoming release of PS4 Syscon Tool, a tool that will help with repair/modding/”downgrading” of PS4. As the name implies, PS4 Syscon Tool intends to be a swiss army knife for backup and modification of the Syscon chip on the PS4. That chip is critical in particular for repairs of bad firmware updates, as it holds information on how to revert to a previously installed firmware.

Important Update: This article has been significantly modified since original publication. In particular I removed an entire section that compared PS4 Syscon Tool to PS4 NOR Validator. As their names imply, these two tools do not touch the same areas of the PS4 and the comparison was very irrelevant. My apologies for the mixup.

What is PS4 Syscon Tool

PS4 Syscon Tool is an upcoming free tool to dump/edit the PS4 Syscon. PS4 Syscon Tool is developed by Abkarino and EgyCnq.

There’s been a bit of drama lately as developer BWE, who was providing a lot of tools to manipulate NOR/Syscon, has moved to a paid license system* (it used to be free). As a response, multiple developers on the scene have decided to develop their own tools for NOR and Syscon modifications (PS4 and/or PS5). One such example was PS5 NOR Modifier by TheCod3r, and it’s possible the upcoming PS4 Syscon Tool comes from a similar intent.

* BWE points out that this is not entirely accurate. He does have a tool equivalent to PS4 Syscon Tool, Syscon Writer, which does dump/write of Syscon, and comes for free with his Syscon Writer/Reader hardware (you will need similar hardware – possibly open source versions – , whichever software solution you choose to use).

Abkarino hasn’t shared much about the tool except for the video (below) he shared today, but the video gives us a glimpse of the features the tool will provide. Namely:

  • Dump syscon Flash
    • Full
    • Partial
    • NVS/SNVS only
  • Erase Syscon
    • Erase Full flash
    • Erase Full expect Boot 0 block
    • Erase Partial
  • Write Syscon
    • Full
    • Partial
    • NVS/SNVS only
  • Enable Syscon Debug mode

 

 

Abkarino’s tool doesn’t have a release date yet, so we’ll have to wait and see.

Looking forward to this release!