The Power Supply (Vol. 07) - Our Guest Today: "well known multi-console Developer @mathieulh"

Our Interview Series conducted various Interviews with Developers, who worked either mainly for the PlayStation 3 or for the PlayStation 4 (and one time for the PlayStation Vita). But sometimes, there are well-known Developers who say to themselves that working on one console isn't enough for me. In fact the older readers will probably remember back when the magical 3.55 Firmware got hacked for the PS3 how many useful stuff we saw from the PSP Development for instance, which led into daily new releases and achievements for both consoles. As you can see, working on several consoles within the same "family" can be an advantage. So when we thought about new candidates for this series of interviews, we quickly recognized that if you want to interview a "multi-console" Developer, then there is someone, where his name will come immediately in every mind. In fact our next candidate worked with so many both home and portable consoles in the past and still in present days, we would probaly need a complete new sub-section inside the forum to list all of his releases and achievements he did for the community. And you can't imagine how difficult it was for us "questioners" how to begin this interview with such a great person or how to find the right words for him. :P But somehow we think we managed it quite good and this time we have even a special question for our female readers out there. ^^ This man needs no more introduction. Here is our guest today, Developer @mathieulh!​

Volume 08: "Interview with mathieulh" More about Today's Guest: "mathieulh" Other Interviews in our "The Power Supply"-Series

• 
  Hello mathieulh and welcome to our new "The Power Supply"-Series, where we like to introduce an inside look from the developers to our audience with an interview.
  

  I am honored.

  
  
  First of all, I have to admit that I don't know where to start with the introduction for this interview, since you already did so much in the past few years. So I think it would be better to introduce you by yourself (before I even get something wrong).
  

  Well, I am something of a hobbyist, I do like tinkering with atypical systems, especially look at the way their security architecture is designed, game consoles provide such an opportunity at an affordable cost so that's where I started.
  
  My first foray into the matter was on the Sega Dreamcast (in an anonymous basis), later on with the Nintendo GameCube where I helped with the "GCOS Project" before being spearheaded to PSP development. This is where I started becomming truly active and where my notoriety skyrocketed from the multiple projects I was involved in, most notably "M33" as a co-developer (which started as SE, then OE), and Prometheus/C+D (for the work on the Pandora Battery and exploiting the pre-ipl (and kirk to a lesser extent), before then however I was acting anonymously again on another project called "devhook" using the nickname booster. This project is the base of how all current PSP Custom Firmware work as it hooks loadexec calls to reboot.bin to bootstrap another kernel than the one flashed on the PSP. The basis of this is still used to this day, albeit in a different fashion in Firmware such as Adrenaline for the PlayStation Vita.
  
  I later on took an active role on the PS3, before retiring as what you would call a "retro" developer, in the sense that I am mostly publicly active on platforms that are at least over 10 years old nowadays. In fact I have only recently started working on the Xbox 360 and to a lesser extent, the Sega Saturn, although I have delved on newer platforms in a "behind the scenes" capacity.

  
  
  With so many projects you already worked for various consoles outside, many people thinks that there is no Game Console made by Sony you aren't able to fully hack or to run an exploit on it. Tell us which of them was maybe the hardest one to work with due to complexity etc. or which one you had the most fun enjoyed with it and why?
  

  I believe the hardest Sony console to exploit in a "durable" fashion would be the PlayStation 4, although the PlayStation Vita isn't far in that regard (the people at Team Molecule did a great job exploiting it). The PlayStation 3 was relatively easy compared to the rest though provided its own sort of challenges.
  
  The Sony console I had the most fun with has been, by far, the Playstation Portable, it still is. It has a very specific architecture both hardware and software wise and was a very practical device in a day and age where cell phones weren't democratized, which explains its immense popularity at the time.

  
  
  Since you "have been around" for a while, I wonder about your opinion to today's community across various platforms especially when you compare it to maybe ten or fifteen years ago. Sure we had Twitter as well back when both the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation Portable saw their very first attempts in hacking them. But nowadays, there are people who are uploading videos and other tutorials on YouTube showing their own or from other developers Hacks and Exploits and some of them are even creating one of those Patreon pages, where other people can donate (in the hope) to see more of those mentioned Hacks and Exploits in the future. How do you feel about this trend today?
  

  Actually, back in the PlayStation Portable era, Twitter wasn't a thing, except at the very end of its lifecycle, before then it was mostly IRC, MSN and Forum Boards such as ps2dev.org, QJ.net, Lan.ST and so on. I feel that new platforms are a great way to promote one's work. Patreon is also a good alternative to donations for developers and hobbyists to make a living, back when I was part of an organization (M33) that was accepting donations (I never accepted donations since), at its peek M33 was getting €600 a year [Editor's Note: 600,- EUR back in 2005 was around 815,- USD nowadays], it's a far cry from what people would have expected and barely covered the cost of the PSPs we had to renew at the time (they were bricked and we did not have a way to unbrick those yet), we did manage to eventually get a couple of PSPs chipped with Undiluted Platinum thanks to these and continue our work). This never covered development costs, but we never expected or asked for it, this work was challenging and fun, that's all we wanted.
  
  Some people however, for personal reasons, time constraints or otherwise, turned community development into a living, this is something I can respect and if you wish to do the same and rely on Patreon or other funding method to do so, I will not think any less of you. Twitter is also a great way to keep in touch with developers and their progress, it also allows them to show what can be done without risking exposure to possible lawsuits, a tool I have used myself extensively in that regard.

  
  
  I know you don't like to get asked such questions but when we look at the current Console Generation, we have the PlayStation 4 and its sales kinda skyrocketing to a new record for Sony, but when we look again at this community and its Homebrew Development, then we have to be honest that "things kinda look black" if you know what I mean. You have to know, I asked the same question already another candidate in our Interview Series but I would like to know from you as well, what your feelings are with the community behind the PS4? I also know it is kinda easy to ask you what went exactly wrong and sure, Piracy always had the highest demand for every console whichever released but personally I have the feeling that with the PS4 the demand for that was higher as never before. Maybe you can explain this behaviour?
  

  The main issue with the PS4 is that there are better alternative platforms for homebrews nowadays than game consoles, and despite providing people with a full framework to use for PS4 development, people mostly expect piracy and little else. This is not what most developers have in mind when they open up a platform for arbitrary code execution, athough as developers we are under no illusion that some people will attempt (and more often than not, succeed) in using this work to perform piracy. This is not however what was initially intended and we feel this is as unoriginal as it gets. I personally buy all my games and I dislike that other game developers or people in the game industry that have mouths to feed would be prevented from making a profit from their own work. I would understand if videogames were something unaffordable or something you could not live without, but they are non essential and affordable if you can wait for a few months until they get discounted. Piracy does hurt the industry, that's my opinion of it at least. Not everything is black and white however and Piracy has also helped promoting games and platforms over the years and we know some people that do pirate end up buying the original games if just to support the developers behind it, so there is a middle ground here.
  
  Regarding the demand being higher on the PS4 than other platforms it can easily be understood, for long it was the only true alternative to PC gaming, the Nintendo Switch wasn't around and even now it's not as powerful as the PS4 is, and the Xbox One was, for a long time, less powerful a console, it also has almost no exclusive as most Xbox One games would also release for Windows and given the choice someone who could afford it would rather play on a computer, whereas the PS4 had exclusives people were interested in and willing to purchase a console to play, people would later on stick to that platform.

  
  
  Speaking about the PS4, I had the chance to conduct an interview with two developers, where each of them took a different approach in working with the PS4 compared to other people in the past. I bet you catched the drift of @m0rph3us1987 and his talk back at 35C3 by "Exploiting PS4 Video Apps". And right before your interview, I had the chance to chat with mr_lou who instead of waiting for a new Exploit, he is concentrating to BD Java Homebrew, which as you probably know runs fine even on OFW. While those are some neat approches, we learned that either those projects are limited compared to a fully exploited console, or the interest had gone as well because of the lack of feedback from the community. And while we saw some of your work with the PS4 in the past, maybe you want to share if you are still tinkering with the PS4 or has the interest got lost as well for you (and no this isn't a "ETA WEN-Question" ^^)?
  
  [Editor's Note: The Interview itself was held before the newest PS4 Exploit got released! Thanks for Understanding.]
  

  To be honest, I mostly lost interest into that platform myself, although I am in contact with people who are still actively working on it, the PS4 nowadays is more of a cat and mouse game where you would keep being one step ahead having a working exploit chain (your endgame being to get code execution at the BSD kernel level), and keep finding new bugs as Sony possibly closes the existing ones in the chain, eventually you have enough exploitable bugs that it becomes worthwhile to release some, especially the ones Sony previously fixed. This game became old rather fast as far as I am concerned.

  
  
  When I prepared my questions for our interview, I kinda compared the "old mathieulh" from the PS3/PSP-era with the "newer one" I'm interviewing right now. This is weird I know but what I recognized was that the "newer one" nowadays is less active compared to the "older one". No offense meant but to understand what I mean, I always read in the past when some other developer was crediting you in his/her new release something like "Thanks to mathieulh for X Master Keys" or "Credits to mathieulh for ..." one of your own projects which the other crediting one was based of your work - while today I read something like "Thanks to mathieulh for providing the devkit" (like when TheFlow ported Ensō to System Firmware 3.65 for instance). This behaviour of you - which isn't of course any bad at all and I bet every other developer is still thankful for your help - is on purpose and you aren't that interested anymore in all those consoles released nowadays or is it just a simple reason like having less time etc.?
  

  It's a mix of all those reasons, first of all, I am more interested in retro platforms and hardware preservation nowadays than I was originally. Then there is also the fact that I went from being a broke student with a lot of time on my hands to working in a professional environment, being well paid, but with very little free time on my hands; all these factors contribute to the changes you are seeing. Then there is also the fact that I have matured which makes me care less for drama and care more for personal projects than ever before.

  
  
  With doing so much work for the community, our readers are probably wondering, if you can find some time for other activities outside all of that. Any cool hobbies you would like to share? I think I saw several tweets in the past that you are also an audiophile person who likes to enjoy music in "Hi-Res Quality" together that you are travelling quite often to Japan and sharing their living culture. Not in Japan but I was kinda scared when I saw a selfie from you together with one of those North Korean guards from the "Joint Security Area" of the "Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)" (how the hell you kept staying relaxed there without panicking? ^^).
  

  Well, my main hobby is traveling, that's something I've always loved doing, especially to Japan where friends and family are always waiting for me. I also used to be quite an audiophile person but that stopped about a year ago as I suffered an acoustic trauma (unrelated to my love for Music), which has struck me with chronic tinnitus ever since. Living with this condition has been quite the struggle and made me forego most of my enjoyment for Music, I still love Music but I can't listen to it the same way I used to. The same goes for reading. I used to read (A LOT) but I can't keep the same amount of focus while reading in silence nowadays. Quite frankly tinnitus is the worst thing that's ever happened to me, people literally die over it and there's not enough awareness of this condition, the first few months were, quite literally, hell on earth. Thankfully, I manage, but my life won't ever be the same as it once was.

  
  
  I bet you are not only tinkering with all those consoles, but you also play some games with them, at least sometimes I hope. Your Twitter Feed recently showed that you are working with the Xbox 360 and its Emulation Software to run older Games. Maybe you like to share your favourite games and consoles you liked to play in the past? The PlayStation 5 is also not far away from a release anymore. Are you interested in the PS5 as well? Both in terms of hacking and playing games maybe? Or do you prefer more retro games from the past?
  

  I like RPGs the most, "Zelda games" have been amongst my favourite, but also games such as "[the] Shenmue [Series]", "Chrono Trigger"... I do enjoy the occasional fighting games ("Soul Calibur", "Dead or Alive", "Street Fighter II", "Waku Waku 7"...), though the genres I play are relatively extensive. Nowadays I started looking into (better late than never) metroidvania games ("CastleVania: Symphony of the Night", "CastleVania: Aria of Sorrow", "Bloodstained", "Metroid Zero Mission"...). I enjoy the non-linerarity element of those games a lot and the challenge they provide. I am more into retro gaming [in general] nowadays, these provide short, yet fun, entertainment; but I would not say no to a "Shin Megami Tensei V" if it released tomorrow.

  
  
  In our new interview series, we would like to make these interviews also a little bit helpful to the readers, especially for those who wants to develop something for the very first time from ground up. And since you probably wrote more lines of code in your life than this interview will ever have ^^, where do you suggest someone to start with? Do you have any tips for those new inspiring developers? Maybe you also want to share a "Tip of the Day" to the community to one of your projects or to the Homebrew Community in general?
  

  This depends greatly on what you want to achieve as a developer. If your goal is to write code, I would say learn a language, "C" is a good one as it's used in a lot of platforms. If your goal is reverse engineering then I suggest you look at assembly instead, "MIPS" is a very good start as it's easy to understand. Contrary to popular beliefs there are also no barriers in going straight to assembly without looking into a higher level language first, although I would still recommend the later. If your goal is to design "ASIC", then you may want to look into "Verilog" instead. There are more than one way to start depending on what your goals are.

  
  
  And with the final question, which already gave many people outside some headaches for decades: "Is there maybe a Mrs. mathieulh with you"? :P #AskingforA(Girl)friend
  

  I am currently single, so there is no Mrs. Mathieulh at this time.

  
  
  Alright, Thank you very much mathieulh for attending to this interview. It was my great pleasure to come to know better to you and all your hard work you achieved for this community! Have a great day!
  

  The pleasure is all mine, I hope my answers provided more insight as to my background.

• 
  
  You can believe us that a single tab won't be enough to listen all of the projects Developer @mathieulh achieved in the past. Nevertheless, here is a Overview for all important Quick Links we mentioned before in our Interview:
  
  

  

  
  Developer mathieulh is most known for his work with both the PS3 and the PSP but in his early days, he was tinkering with the Nintendo GameCube as well. He helped with the Release of "GCOS" (or "GameCube Operating System)" which gave you the functionallity of a modchip, but without having one installed!
  [Image Credit by "mr_g" at gbatemp.net]
  
  

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  To understand how skilled Developer mathieulh actually is, here is a small example when we covered the News how quick he was able to find a Kernel Exploit for PS4 System Firmware 5.55. In fact he was so quick, he couldn't help laughing by informing the official PlayStation Twitter Account how easy it was to achieve this.
  
  

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  d

  

  
  Developer mathieulh also likes to travel accross the world. Here he took a selfie with one of those security guards from the "Joint Security Area" of the "Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)" between North and South Korea. Rumors say that this guard has the newest Kernel Exploit for the PS4. :P
  
  

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  d

  

  
  But when he stays at home, he decided to play newer Games on an old 4:3 CRT Monitor, because why not ?!?! ​
• 
  
  The Power Supply (Vol. 08) - Our Guest Today: "well-known multiconsole Developer CelesteBlue123"
  
  

  

  
  

  Since you liked our past Interviews so far where we talk with Developers across all PlayStation consoles - and especially one of our latest Interview where we talked with a Developer who tinkers with various consoles simultaneously - we thought about to do this again. Today's Guest is also well-known for releasing various Homebrew Applications mainly for the PlayStation Vita, but also for the ...

  
  Click here to read our eighth Interview in our new series with well-known Developer CelesteBlue.
  
  

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  dThe Power Supply (Vol. 06) - Our Guest Today: "Blu-Play and BD-J Developer mr_lou"
  
  

  

  
  

  In our Interview Series, we always try that you can profit with each of our candidates by mainly three things. First, you gain an insight behind each Developer and his/her work he/she is doing for the community. Second, we summarize the most important Releases from each Developer, so you can get a good overview of which Tools and Homebrew you need ...

  
  Click here to read our sixth Interview in our new series with well-known Developer mr_lou.
  
  

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  dThe Power Supply (vol. 05): A chat with (PS Vita Developer) Rinnegatamante
  
  

  

  
  

  Well it's that time again as we have another talented developer featured in The Power Supply (A developer Interview Series brought to you by PSX-Place). So far you have seen us explore various talents from the PS3 & PS4 in the first four editions (view the complete collection of interview here, some great reads and insight from some of the best), so this time around in vol.5 of the series we ...

  
  Click here to read our fifth Interview in our new series with well-known Developer Rinnegatamante.
  
  

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  dThe Power Supply (Vol. 04) - Our Guest Today: "PS3(Xploit) Developer esc0rtd3w"
  
  

  

  
  

  Our Interview Series is a full success. Not only can you get an in-depth look behind all the great projects each of those developer's have worked on in the past and their plans into the future, but also that you can get a useful overview with all important Homebrew Releases made by the developer's which will help you if you want to get the "Full Experience" from your ...

  
  Click here to read our fourth Interview in our new series with PSX-Place Developer [U]@esc0rtd3w[/U].​
  
  

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  dThe Power Supply (vol. 03): A chat with Aldotools (developer of IRISMAN / webMAN MOD / PS3 Tools .)
  
  

  

  
  

  We are back once again for another edition of The Power Supply. If you have not caught the previous editions (vol. 1: deank & vol. 2: m0rph3us1987) we have started a new interview series featuring many of the talented people from around the community. So with this latest edition we have yet another great developer in the community to feature in the new series. ...

  
  Click here to read our third Interview in our new series with PSX-Place Developer [U]@aldostools[/U].
  
  

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  dThe Power Supply (Vol. 02) - Our Guest Today: "PS4 Developer m0rph3us1987"
  
  

  

  
  

  With the very first introduction of our new Series of Developer Interviews - as known by "The Power Supply" - you were already allowed to dabble a little bit with Volume 01 of the series, where you got a deep look into the work from well-known Developer @deank he did for this scene. While he worked mainly for the PS3 Community, we thought it would be only fair to bring you a ...

  
  Click here to read our second Interview in our new series with well-known Developer @m0rph3us1987.
  
  

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  dThe Power Supply (vol. I) Featuring a chat with developer deank (creator of multiMAN / webMAN & ...)
  
  

  

  
  

  In this inaugural edition of The Power Supply (A new developer interview series) we have the pleasure to interview one of the legendary developer's of the PlayStation Homebrew Community. A developer whom has contributed on a variety of projects and been a master of some of his own . Very well known in the PS3 scene, this dev is responsible for projects that include ...

  
  Click here to read the very first Interview in our new series with PSX-Place Developer @deank.
  
  

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  dIntroducing "The Power Supply": A new developer interview series
  
  

  

  
  

  PSX-Place.com Presents: The Power Supply, a new series of interviews that will feature some of the iconic developer's & inspiring newcomers powering the scene from past and present within the homebrew community. These devs have provided the power for your favorite projects on your PS4 / PS3 / PS2 / PS1 / PS Vita (tv) / PSP platform(s). We have a variety of developer's with many ...

  
  Click here to get an overview about this new Series and to find all previous Interviews.​

Developer @mathieulh had also a small request after we interviewed him. Not only that we are all thankful for taking the time to interview him and his achievements he did in the past, he would also like to see that instead of asking for a new PS4 Kexploit, we provide you some useful links if you are also suffering from "chronic tinnitus" and/or how to prevent an "acoustic trauma". If you have similar symptoms, you are welcome to share your experiences and other useful links with the community!​

 

Thanks @Roxanne and also @mathieulh for this latest version of "The Power Supply" interview series...

 

Great read.

 

Great read.

Math is the one who said the ps4's security was a joke, so it's probably likely an exploit exists for latest firmware, only in private.

 

I can still remember when matthieul released those PSP keys that was extracted on PS3 and make PSP busted wide open back then (you dont even need a CFW to run a homebrew with those keys).

 

Oh wtf? My life was better without being reminded of this trolling asshat.

 

Oh wtf? My life was better without being reminded of this trolling asshat.

Forums are much better without kids like yourself that are way to immature for posting privileges.

 

Oh wtf? My life was better without being reminded of this trolling asshat.

If you have nothing positive to say or contribute...then I recommend you drink a nice tall glass of shut the f#ck up little boy.
Matheilh is a somebody, someone who actually contributes to our community... you're a nobody. Get over yourself and show some respect...

 

brings back happy memories of first getting my psp,m33 on it shortly afterwards and a bit blown away by all it could do after that.it still gets hammered.
nice interview,keep 'em coming!

 

here's that tweet: https://twitter.com/Mathieulh/status/998817384118054912

I think this is before being able to use uart, but I'm not sure. 5.50 came out a few years ago I believe.

 

Scott wilhelm How do you start out being a trolling ass hat, then call someone a trolling ass hat?...lol



What a FLAKE!

 

How do you start out being a trolling ass hat, then call someone a trolling ass hat?...lol



What a FLAKE!

I like Math, because he tells like it is as with the ps4's security. I've heard from other hackers that it's not very good too, but they don't want the latest firmware to be hacked, because of what it might do to psn. psn was a disaster after the ps3 was hacked.

edit: supposedly, it only took theflow three days to find his first ps4 kernel exploit. that's what I've heard anyway.

 

I'm curious... What are you doing out of 360?.. I very much hope that the PS4 will soon be modified because it is cheap and has a lot of power.

 

As I mentioned already, these interviews are great.

I can also say that Mathieu has only been kind to me in my limited interactions with him (nothing ETA WEN related, lol). I needed a bit of direction a couple times on a project I had and he was beyond polite despite surely having limited time. Not all devs are like that.