Scammers are selling fake Blu-ray drives to PS3 emulation fans

Discs Matter: Scalpers, scammers, and cybercriminals are having a field day as consumer electronics become increasingly difficult to purchase. Even the humble, theoretically ancient Blu-ray disc format is now being exploited by fraudsters. Now, the emulation community is trying to set things straight. Developers of the RPCS3 PS3 emulator recently shared a warning about the latest fraud attempts targeting PS3 fans in search of a new Blu-ray drive. An unknown number of scammers are now trying to sell "fake" Blu-ray drives that appear to be newer models but use the same, incompatible internals as older drives. The RPCS3 team said that, as of September 2026, there appears to be an unusually high influx of fake Blu-ray drives being sold through Newegg, AliExpress, and other popular consumer electronics stores. The bogus drives use enclosures and packaging belonging to high-end models, along with spoofed firmware versions, to appear as legitimate, high-quality drives. The developers shared a link to the Redump Wiki about the powerful OmniDrive firmware, providing a few hints about the fake drives and how users can spot them. Counterfeit products might be hard to spot at a glance, and taking apart the entire drive to examine the PCB may be too impractical. One way to identify fake drives requires the MakeMKV Blu-ray decryption tool, which can distinguish legit drives based on the MT1959 chipset apart from the fake ones. - RPCS3 (@rpcs3) September 30, 2026 The MakeMKV-based method might not be foolproof, as some fake drives reported as MT1959-based are turning out to be incompatible nonetheless. Having a modern, capable Blu-ray drive is becoming increasingly important for emulation and Blu-ray enthusiasts, especially after RPCS3 gained the ability to boot and run PS3 games straight from the original disc. Needless to say, booting PS3 titles from a fake Blu-ray drive will likely result in a dud. The RPCS3 team reported that scammers can sell the counterfeit peripherals at a higher price, allowing them to make a larger profit compared with less capable drives. Users should always purchase their drives from stores that offer buyer-protection programs, so they can return a fake product if they encounter any issues. The Blu-ray optical disc format is now on life support. Manufacturing is still ongoing, albeit in diminished volumes, and physical media enthusiasts are fighting an uphill battle against Sony's attempt to kill the market for good. As an optical and physical media enthusiast, I will try to keep my 2022 Asus BW-16D1HT internal drive in good shape for as long as I possibly can.