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

[Alfonso Maruccia]

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.

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

 

[NumberNine]

Just like RAM, if you didn't stock up, well good luck now. I haven't had much of a reason to even own an optical drive until recently, but when Buffalo announced they were cutting production six months ago, I bought multiple.

 

[BadThad]

The drives are not "fake", they are counterfeit.

 

[acrossthestars]

The blu-ray drive simply provides a means to access data on legally purchased media. If it were possible to just purchase the contents of the disc—such as how GOG lets you pay for a game and then download a full backup copy—then this entire fiasco would disappear.

Publishers would prefer you never owned anything ever again and if that's the world they create going forward, have at it. The end of that road leads to bankruptcy, because people tend to like to own things, but whatever.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

The blu-ray drive simply provides a means to access data on legally purchased media. If it were possible to just purchase the contents of the disc—such as how GOG lets you pay for a game and then download a full backup copy—then this entire fiasco would disappear.

Publishers would prefer you never owned anything ever again and if that's the world they create going forward, have at it. The end of that road leads to bankruptcy, because people tend to like to own things, but whatever.

No it wouldn't. GOG fixed DRM but not access, just as disks provide access to legally purchased media, so does gog. Gog goes down, your purchases are gone.

People keep repeating this mantra for some reason. Media access and media DRM are two different subjects.

 

[acrossthestars]

No it wouldn't. GOG fixed DRM but not access, just as disks provide access to legally purchased media, so does gog. Gog goes down, your purchases are gone.

People keep repeating this mantra for some reason. Media access and media DRM are two different subjects.

If the disc breaks or is lost or otherwise stops working, your purchase is gone

The difference is material readiness of availability. And heck, if the power goes out, then it's a moot point, because access vanishes either way. The only benefit of disc is that you can hold it, giving you the tacticle sense that you possess something. But, since a lot of game discs don't actually ship feature-complete, even this small saving grace is tenuous at best.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

If the disc breaks or is lost or otherwise stops working, your purchase is gone.

The difference is material readiness of availability. And heck, if the power goes out, then it's a moot point, because access is gone either way.

If a game disk brakes, you can find replacements. Even if the game has been delisted and production long ended.

A digital store goes down, you cannot access it, even if you have game keys. They are not the same thing.

 

[acrossthestars]

If a game disk brakes, you can find replacements.

If there are replacements, of which there are a finite quantity.

I don't disagree with the value proposition of physical media, but it is not this "end point of finality" that you claim it to be. The drive can stop working or the hardware that supports it no longer works. Neither digital backups nor hard copies are complete failsafes by themselves. That's why redundancy is important.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

If there are replacements, of which there are a finite quantity.

I don't disagree with the value proposition of physical media, but it is not this "end point of finality" that you claim it to be. The drive can stop working or the hardware that supports it no longer works. Neither digital backups nor hard copies are complete failsafes by themselves. That's why redundancy is important.

This is why digital distribution is not an alternative to physical media that everyone brings up during these discussions. You can make strawman after straw man, eventually leading to "well if there's a nuclear Armageddon your disks will be destroyed, huehuehue", but given multiple digital stores have already disappeared, proving the point that digital stores are not a proper alternative to said media, these tangents fall flat.