Most FireWire hubs are generic — six ports, works with anything speaking i.LINK. This one isn’t. The box says PS2 compatible right on the front, and the actual bullet point underneath it reads: “Use this Hub to connect up to 6 PS2 systems to play Gran Turismo 3 with up to 6 Players.” It exists because of one hidden mode in one PlayStation 2 racing game.
What it is
A 6-port i-Link/FireWire hub — compatible with standard i-Link and 4-pin IEEE 1394 cables, so nothing about the wiring itself is PS2-specific. Inside, it’s built around a Texas Instruments TSB41LV06A FireWire hub/repeater chip, on a board marked FWH-6T4. It takes its own DC power input rather than running bus-powered off the FireWire lines, which matters for keeping six linked PS2s stable rather than relying on whichever console happens to be pushing power down the chain.
Opened mine up to confirm all of this rather than go on the box copy alone:
Why I’m keeping notes on it
This is a genuinely obscure product — a PS2-era FireWire hub, explicitly branded for a single game’s hidden multiplayer trick, with the actual chip inside it undocumented anywhere I could find. If you’re trying to replicate Gran Turismo 3’s i.LINK Battle mode yourself and go looking for what’s actually inside the box that makes it work, this is that information.