Apparently we're on twitter too
Many people have doubted my plans for the release of VHBL, and I’ve received a good share of insults when VHBL was not available exactly on February 22nd for public consumption. As a matter of fact, the release of VHBL had started on February 21st, but some people didn’t see what was happening…
When Teck4 announced he had a running hello world on the PSP Emulator of the Vita back in December, I quickly contacted him (thanks to the help of mamosuke) in order to offer my help porting HBL to this exploit. Quickly, it was obvious to all of us that as soon as the exploit would be made public, Sony would at least remove the game from the store, and possibly patch it before putting it back. Previous history with the mercury exploit showed us that when they have access to the exploit, Sony was extremely fast to remove the game from their store (approx. 1h between the release of the Mercury exploit files and the game being removed from the store). In addition to that, the possible spying through the CMA and the crash log on the vita made it dangerous to even share/run our work in progress.
Therefore came the question: how to make such an exploit useful to as many people as possible without Sony removing the vector of the attack super fast? Publicly announcing the exploit and giving away the files at the same time was a no go, we knew (or thought we knew) from experience with the Mercury exploit that sony would react quickly. In addition, assuming Sony monitors the sales of their games, revealing the game to thousands of people at once might have triggered alarms on their end, giving away the name of the game.
Our conclusion, and the release plan, therefore became the following: Give away the name of the game to people we trust, in a progressive way so that a “good amount of people” could buy the game on a daily basis without going above any threshold that might be in place for the monitoring systems. I of course don’t know this threshold (or if it ever exists), but went with a random number: let’s give away the name of the game to about 1000 people every day.
Of course, these people have to be people we trust with the secret, but where would one find thousands of people they trust? I decided to go with our /talk community. This was a bet, of course, but starting on February 21st, every day, 1000 additional people were made aware of the exploit. Of course, I started with the people I trust the most, and ended with the people I trust the less. I won’t give the exact algorithm, but I’m sure you can figure out the basics by yourself. (People who have been in the community a long time ago got the information before recent members, etc…). I will refine that algorithm if I ever do such a “ninja release” again.
This release plan was almost explained in “clear” on the vhbl page (the content of that page has changed since then), which was asking people to check their /talk account on a regular basis. And it seems lots of people understood the message, as we got a massive amount of subscriptions starting on February 22. As a matter of fact, most people who registered around that date got the information 1 day before it was really made public. By February the 29th, potentially 6000 people were aware of the name of the game, and were refraining from insulting the 3-4 guys who were still blindly complaining on my blog that I kept delaying the release to boost my ego or because it was actually a hoax…
That settled the announce for about 6000 people, which I think is a good number. Of course, in these 6000 people, not all of them own a vita, or had money to buy the game, or actually connected to their /talk account in time. But at least I had done my best to guarantee that the people who have been in the community with us for a while were the ones in the best position to get access to the hack, and hopefully hundreds of them got the game long before its name was made public. This was a win-win situation, as I managed to get the hack to people who matter “the most” to me (that’s of course an average, I’m sure some people have been reading this blog for months now, never created an account on /talk, and are pissed to read that… this is nothing personal, I had to make such a choice at some point), while being quite sure that our oldest members, who had been with us since the early hbl days, would probably know better than to leak (and that more or less worked fine).
There still was the problem that even if these people would not leak intentionally, the crash log system of the Vita made it possible for people to unintentionally leak the name of the game. I’m sure if Sony started seeing hundreds of crashes in the same game, they would start looking closely into it. Again, I am not sure these crash logs are actually sent to Sony, but out of precaution the actual HBL files were only sent in advance to a handful of people, while most people would have to wait for the actual release.
Announcing secretly this exploit to thousands of people was already a good move IMO given the circumstances and how easily Sony could remove the game from under our feet. But then came the next challenge: how to get as many “other” people (people who are not registered on /talk) to know about the game, and give them enough time to grab the game? Well this one was quite impossible, but I made a bet: if Sony didn’t have any actual exploit to patch, any kind of proof that there was indeed a hack, they would probably not remove the game from the store. It turns out I was dead wrong on this one, which was (that and the fact that the game was not available in the US) the only real bump in that release. To be honest, anybody who managed to get the game while not having seen the info on their /talk account before is someone I consider as an extremely “lucky bonus”. Of course, I would have preferred if Sony hadn’t pulled the game out of the store, but I’m still happy with the way things turned out.
One thing I think I could have done much better is to announce the name of the game on the weekend, when Sony’s offices probably have less people monitoring all the stuff. That was my initial plan, but I stupidly changed my mind for several reasons, the main one being the cancellation of the PSN maintenance.
So tell me, would you have handled this release any better, had you been in my position? Does it now make sense why it took “so long” to announce the name of the game, or do people who insulted me on my blog still think I was trying to boost my ego? (seriously guys, that was really painful to read, given the efforts I was putting into making sure as many people as possible would get the exploit… after all, keep in mind that personally I could decide to keep the HBL port for myself, or for just a handful of hackers and friends… instead I came up with a plan to get as many people as possible to get access to the hack). In retrospect, I hope my posts from the past few weeks now make much more sense.
I don’t think my idea was perfect, but I still think it was pretty good given the many obstacles in our way, but I’m interested to get more ideas… I don’t think we can really beat Sony when an exploit involves a content hosted on their servers, but surely there are ways to make lots of people know about those somewhat secretly (and if you have an idea to make such releases that you really think is brilliant but needs to be kept secret, feel free to send it privately to me by email) 
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I think it’s the best way you can do it. Don’t feel bad about those idiots insulting you. You do not owe anything to anyone. PS : I still haven’t tried HBL out
though i was lucky enough to get the game. -
oh, and while i have your attention. I have only one wish… the Homebrew section could use a better sorting. Browsing through all kinds of apps and multiple versions of the same app takes a lot of time to find interrting stuff :-/
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the download page… yeah, i just saw the BETA sign
sorry-
Don’t be sorry, advice on how to improve that page is really welcome, I’ve said I would add “categories” a long time ago, and never did it…
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Wololo thanks for work !! we love you !!please make new exploit(crack)i not bay Motorstorm AE =(((((
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i think the vitas weak point is CMA creating a file that would continuously loop transferring to the vita could create a tunnel to inject files
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secretly announcing the name of the game was a great move wololo rather than announcing it the normal way (that would cause Sony to remove the game in less than 24 hrs) too bad i don’t have a psvita yet
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hahaha I think i registered on /talk almost day 1, but i haven’t signed in for a very long time now. Maybe it got better, but back when it was new it was full of spam and double-tripple-quad-posts. At least that’s what i thought.
Well, i didn’t buy a Vita anyway – i might boycott it, we’ll see. If you get back to your “boycott-sony”-thing aswell, i’d love to see you in the xbox-scene xD-
yea wololo, your method on releasing was brilliant, too bad more people didnt sign up on /talk like you said to do…
thanks again for VHBL, currently testing homebrew, will post about it later xD
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Considering you waiting for the maintenance, either you had to release it today or in the next few days OR you had to release it, like you said, on the weekend, right before the maintenance, giving the community just a few hours to get the game and giving Sony a lot of time to remove it.
Considering you releasing VHBL from the start (February 22nd), an amount of people never had the chance to get the game before Sony takes it off PSN, because of delivery delays and stuff like that.
So what you did was actually not worse than any other option.
One question: Are you aware of the Ape Quest exploit? Some sites are reporting that the Ape Quest Demo (not anymore available in the US Store, but still in the EU Store) is exploitable. I’d like to ask you to confirm that (or prove it wrong). And if it’s true, a “VHBL Ape Quest” would be great. But just if you like. -
My final answer to the Ape Quest rumor is here: http://wololo.net/talk/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=10629#p130276
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Tahnk you. That’s what I was looking for. Now I finally can to sleep at night.
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Now Sony announced that the PS Vita game MotorStorm RC is available for Free. https://twitter.com/#!/PlayStation/status/176684071496331266
Ummm, maybe is like a gift, cause they retired the PSP exploitable game MotorStorm from the PSN stores?
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No complaints about your process, despite being bumbed that I missed out on getting in on the fun. It was mostly my fault for tuning in late to the scene (only got my vita on the 28th) and bad timing with seeing the blog announcement after getting to work and having to wait till getting home to switch to a UK PSN account. I just hope it’s not too long till another exploit comes along. I’ve been watching closely now. I’ll be sure to sign up for a forum account incase you mail out again. Thanks for all the hard work. I’ll be playing with it the next chance I get hopefully.
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wololo,thanks for work! I ‘m Chinese.But I will always support you!I’m sorry. My English is poor!
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I have a question,I run GPSP Kai in my PSV,But the language must be a Japanese and English,It not run on Chinese language，And run the game cannot record
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Hats off to you walolo. though sad that it was announced by another before your planned (….) release even happened. will just have to wait for new developments. i would understand how people had felt, honestly, including myself. eventhough we know how much work you have put into this and how much support with everyone gave you, but you can’t really blame almost all of them to react negatively. for everyone to anticipate and get their hopes up some even visiting your site every hour, then just getting the news that the game needed was already removed.
still more power to you walolo. hopefully there will be other developments and i hope others would understand your situation as well.
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i think you did a great job wololo. i just wonder how come i wasnt aware of the exploit on my /talk account; i have been a member since the beginning. you hurt my feelings now that i read this.
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it’s possible you missed the message, it was at the top of every page for almost a week,maybe you don’t look at the top of the forum so often?
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Yeah, my feelings were kinda hurt to after reading this. I have been with you since long before exploits were even in fashion here. Im a Wagic guy.
I also returned my Vita as a direct result of not being able to use the exploit. *sigh*
Im not blaming you. It was my dumbassness. But, I was really frustrated by this entire scenario.
It just sapped the joy out of owning the machine in the first place.-
Yeah, sorry for that. I’m sure people will be a bit more aware next time we do such a thing, this was just the first attempt, there will be many more
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i have no idea how i missed it, i must be blind.
oh well, for the next big version update will you be able to use wth’s game exploit(maybe that game is north america region which would be even better)?
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Dang. I missed out. Oh well; I guess I’ll just pirate Mass Effect 3 while someone makes a proper hack for Vita.
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Thanks Wololo. People are something stupid…
Is really difficult to find a way to publish the name of the game.
Greetings from spain. -
Pfft! I was one of those without a Vita at the time and I still don’t care I’m not able to use vHBL at the moment.
It was simply great to be here…(I was around for the GTA stories loader ^_^) So for me, it’s awesome to see that come around for the Vita.
As to how vHBL was released… You had alot to stand up against as you’ve noted here, only selfish users would be the ones up to insulting. Furthermore, the fact I was one of the many lucky users out of better ones (I’m just a end-user) yet you still gave me that trust.
To me, that’s worth more to me than having vHBL.
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Well, next time please test a game that works in the US… Is there any way you might be able to make this for a game that works in the US now?
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find the game by yourself ignorant scum!!
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Lol!
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I’m an ugly asshole… lmfao, I really am…
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We couldnt have guessed, back in december, that one of the most succesful western games of the psn, a title bundled with the umd-less psp go, would be available for the vita in japan, but not in the us. Nobody could have guessed that 2 months before the us release of the console. There is no technical reason for this game to not be available for the vita in the us.
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You did it the best way possible dude, forget about the hostiles ones and celebrate the joy of the lucky ones who could buy the game… I wasnt one of those, i live in the US but im happy with your process dude. Keep the GOOD WORK!
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You did what you could, but still most of us including me, are left with nothing. I missed the game by one day. I hope You guys will make Sony pay for this.
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First off.. i want to say thanks to wololo.. you are the man.. im in the US so i couldnt get my hands on the psp game but i love your work none the less.. you are doing an awesome job.. keep it upp!!!..so im just a little confused.. did u release the name of the game earlier on ur talk blog? or did u sent an email to the members? { btw i just registered
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where in your talk blog did u release the name of the game?
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It’s normal you didn’t see it if you just registered, that message was shown on the forum to a selected group of registered users, and has been removed since
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ok thats fine.. hope ill be able to catch it next time..again you are doing a fine job.. dont let a few haters get you down!!
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You did great wololo.. and thanks for ur trust.. otherwise….. I wouldn’t enjoy VHBL now.
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agreed xD, man VHBL handy
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Great explanation as promised.
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I think your plan was very well thought out and executed. Too bad there are all those haters with no patience that just want to cry about stuff. Screw them though.
Well done sir, well done. -
^_^ The first homebrew that I played is WAGIC in your Honor!!! Tnx Wol0lo!!!
Great Plan!!!-
Thanks a lot
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i bought this game before the exploit was released because the demo was awesome. So I actually have an unpatched copy on my hard drive but cant transfer it to my psp. Also I got it in a bundle with twisted metal head on for $14.99 off of the psn store.
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Don’t worry about the idiots who whine, look at them as $ony workers because there is no doubt, they are out there lobbying in the worse way. Trolls trying to make you leave the scene, this has happen to others in the past.
Thanks again, one day, I hope to be able to enjoy HB on my Vita.
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You might act straight to your believe, but you are now a true enemy of Sony. You “claim/prove” to have power of the buying behavior of a huge amount of followers/consumers (+/- 6000 ?).
So I suggest you watch your (legal) steps very closely, since you know the rules of the game. (don’t go beyond your pay grade)
I wasn’t interested in the hack, yet I must congratulate your method.
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Svenn, thanks for the advice. I’m still convinced what I do is not illegal. VHBL is not bypassing any DRM, and not trying to run any code it is not allowed to. Also, I think the real number of people who would “follow my advice” is closer than 1000 than 6000 for now. I think this is nothing compared to Sony’s user base, so they shouldn’t even care
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I see what you mean, please don’t get disheartened by some people who fuss, a vast majority, and also a silent majority”me included in there until just now” know that you are being very gracious with your time and your software, we know what you never had to release hbl to us and that you never had to make this awesome community but you did because you decided to be a awesome guy and share your goodies, thank you Wololo.
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+1
Well said, I agree completely.
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That was a pretty cool(and risky) plan. I would of expected to see the game name released considering you told so many people but it’s awesome that no-one did so congrats. I didn’t get the game myself because there are a few games coming out for the vita that I have to get before I get stuck on a FW, I just hope the next exploit doesn’t come out too soon. Keep up the good work and don’t pay attention to the trolls/haters, the majority of us have nothing but respect for you.
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Huh… explaining your motives just gives the haters credit… that’s how trolls work. Don’t bother with it or them. Just do what you want to do, you don’t owe anyone anything, especially an explanation, for your work (except for the people helping you with the exploit – make sure they’re looked after).
You’re getting too caught up in it all… that’s what the scene does. Golden rule: haters gonna hate – that’s how the world is, especially the hacking and homebrew scene, when you enter the public domain.
I didn’t get MotorStorm in time (I didn’t check your blog for a week or so) and I’m not throwing insults. Only useless, selfish and egocentric people will behind the anonymity of the internet – gee, very brave of them :rollseyes:
Good luck, and don’t feed the trolls.
-LP.
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Wololo, seriously fuck all the people who talk shit too, you don’t owe them a damn thing, you make the hardware user experience better, without your blog my psp would not have the functionality it does have, simply because Sony doesn’t it want it that way, thank you for all your past work, on the psp and all future work on the vita, I personally don’t use vhbl at the moment , I am American and have an American psn account, as u know swapping accounts sucks ass on vita, so I will wait, honestly wololo I don’t think u could have done the release any better, I can see some confusion with ESL, but don’t let haters ruin your day, I think the fact you wrote such a Long post is testament to that it affected you a lot, for that I am sorry, but 1 thing I have learned throughout my life is someone somewhere will not like you no matter what you do, don’t let them bother you, thanks again for all your hard work, an all other developers, Thanks !!!!!!!!
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Unfortunately I think that given the nature of the releases, it will cause a massive spike in terms of the download statistics on the PSN store. No matter if the name is kept secret or that if you used an encryption system etc, unless people are downloading the exploited game at random intervals rather than on a set date, sony will notice the spike and therefore know the game automatically.
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If I was to give a very rough estimate, I’d say maybe 5% of the people who knew about the game were actually interested in it, so I’m thinking about 50 people a day bought the game. I sure hope for Sony that they sell many games much more than that…
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This makes sense. I was referring to the set dates like 20 feb or 2 march etc. which will of course create spikes in their download.
But yeah if you don’t rely on a set date and have a system where you get people to download it gradually and somehow use a system that only people other than sony would somehow understand/de-encrypt would solve the problem. But of course the hard part is making such a system.
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you did great I just hope you dont leave due to what a couple of people said, while I didnt get this version I trust you will create a new version eventualy and I am willing to wait I just hope you will stick around for those who are grateful to all your hard work, thanks
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No plan on leaving, I’ve been in the scene for 6 years now, and met more haters and fakers than I can remember, I’m used to this.
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Has it ever occured to you that sony is spying on this site this very minuet..
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Yes, it doesn’t matter, I’m not hiding anything. For all I know, some of our members at /talk work for Sony and were aware of the release. These “ninja releases” are fun and we’ll probably do more, but eventually, if a hack comes out for the vita, it will have to be something that works independently of when people read at my blog
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Works independently? I really don’t care about customized home screens and such like CfW if I can go to an app like HBL and temporarily run unsinged code and change back so I can access psn and play online I’d be set
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you’re a blight on humanity
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Hey wololo will motorstorm RC work with this exploit? Just curious…Thanks
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I already owned the digital copy of the game beforehand, I dont suppose theres a way i can download it an copy it to the vita? Not asking for link, i can find that myself. Just curious if i can copy the thing to the vita, my account is already licensed for it.
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Nice to know I might go register a /talk page soonish as well just to be on the safe side for the next one, let’s be honest this is $0NY where int = 4; is considered random so there may be another game found anytime and I highly look forward to the possibility even as someone who was inb4 pulled and have it working now
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I thought secretly announcing the name of the game i nhopes that people will buy it, was an ingenious idea.
you did the best you could do, so just ignore them haters.
keep up the great work wolz. -
I’m sure there will be other chances and ways to hombrew the vita in the future, I was unlucky to get it in time but I’m sure another chance will come around thanks to folks like you, who have a lot more know-how than me at these things
I’ll keep me ears open -
Can someone point me to an easy installation of psplink, I’ve found heaps of guides but they either dont work or the links needed are dead. I’m on win7 and have my psp on 6.60 pro-b10 but I can downgrade if needed, thanks in advance.
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I personally got it from Minpsp (google for it). As far as I remember, it worked out of the box.
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Hey wololo will motorstorm RC work with this exploit? Just curious…Thanks
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No, why would it? It’s a different game made by a different company, for a different platform, with different programming tools. It has nothing in common with Motorstorm AE except its title.
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Okay stank you…
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I am not in your community previously, but I do managed to get the game in HK store when I checked teck4 twittering the name of the game
I double confirmed it on your blog that day and downloaded it IMMEDIATELY! thanks for all your great work on VHBL -
next time, announce the name of the game AFTER first announcing 3-5 fake games
sony will remove countless games and in the end just think that when the real game gets announced it another fake and not pull it from the store although this would probably lead to massive amounts of money spent on fakes by your community
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Yeah, that’s my concern, I’d love to play a prank on Sony, but I don’t want people to buy games they don’t actually want to play
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So you based the time on when you secretly announce the name of the game based on the date they register on /talk?? or by name and behavior record on the forums??
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A mix of all that
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Ok thanks!
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I think you handled everything fine, I understand how pissed off people would be if they bought the game and had it pulled before they could download it fully, some of that came back on you unfairly I think… Let’s all be glad if we got the hack and see where it goes from here
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Question: you said that the game wasn’t available in the US, however it is (was?) available to purchase on the PS3 store. It was recently discovered that you could purchase non-compatible games on the US store, and then use the PS3 to transfer to your Vita.
Did they remove Motorstorm from the US-PS3 store as well? And if they didn’t, do you think we could take the chance of downloading it on the PS3 and transferring it to the Vita?
Thanks again Wololo!
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Hey I have Motorstorm on my PSP Go. Anyway to transfer that game to my pc and from the PC to the Vita??? I deleted the file of my ps3 a few days ago and I had no idea about this exploit
Anyone know what I can do??? The game is on my PSP go!!
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Wololo on a scale from one to ten how hard do u think the ps3s and vitassecurity is to crack?
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I don’t know, systems security is not my professional field, and I never worked on anything else than the PSP and the Vita, so I don’t have much to compare it with.
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Futé le plan, tout s’explique
Je suivais en spectateur (pas de vita, je ne suis pas non plus inscrit) et effectivement, je trouvais ça curieux que tu insistes lourdement sur les /talk mais je n’ai fait aucune conclusion.
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