Vita 1.80: the hidden “features” we didn’t really need
As with every firmware update, firmware 1.80 comes with a few “features” we’d rather not have…
The first one is that the Content Manager Assistant (a tool invented by Satan himself, that he later gave directly to his close friends in the Sony business department) has been updated to enforce stricter rules on what files can and can’t be copied to and from the PS Vita, with the direct result of blocking VHBL, as I mentioned earlier here.
- Related Read: PS Vita: content Manager and security concerns
But that’s not the only bad surprise that comes with this firmware. The second one, and possibly more important for many players, is that you cannot use a single memory card for multiple accounts anymore. You thought switching accounts was a pain in the a## because you had to reset factory settings? Well, Sony managed to make it even more painful by forcing you to actually format your memory card every time you switch between accounts (for those who didn’t know: no, it wasn’t required before). What this means is that, if, like me, you have several accounts with games you actually purchased on each one of them, you will now need several memory cards, one per account, unless you want to go through the hassle of re-downloading all your games every time you switch accounts. Don’t you just love that feeling of being a milk cow? (Thanks to TheBudds for pointing that one out)
Yeah, Sony loves to hide Easter eggs in their firmware updates, but beware, everything that’s brown is not always made of chocolate… How about you, have you found some hidden “features” on the latest firmware that you’d rather not have?
Hey Wololo I have a big questoin for you should I update the firmware or not because I want ps1 but I want homebrew
When someone gets “punched in the face”, it is expected that they try to protect themself. After seeing the huge hacks on PSP, i would say that it is expected to see something like CMA.
I dont really see what the big deal is with CMA either, it works fine for what it is suppose to do. Seems to me like you’re frustrated with VHBL being blocked, Wololo, and went because of this?
“Vent because of this”, not “went”. Sorry, was a typo 🙂
Nope, I criticized CMA and its limitations from day 1, that had nothing to do with VHBL. The same goes for this new limitation, which is being criticized by many websites.
Also if you look around you will see that independently of hacking, most Vita owners are extremely annoyed at yet-another limitation on the Vita. To a point where even the most extreme sony fanboy nests are also publishing articles wondering if CMA is really worth the hassle.
I am also preparing an article explaining how your Vita will turn into a brick the day Sony goes bankrupt.
What is the limitation? CMA can transfer files from and to the Vita, that is the main function of this app. I’ve only used it a few times myself, but it worked fine then. It took a bit time to do the transfer of a bigger game, but that is a very minor thing in my opinion. Other than that it worked fine from my usage with it.
That CMA wont allow unauthorized files to copied over isnt really a surprise to me. What features are you missing from it (that is excepted from a closed system)?
About the annoyed people, i guess you’re referring to the memorycard stuff? I’ve yet to see any non-hack websites complaining about the updated CMA at least.
About the Vita brick article, i guess you mean if the servers shut down? That goes for all digital download, but i’m looking forward to see what you mean with Vita only being a brick if Sony goes bankrupt 🙂
Needing to be constantly connected to the net when you copy files between two devices you own is a pretty severe limitation.
Picture this scenario: you have a 4GB memory stick, and bought 10GB of games (that’s about 10 Vita games, given the current size, so the scenario sounds very likely to me. I already bought 5GB worth of games and I have a 4GB memory stick). You have to back some of them up to your computer using CMA. When you want to play those games again, you’ll have to copy them back from your hard drive to your memory stick. That will stop working the day Sony’s servers are out, since CMA will refuse to work in that case.
The scenario of course works with a 32GB mem stick and 50 Gigs worth of games… Add movies and music to the mix, it is very easy for you to have more stuff than what your memstick can handle.
The PSP does not have this problem, despite working with digital downloads.
For non hacking websites complaining about the updated CMA, you have to show a bit of good faith if you want me to have an honest conversation with you, just google for it, you’ll find that sites such as Wired, playstationlifestyle, neogaf, vg247, or the verge mention it with words such as “annoyance”, “troublesome”, “artificial increase of the demand for memory cards”, “inconvenience”, “unadvertised restriction”, “painful”, “absurd”, “petty”, “anti-consumer”, “***”, “screw up”, it goes on and on…
I see, thanks for the answer. If Sony should go bankrupt, they could always release an updated version of CMA that doesnt require internet access. It is already possible with OpenCMA. But luckily we already have OpenCMA, so it shouldnt be much of a problem. At least there is a solution 🙂
About the non hackin websites, i didnt say that you were lying, not at all. All i said was that i havnt seen any other sites who wrote about the CMA update, so i was indirectly asking for sources to this. I searched on i.e Wired now, and i only see mentions of the memorycard changes, i dont see any mention of the CMA update. I fully understand that sites would pick up on this issue, but i dont see why the CMA update is affecting anyone except the homebrew stuff.
apologies, this is right. The CMA update is indeed only affecting us negatively, for most other users this will have no impact
Sorry, i think there has been a misunderstanding. When i was earlier talking about articles and CMA, i was only referring to the latest CMA update. I didnt see why many websites would write an article on this. I’m pretty sure that there has been articles about CMA when it first came out, i dont doubt that 🙂
No problem 🙂 I see now that you ment articles about CMA when it first came out. I remember seeing talk about that on NeoGAF for example, so you’re definitelly right about that.
Sony must realize that with the hacked psp they sell a billions of psp system. How could any ps vita users or other people trying to buy a system like ps vita if they read the news about vitas ristrictions.
PSP being hacked definitelly helped the sales of PSP hardware indeed. But the problem was more on the software side. The console business is mostly set up to make profits from games and accessories sales. They dont make much money on the hardware itself.
Maybe someone will release a completely open handheld platform in the future sometimes, but that will probably be much more expencive when they have to make money from the hardware. If Vita should be an open platform, i think it would cost at least $350, maybe even $400 or higher.
I dont understand why people buy something and complain later on that it is not an open system etc.. I could understand it more if it was like 7-8 years ago, but today “everyone” have internet access, so its really easy to look up this type of stuff before you buy something.
With the memorycard change in firmware 1.80, i can see some of the complaints around this. But i’m mostly referring to the comments that are about “i thought it could this and that”. Why not check up on this before buying it?
Wololo have you tried to transfer vhbl files with open cma?
damn when the debug FW got easy switch account..
retail FW got *** and the pain inflicted doubled 🙁
Sony, you keep sc*** over your loyal consumers by implementing more and more security measures kind of like how America screws over their citizens freedoms in the name of terrorism. I bought all these UMDs a few years ago and now you want us to pay for stuff we already own after dishing out another $300-400 for a newer console that does less? How do you expect us to stay loyal? 10 years ago I bought all these PSX games and I can’t even copy them onto your new unit. Not to mention, we have this new unit and you’re trying to resell us games we all already owned. Thanks for sc*** over the loyal ones, now we all hate you as a company and I am now considering jailbreaking my Vita the first chance I get. You dont even have many games to play online with. You have all these titles but restrict us. Screw you guys!!!
“but beware, everything that’s brown is not always made of chocolate… ” I laughed so hard when I read that.
It would be a whole lot different if in fact it’s Sony’s own rules which sc*** me over. I had no other choice to make a second account for a main due to Sony own rules. Now thanks to that, Sony wants me to buy their overpriced memory cards due to their own decisions.
Also, mutliple account usage is still in effect on the ps3 and the debug version of the vita firmware. So your comment of people saying “I thought I can do this and that” and your argument is pretty void. For Sony, account switching and usage is a normal feature for them.
I think that we should all start bugging Sony to let us merge account purchases or licenses for purchased content…. I know there are lots of ppl that have purchases on different accounts.
I like the idea of crosscontroller feature on PS Vita sadly from what I heard it wont be on LBP2 till this November. Don’t care about PS one games but PS2 would’ve been awesome. However when I bought PS vita I was expecting big titles like God of War or Infamous not 1 mini game each week. Now the Sony is putting features that should’ve been there since launch? Sony shouldnt make people pay twice for PSP games you have on UMD’s and now must have them digital. I have PS vita for 1 main reason LBP coming out this September.
Hi Wololo, first of all sorry for my english (not native), but this was a feature thas was there sinces the begining of the vita and is´t new, so all the sites about gaming are crying about it.
I don´t like $ONY much as you and the way to exchange acounts without formating the memory was like a trick discover by some guy, this time they don´t do anything new.
just saying.
The problem is that most customers don’t read what is, or is not, supported. It dos not matter that Sony never said it would work, the thing is, it used to work, and many gamers lost some important data (savegames, etc…) because of this change, which is not reversible. Once they realized they were losing their data, there was no way to “go back”, or say “cancel”. People who had several accounts with savedata, on the same card, basically got sc*** because of this one way or another.
Yeah I’ve found some unwanted features too like the “improvements” of the web browser that stopped PSVitaTubeDownloader script exploit to work. Also, before you could download videos from certain sites in the backround but since of the new update you can’t do that anymore. Instead your forced to wait and stare at the screen until the download finishes or you’ll get an error and you’ll have to start the whole download over again. Oh yeah, and they *** up notifications too! This update just wasn’t worth it. More bad than good stuff.
I dont like how when you download a file from the browser it uses the whole screen rather than background downloading which is really annoying,i know it makes it download faster but tbh id rather wait another 2/5mins
Same with me to.
Notice the new download system that sucks too much, I wish I could downgrade ma psV just for that.