Yifan Lu: ‘Why hacking the Vita is hard’
A few days ago, Yifan Lu posted on his blog his thoughts about the current status of the Vita in terms of hacking, why we are not seeing any significant progress, and why we are in a very different situation than we were a few years ago with the PSP.
In many aspects, Yifan Lu’s article echoes what I said 6 months ago (although I was much more hopeful back then), and what the fail0verflow team (famous for hacking the PS3) wrote in may as well.
Yifan Lu first summarizes what’s been said a lot recently, that the interest of hackers towards the Vita is not comparable to what we had when the PSP was pretty much the only valid portable device available for tinkerers. The rise of smartphones has changed the rules: hackers and indie developers are not focused on dedicated portable gaming systems anymore.
He then develops 3 main points that explain why the Vita is harder to hack than its older sister, or than smartphones: the fact that the PSP had flaws on day 1, which the Vita doesn’t; the fact that the Vita is a very specific piece of hardware making it difficult for hackers to “borrow” ideas from previous hacks; and the fact that hardware hacks, which have proven in the past to be the most effective, would be extremely hard and costly to achieve on the Vita (something that I also pointed out a while ago).
All these points may sound obvious to some of view today, but it’s something the hacking scene had been foreseeing for a few years now… did you see how many “scene” websites have transformed into “regular” gaming websites in the past few years?
Source YifanLu
Well I hope that the newer slimmer ps vita with the 1g of built in memory
Is easier to hack
I think it’s exactly the same
I myself think that it is not hacked yet because it is not interested enough for developers to develop games for Vita. Face it, it is expensive, and people would rather buy a smartphone, as well developers may get more money if they spend their time developing mobile games.
But things will change when the Vita TV comes out, it is affordable and will become option 1 for low budget gamers. Vita will get more games and take back the attention from gamers, developers, and hackers as well.
Smartphone games suck and are more expensive. The in-app purchases make it more expensive. You might say it is not always necessary to buy in-app purchases, but in some games it is required. For example an app that forces you to buy the next episode in order to play further. i.e. Final Fantasy Dimensions.
Hopefully this is not the future of games. Most smart Phone games are either 2 things:
1. Fun, short, but poor quality. You won’t see a ‘Killzone’ quality game on the iPhone. N.O.V.A or Modern Combat 3 doesn’t cut it.
2. Higher quality games that are $10-15 each. Still not console, or even hand-held console quality. i.e. Chaos Rings.
all $ony has to say is the VITA is unhackable and I think we’ll get one look at ps3 sony bragged that it was unhackable and look at it 🙂
well yea the vita abit costly but campared to how much one would pay fo an ipad to play game its not that bad and i can get an iphone 5 for 80 bucks jus saying ..
to me its jus cuz its sony…
Doubtful. They’re not likely to make major modifications to the hardware (no extra CPU or ram, so no revisions needed). Plus it’ll be the same, secure software. Same with the vita tv.
The PSP didn’t have exploits or flaws at the start, the first firmware had no blocks so homebrew was enabled from the start. That’s was firmware 1.00. They changed homebrew access in firmware 1.50 making it harder but it was still there. I think homebrew was blocked from firmware 2.00 onwards that’s why CFW was created to re-enable homebrew.
So you don’t consider “no blocks” as a flaw from Sony’s perspective? I’ll respectfully disagree.
He probably mean that people didnt have to do any hacking to make homebrew work on PSP to begin with. But yeah, Sony definitelly didnt intend for homebrew to work on the PSP, so it was no doubt a flaw from Sony’s side.
Thats no argument at all, its like saying vita is “supporting” homebrew through VHBL. It had MAJOR flaws at start, including one about being able to run unsigned code (elf’s) (or something)
In the point Yifan makes, its perfectly valid, where PSP was an open gate, the vita is still a good castle wall hacker efforts only turned up small gates not enough to be do reall damage.
To everyone not wanting CFW for PS Vita. I hope you are happy that greedy Sony, instead of releasing for PS Vita owners a TV-out cable(+firmware update to support it) which could be hooked to the already infamous “accessory port” on top of the Vita, they gave us the big FU finger and released a totally new product. PS Vita TV? want to hook your Vita to a TV? buy PS Vita TV!!
If we had CFW, the amazing modding community that PSP had, would have already made a special Remotejoy app for it. And allow us to play Vita games on our monitor using a simple USB cable….
And as the PSP, almost 2years later, Vita gets a slimmer model announced! and still no sign of HDMI port or even a TV out cable announced. PSP SLim was a total improvement over the PSP. Unlike Vita slim which brings battery and weight improvements, but losses the sweet OLED screen.
And looking at the Vita TV, i think its set in stone the handheld version will never receive TV-out capability. Only solution remains CFW.
I agree totaly , + 1000. Ps vita Tv was a shock to vita owners for sure. Dream to see a Dark Alex or geohot to give us freedom, thanks yifanlu for your hard work <3.
theres no hope for seeing geohot hack the vita. if he touches another sony product, he gets life in prison.
Yes life in prison for giving consumers what they want. As far as I can tell copyright law just benefits large corporate bastards like Sony at the expense of everyone else, no wonder Sony is in no hurry to drop the prices of Vita memory cards. And life in prison for copyright infringement? You would think geohot would have to rob a bank and kill all the people inside the bank to deserve life in prison, but modding and hacking an electronic device? Congress needs to look at the copyright laws and really needs to scale back the fines and penalties.
Pro team , codbird and Total noob specialy with ecfw was a revolution 😀
Well thank the heavens for that, I don’t want a HDMI cable laid 5m across my lounge room just to play my Vita from the couch to the TV. It’s dangerous and down right stupid.
Has it been proved that it is possible to use a HDMI cable on the Vita accessory port? If it was so easy, it doesn’t make much sense why Sony didn’t release such cable at the Vita launch. That would simply have led to more profit for Sony.
Everyone stop complaining about a tv out for the vita, if you want to game on the tv then buy a damn ps3 ffs, the vita is a portable for a reason >_>
Not all games for the vita are on the PS3/ps4 einstein :p
Given that the lower resolution might be a turn of for some. i would love to play some games i have on the vita on my big screen. I would only need to uncouple the cable to make it “PORTABLE” again. Just because you don’t care for it doesn’t mean the whole commpunity has to suffer for it. BTW i own a ps3 so what of it?
Dude why not buy a vita as a portable and a home console 4 ur tv. The vita doesnt have a huge game line up anyway
read my post above yours that’s why. really are people really this narrow minded. There is nothing wrong with demanding more features. It’s better to have features you don’t use than don’t having features you want to use(with the exception of features “you don’t use” that interfere with features you do use) I don’t see a tv out option as one of them tho
By your understanding of the myserious “port” at the top, it is not easy to just simply plug a cable into a random port on the Vita and it magically appear on your TV or monitor.
That is like saying “lets plug our PC monitor straight in to the power supply and hope it comes out on the monitor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nope. The pieces of hardware have to actually “send” output data. For all we know, that port in the top could have eventually made its way to being some new type of secondary Memory card slot.
“The rise of smartphones has changed the rules..”
And for the worse too. Everyone is playing that damn fruit game or that idiotic man-jumps-over-cavern-and-avoids obstacles game. Smartphone users are a very conformist bunch, and if the portable gaming industry dares take their cue from them with any sort of seriousness, I fear for the portable gaming market overall.
Dont forget candy crush
Smartphone games aren’t even that great.
PC > everything else.
no yo cant hack te ps vita ever..you now wath … you cant miss witch the dark alex…he is behinde the fierwall vita…noobs…hahahahaha
Now if only you could actually type, instead of being a wannabe gangsta. Then people would actually be able to understand you & not care, instead of just not caring.
this is a tribute to sony for good work? … not think
“hacking the Vita is hard” …but not impossible, they say many coders, “no device is invulnerable”
however (although not the same device)the same was said of psp.
Now the most important thing is patience and fun meanwhile looking bugs
Good luck! 😉
lol.. it’s to harder to a genius like them?
stupid ideas… go hack some kitty game on 3DS
Wut? Yifan Lu?陆一帆？Sounds like a Chinese hacker 😛
Not the right characters, but I don’t see myself as a hacker much less a Chinese hacker. That word has lost all its meaning. I reverse engineer.
What about the PS vita TV that might be hackable it takes psvita games
hi, what about a little hack ?
sdlBasic for PSP version 0.5
May 22nd, 2008, 03:47 Posted By: deniska
sdlBasic is a small, efficient multiplatform basic interpreter originally created by Roberto Viola in 2002.
together with dxbx ? delphi or pascal to psp sdlbasic convertion ?
xbox on psp ?.?
hey!! Yifan Lu im ip banned from your website for no reason.
I don’t know. It must be cloud flare thinking you’re a bot. Make sure your computer is not infected.
wwwwhhhhyyyyy!?!?!?
the fact that the PSP had flaws on day 1, which the Vita doesn’t;
I guess there might be one, but we simply didn’t find it! Don’t you think?
hi,
free pascal on psp lol
or even lazarus
would do the trick of compiling dxbx for psp
lol
so anyone want xbox on psp/psvita/vitatv ?
hi Yifan Lu,
so what are the tools to fully automatic reverse ps3/psp ?
do u reverse windows/linux applications to ?
thkx for the read anyhow
long progrezz
psvita ebot
PS VITA IS UNHACKABLE
YES IT IS…… Give me your Old Vita, i’ll hack it in a Year… if i dont eat sleep or S**t ..
The little bit achieved within the vita OS is minimal but it’s there. There’s always a way to achieve our goals within our given hardware. But the fact of the matter is that nobody wants to release such an exploit and get jail time. It’s just not worth the risk. Very few have even experience in this new Sony OS. We will see an exploit publicly but that’s gonna be a long long time. Perhaps the vita tv will give us even more clues as to how Sony is thinking this time around.
In the meantime, pray for 3rd party support and new games (Jesus give us sanandreas stories)
-Voltromik
And can you tell us whats stopping hackers to give the files to some foreign friend and tell him : can you please upload this to a popular filesharing website and then email some major gaming sites about the jailbreak?
There are alot of countries where sony cant do anything to citizens other than suck their d**k!!
“Some of view”?? The phrase is “some of you”.
Friends, you may perform the same work in the psvitaTV kernell exploit to…
Guys like the 3ds there will be a break through in one way or another.
Time is of the essence.
Maybe…
If some manufacturer makes an adapter for the front accessory slot, we will get to know more about the Vita.
…maybe Sony left that by accident there?
The Vita Isnt UN-Hackable.
The Vita IS very Hard to hack
The Vita does have hdmi out with a usb, but that model is for developers ( i heard it cost around 2 grand O.o)
Also, the vita isn’t bad at all, it just isnt receiving as much support over here as it is in Japan
The only exception id wantto buy a smartphone over the vita are the free 3rd party apps that let u do things like watch videos in native format etc.
Yay for vita with a LCD screen, i HATE the OLED screen on both this smarthphones
Yeah I’ve thought this was coming for a while now…the combination of game developers making it harder to hack, and more expensive, while at the same time decreasing the desire for the hack (by supporting many of the features the hack would enable out-of-the-box) is killing console hacking. Personally I’ve always loved hacks and still have my trusty PSP with CFW on it. I’d love to see a Vita hack, but I just don’t think it’s coming. Would rather see a 3DS hack honestly(due to the possibilities on the 3D screen), but doubt that’ll happen either.
Vita can be hacked for sure as evey device out there but..
This doesn’t mean it will be hacked
Actually coldbird already did although a Jackass Released the Software and the Files so…. Sony already has the files to Enforce the Vita’s Defenses… although…” there are no absolutes in this world” (AHEM : PS3 anyone? )
Good. I’m *** glad you don’t buy that ***. Considering no one complains about the *** Iphone with the basic same internals for 600$. Whiney ***. Of course Sony selling the Vita at a loss, a very high loss and you still *** complain.
I’m talking about modding hardware which this site advocates you dumb ***. If you don’t think there is anything wrong with the Vita, than you are a brainless Sony apologist.
If I pay $200 for an electronic device I better have full control over the device, because I paid for it with my own hard earned money, I could give a *** how much Sony spent to create the Vita. You got your priorities backwards you *** head if you honestly preaching what you are saying
There’s no need for you to be such an *** skpg.
I’m not being an ***, I’m simply responding back. If someone insults and flames you in anyway you respond back. You’re an *** for calling me an ***.
@Techni Myoko, lol calling me an *** when Josh101 was being the ***, I simply responded back. Now I have to respond to another dumb ***. Hey think before you post.
I can’t believe the non-sense in these comments. How can you people even pretend to be upset with a company that spends MILLIONS on liscensing/exclusivity and parts to make a system, sell it at a loss (Vita=300 Iphone=600 with the SAME basic internals) and STILL complain that they are sc*** you over? SMH.
The Vita gets a lot of criticism because it restricts the user on how they can use their device, such as Sony preventing anyone including 3rd parties from modding their the hardware. Other restrictions like CMA, the mandatory kernel updates are also restrictions, think of it as hidden fees. I can care less how much money Sony spends on licensing technology, that’s their fault for being a major patent aggressor.
I don’t know if some of my other replies to your pathetic posts are going to show up because it’s being “reviewed for moderation”, yet your flame bait posts were accepted? It doesn’t make sense.
It makes perfect sense cause you’re being a complete jackass, he isn’t.
vita is way to expensive its just a PORTABLE and yet the price expensive its as expensive as a console then their cartridges are also expensive. Its like buying a hamburger then gives you only a sandwich….sony is becoming to greedy or too buissness minded they only care about their income not their consumer if only this company are not way to greedy they can still revive the prig psp there are countries that prefer hardcopies like japan because its like a collectibles
Vita will be my last sony product, learned my lesson. *** sony.
Mr. Wololo i have a question :
if the PS Vita gets hacked will it be able to emulate 6th generation video games for the PS2, GameCube, Xbox, Dreamcast?
i haven’t tried but i don’t think the psp could
THE ONLY REASON I MAY GET A VITA IS :
once Corpse Party Blood Drive is released and is Ported to the US
once God Eater 2 is ported to the us
the main REASON why i may get a vita is:
IF I CAN DOWNLOAD FREE GAMES ON TO IT… Even if its Just CORPSE Party Blood Drive… i really want that Game….. so yeah…
lets do our Best in Hacking the Vita… even if its Just to download Free games on it.. heck i’ll pay 800 Bucks for a Vita If it can download free games