Warez group PSiCO release first Vita cartridge dump: Uncharted Golden Abyss
A peculiar release happened on the piracy scene this week: what is claimed to be the first ever Vita game dump release. Warez group PSiCO released what is described a dump of PS Vita Game Uncharted Golden Abyss.
Dumping the content of Vita game cartridges has been a possibility for some time, for those who have the right set of skills (not, not you Liam Neeson!): last year, Mr.Gas demonstrated that he was able dump the content of a vita cartridge and boot the game from his memory stick, and a few weeks ago he released a technique to dump a decrypted version of vita games.
A few months ago, Team Cobra announced they were going to release “Cobra blackfin”, a p2p “Vita game sharing” system. From what we can tell, such a mechanism would also require people to be able to acquire Vita game dumps. Although the “Cobra blackfin” from team Cobra appears to be indefinitely delayed, it seems obvious that they have ways to copy the contents of the cartridges as well.
But this week’s release by PSiCO is apparently the first public one on mainstream piracy channels. Additionally, team PSiCO give some interesting details on the release. They state: “The contents you find in this release come pre-decrypted without the pesky PFS encryption layer”. Conversely, the Cobra blackfin p2p system was designed to defeat some of the encryption on the Vita games. Rather than trying ways to remove authentication, Team Cobra have decided to fake the authentication step through their systems.
This release by PSiCO, however, claims to remove the security layer from the game entirely. As such it would require PS Vita hacks to bypass the security checks in the first place. Obviously, there exists no way to actually run this content today: there are no emulators for the PS Vita, and no system has been released publicly to run unsigned Vita game dumps.
Update: as several of you pointed out, it is extremely likely that PSiCO have been using Mr.Gas’s recently announced technique to dump Vita games without PFS protection…
Team PSiCO say they will release more Vita dumps in the future.
The full release NFO below:
Source: via psxtools.de, thanks to Daniel V.
Damn, playing Vita backups is like a puzzle and here’s another piece. I have two or three copies of this game knocking around but I’d prefer a digital one via backup. Interesting, but as this point even the scene release team mention there’s very little can be done with it.
Going to buy a Vita when playing backups will be a possibility. Hope it gets real soon.
This. Got 3ds as soon as smea announced that they are going to CCC. Lol.
The hype is real. Maybe a year or two.
In other words, you’re only buying a Vita when you’ll be able to pirate games on it… I mean, why would YOU make backups of games that you don’t currently own the console for…
Vita’s more dead than any equal rights movement.
Every time someone says “Vita is dead” a developer dies. Clap your hands if you believe!
Here, enjoy this, copy that into a text file and rename the extension to .bat
Have fun XD
@echo off
cd “%~dp0”
set a=0
set n=1
:loop
if a==n (
exit
) else (
echo The Vita is dead!
)
timeout /T 1 /NOBREAK >NUL
goto loop
Nice use of the 10 PRINT / 20 GOTO 10 / RUN loop, I knew what it without making a BAT 😉
Naahhh… it was meant to look more prof codey like… and it should be repeatable by ppl without cmd line knowledge since tons of those run around -> hence the bat.
Short version, but that one just doesn’t look codey enough…
@echo off
:loop
echo The Vita is dead!
timeout /T 1 /NOBREAK >NUL
goto loop
Because you can just download them?
Or rent them.
eww typical pirate, doesnt have the money to buy original games yet still have the money to buy the console if it is possible to pirate the game for that console. You must be the most lowest form of life just leeching everywhere.
What’s the difference if you only buy used games?
Buying used games is sorta different, the hope is the person who sold the game will use the money to buy a new game, sort like some lion king ***, a circle of life ya know?
Of course it is possible that instead they’ll stop playing video games and buy a car instead or something.
But comparing piracy to second hand buying is pretty silly and stupid imo, one at least still has a chance to support video gaming and isn’t stealing. The other is just stealing.
plus after a few years down it is not like you have the choice to buy some games new anymore, so you’d have to buy second hand.
Yeah, sure.
One still has a chance to support ’cause the seller may buy a new game (of corse, there’s nothing like thirdhand), but the other have absolutely no chance to support by buying new games and using piracy for the rest.
Of corse, someone who has money to buy secondhand can’t simply save it to buy less but new copies. Obviously, one who have enough to buy a system has necessarily enough for softwares to.
kretelos kills the industry by wanting piracy on an handeld that he won’t pay games for anyway, yet those who throw money in secondhand instead of new protects it.
Do you hear it? The wind of hypocrisy.
comparing copyright infringement to stealing is equally silly and stupid.
Well, it’s indeed a milestone for the warez scene.
Although from the looks of it, such dumps will be useful for Vita emulators existing in some parallel world.
I wish they or any other group would release remotely useful dumps though, preferably those of Japanese games. Their assets could be used by fan translators or modders to improve PC versions of games then. For example, Fate/hollow ataraxia would benefit from porting Japanese voice files to PC.
I personally would love to get scripts from visual novels to make dictionary look ups easier / help with reading them in general.
That would just sound horrible. Audio is downsampled on Vita. It would be painful to listen to on a PC with full 5.1/7.1 dts/truehd audio support
Let’s put some life in the scene! Backups won’t charm already bad Vita games sales, but will open door for creating awesome homebrews. And I’m sure that after Vita’s will start to sell better for at least some time.
Isn’t the game still need license to run? That’s what blackfin intended to do right, sharing license?
That’s right
Yessssss!!!Please,continue!
Watch out guys, this dude is going to spray all of you with loads of Russian sperm when the big day arrives. XD
Where can we find any download link ?
in yo mammas undies!
First? how do you think they found out Persona 5 clothes on Persona 4 Dancing?
Were those ever released? Interested to know more
So the .elf file is decrypted, people can start hunt for user mode native exploit then..
Actually, they’re not technically the first. I recall seeing someone who uploaded rips of Persona 4 Golden and Persona 4 Dancing All Night somewhere on the internet..
Thanks, would be interested to know if you can find the source of that again
Just go look through Mr. Gas’s tweets/replies. Mr. Gas has been replying to that guy’s tweets for a while now. I believe he is the reason Mr. Gas released this technique, as that guy actually had a use for PFS decrypted game files. He wanted the character models and such.
Here: s15.zetaboards.com/Amicitia/topic/8316666/1/
Not sure if I’m allowed to post links, though.
Oh hey, that’s me. Sorry for not tweeting at you, I didn’t know this was newsworthy. I’m surprised you didn’t write an article about mr. gas releasing the pfs decryption method so more people would know how to do it. I can’t take all the credit
i second you zeke. vita is a tough cookie to crack
Boy look how long its been just for a little crumb of a whole pie to be shown for the world to see.
well if we count “piracy” tricks for backups on PSVita here was or is another way for pirate and or (backup) games if we would have kernel access on PsVita like on PS3 CFW
lol the backups are on $$$$ONIS own Server hahaha
you just have to know the download link of PSN Content (Psvita game) + .Rap file + PS Vita with CFW = backups (piracy)
we just need ps Vita with a good CFW (native Kernel aceess) …. tip here is a site with many of this links and this links exist a even before the Persona dump
If the same process work on PS3 CFw it should work on Ps Vita too just not know or at least not public the backups are already here a longer time since last year or so just not a public CFW
this format of backup only can work on a full CFW ps Vita not a mod chip or blackfin or somethings like that thought…
the back ups at are here since last year lol and can be more everyday if everybody would share but cool to have backup from game card 😉 Kernel access we wait…
I wonderif they can have a look at early launch titles. For the PSP there were some interesting files on there. Speaking of PSP, the initial PDX releases like Ridge Racer also couldn’t be played. same for early 3DS and Wii U releases.
Honestly this *** is getting annoying.
I know people are used to pirating everything, but this is just sad.
I know the Vita is dead, that doesn’t make it right to pirate the heck out of it.
I just hope this leads to running some hombrew on vita hardware.
If you don’t care about the vita now, you will when you can play vita dumps for free?
What a joke!
heck yeah, let the piracy flow through my veins….. I can almost feel it…..
this only work w/ emulator 4 PC( not exist today) and 4 psvita loader and kernel xploit 4vita (psvita loader not exist today & kernel xploit or the keys 🙁 )
bravo 4 the dump 🙁
This would be useful if I could play Vita games over network just storing my games else where. Why does there need to be proprietary memory again?
I *** hope vita game pirating won’t become a thing until after this generation of handhelds since it would kill any hope of Japanese games releasing in the west.
Damn right! You have a good head on your shoulders, unlike some of the people here…
Sure, Sony like to make DMCA claim to google and other search engine, was really hard to find… No torrent anywhere, no normal web warez too… I finally found it 1h later on some usenet news group… At less, it was easy to make a free trial with no credit card account on some of those usenet website and download it without trouble and i affirm, even if you don’t find it anywhere on google, it do exist, search harder.
Well the backup is legit and installs just fine but the retail cart is still needed.