(not a release) Hackers have now confirmed PS Vita piracy
Over the past few weeks, several distinct groups of (or individual) hackers have contacted me with proof that they can dump and run pirated PS Vita games.
We’ve seen a couple warez games surface on the PS Vita scene since Henkaku has been released. Adventure time, which had been confirmed to be a DRM-free developer leak (and as such did not involve any method to bypass the DRMs found on commercial games), and Tokyo Xanadu, for which the circumstances behind the release are still unknown (some people claim it is also a DRM-free developer leak, potentially from a translation company in China).
On that note, rumors surfaced that the person behind the Tokyo Xanadu warez release might have been famed PSP hacker liquidzigong (a.k.a. Virtuousflame). He confirmed to me this wasn’t him (he hasn’t been active on the scene for a long time), so these rumors can be put back to sleep.
I have now been provided enough evidence by several hackers that Piracy on the PS Vita is a technical possibility. I have been sent proof of concept pkg files, and explanation on how the dumping process was done, by different groups.
Interestingly, not all of them have the same binary dumping process. Some of the things I have seen include the possibility to just install the pirated games as a vpk package from Vitashell, others involved a separate “iso loader” app update: the separate iso-loader app was a misunderstanding on my end. The games are dumped into files that can run “as is” on a Henkaku console. On the other side of the fence, the dumping process was sometimes extremely clever to bypass some of the PS Vita’s security mechanism. I can’t tell more here but some of the hackers have shared some really creative “out of the box” thinking with me on how they achieved things.
From what I can see, there are now enough groups with the technical ability to pirate PS Vita games, and I’m sure piracy on the PS Vita is now just a matter of time. None of the people who contacted me have stated they would release anything, however I’m convinced that given the number of people with the know how, the technique will ultimately be released or leaked. This could happen publicly, or we will start seeing modding shops in Brazil or Indonesia charging for 3.60 Vita consoles with 64GB worth of pirated games or something.
Wololo.net’s focus remains on homebrew support. Although I do believe game piracy is a personal choice, this site does not condone copyright infringement. As a reminder, people sharing links to illegal content are legally responsible for what they post, and the moderation team at wololo.net will take necessary measures against people posting such links.
Awesome. Hopping on the Hype Train.
First
first get a life
Brazil huehuehue
damn I forgot to say first
Yo primero
Time To Buy a PS Vita: The Article
“This could happen publicly, or we will start seeing modding shops in Brazil or Indonesia charging for 3.60 Vita consoles with 64GB worth of pirated games or something.”
So all of this methods depend on henkaku and will not work beyond 3.60 right?
Awesome!! Now I can’t wait till a CFW
Should I buy r now a memory card before the prices rise , or should I wait in the case anyone realeases a way to bypass the security means necessary to produce cheaper , non official Vita memory cards or a way to adapt sd normal ones to use for the vita?
I wonder about the potential to take a wonderful game like spelunky on the vita, and add pc modifications to it. *drool*
Don’t see point in saying if not ma king public. Great work tho. Hopefully the same or similar work with ps4.
So Sony completely missed the spot on the “Piracy Free Console”. Time to plunder those prices on the memories that cost so much because “they help compat piracy”.
I hope you tell them to release it wololo, as the only way the ps vita will ever be able to reach its full potential is if people stop acting holier than thou as if any of the future games being released will lose sales as they will require newer fw, vita needs piracy even though most users have already bought all the games they ever will, I only buy games when there less than 10 bucks and im happy to screw sony for all the years theyve been robbing me, and yes theyve stolen from me and likely many others,fuack sony!!
Games on the Vita will continue to be released, even after piracy, just like it was the case for the PSP. You have to be fluent in japanese however, but it was already recommended to learn that language in the first place if you were remotely interested in the endless list of japanese titles (while avoiding the pile of terrible localizations).
I would not advise any hacker to release anything illegal such as DRM-breaking software. This would be terrible advice for me to give.
We are the champions, my friends!
wow.. hopefully
I’m in indonesia
Finally I can play my Vita again!
What some of you don’t realize is that by pirating games on the Vita, you’re not stealing from Sony. Instead, you’re stealing from the developers, who typically aren’t Sony. What enabling piracy will do is just gimp the Vita’s potential library even more. Do you guys really want that?
Yeah. I really hope this does’t get out for a while, but the damage is probably already being done. If multiple people have said that they can pirate, it’ll hit news blogs everywhere, like this one, and chase devs off. May as well just release the methods.
Piracy isnt stealing. This argument of yours make no sense.
Also piracy didnt stop the PSP library to go wider.
yea but as we can see now, it sure as heck made most developers think thrice.
oh no, no more jrpgs that don’t see translations or releases in the west, how oh how can my no support handheld lose more support? At this point will I have to start developing the games myself? Not like I can go into any local stores and even buy the console anymore.
my thoughts exactly.
yes!
I never comment on here but this is some great news. The scene came a long way.
The problem in Brazil is that piracy directly affects console price (what is already a heck of expensive). Expect a rise of PSTV prices as this piratead games get more and more popular.
Everything in Brazil is the opposite. Surely the price of PS Vita will rise because here is the land of rascals
This may be good news for some people. For myself emulators is what I want most. Any vita game i want, ill just go buy. Vita games in the US and Canada are dirt cheap. There are lots of them on clearance in bins and used at reasonable prices. Kijiji, Craigslist, and people getting rid of vitas and games for dirt cheap. I want a physical cartridge in my hand, if not, i am not interested.
Farts
Hi,it was something which soon or later would happen after found a kernel exploit.
It is a shame : if vita was almost dead for new games,after someone leaked/show a howto there was no many changes of companies invert on vita anymore.
On other part maybe new games need new firmware and it would let them some time Until someone found ways to bypass it .
At last i hope next years (when this was old ) ,i would love see an article where show the diferents ways you comment : vita has been one of the most decide devices on the market.Many time,tricks,work has been need for bypass Its security.
I hope we go on have more and more homebrew – emulators for our loved vita.
Yours
Dani
This is my least favorite thing about the vita jailbreak. I don’t plan on pirating vita games, but only want more emulators, fan translations and homebrews out of this.
Dude ! Hope they’ll released it soin ! Thanks forme this new !
Game Over Sony
Weird… my last comment got deleted
Reproducing it:
Quote:
“This could happen publicly, or we will start seeing modding shops in Brazil or Indonesia charging for 3.60 Vita consoles with 64GB worth of pirated games or something.”
Does that mean the methods will only work on ps vita 3.60 (and not other firmwares)?
Yes, because this is only possible thanks to Henkaku, and no one has any intention of porting it anytime soon (I don’t even know if it’s possible).
The techniques shown to me require a HENkaku vita, so, yes, 3.60. Remember however that piracy is already available via the cobra blackfin dongle on lower firmwares.
True piracy allows for a complete copy, not just a “shared” version of the game. Cobra Blackfin is just a way for some butt munchers to try to capitalize on a hardware device that allows for copyright. Thank goodness for software crackers that are dedicated enough to override the need for any hardware “share” copies of games. Blackfin is just a money-making scheme to market and capitalize on something that should be free and shared in the first place. Information is power, and information that breaks the way of money-making greedy people should always be shared so that those that would try to make a buck off of information that is provided mostly for free with hard work won’t profit anymore than they deserve. I recall the PS3 DRM-ed hack, which later got squashed by the 3.55 hack. (Thank goodness sony was lax and made the mistake of allowing two constants in their update encryption which allowed for the update keys to be reversed engineered on the 3.55 update)
Primer (first)!
I think it’s time that we all get our vita’s battery charged up and get some big memory cards!
Great news!! Made my day!
great that’s what I’m talking about ps vita rules now
First!
First
I’m sticking to 3.18, since I’m much more interested in a replacement for TN-V/TN-X than Vita piracy. Too much of what I bought for PSP from PSN is still not playable on native Vita. And I’m going to have to get my Go back from my kids to finish off Killzone: Liberation chapter 5.
WoW Nice
Good progress
Release the kraken!
so.. ps vita will be finally relevant! (excluding japan)
Wow! This is spreading like wildfire. Keep up the good work guys.
The problem quite a few people have with vita releases is either:
a) nonphysical access to the game they want (Bandai/KT are notorious for not releasing physical carts in NA) I myself dislike the majority of releases in my region being only digital or extremely limited physical runs, it should be a choice not a requirement.
b) the company localizing the game is known to be ***. Either by censoring the release for a reason they personally dislike (as in ESRB/PEGI/etc did NOT “force” them) or changing the localized storyline/dialogue in an instance it isn’t required (I really don’t give a *** about obscure Japanese wonder duo from 1940s adapting this isn’t my issue, but deciding you don’t like what a conversation is about and removing or changing it entirely is infuriating)
Neither of these are “good” reasons to pirate, you could just as easily import a Japanese copy but not everybody knows Japanese or can afford to import. In this instance the “best” course of action would be to (somehow) obtain a legal copy of the JPN cart and just pirate the English copy. The question at this point becomes, is it still piracy to steal a translation? Obviously the answer is “No *** ***” but in a market as small as the vita people will most likely continue to buy products from companies/localizers they actually want to support. XSeed is cool. NISA is not.
Realistically one would hope the only people affected by this would be producers of poor products, this won’t be true, but hopefully the people who pull the “I pirate games to see if I like them enough to buy them” crowd is big enough to keep companies developing for the vita (similar to the 3DS, not the same install base but has had piracy for a while and is still going fine.)
Lastly, I realize this is a bit off the topic of vita in general, I really really hope some other company decides to release a handheld next generation to compete with Nintendo. It is insane that Nintendo is “king” of handhelds only because they have so many first party handheld IP to keep their handhelds afloat entirely on their own games’ “popularity” (read nostalgia and not having to try) coupled with zero meaningful competition. “Phones have replaced handhelds” is an equally stupid argument specifically because they don’t offer the same experience. A Phone with a game app is not the same as a device made with gaming in mind as it’s only usage. In that same way the 3DS and Vita are technically not in direct competition with each other save a few multiplatform releases because they are used entirely different ways. The vita was very much designed to be a “mobile” Playstation while the 3DS was designed to be a newer generation handheld. I feel like this was where Sony went wrong with the console. By marketing the vita as a portable Playstation experience rather than as the Vita and releasing games on both platforms they essentially competed with their own handheld until it fell out of existence.
Sony is somehow deciding that because their first/second gen/revision model handhelds aren’t instantly near the install base of a company that has had a handheld line since 1989 (almost 30 years) that they should drop support instantly and throw their hands up in the air with the *** “We tried and nobody bought.” excuse. In general, the people who bought the PSP/Vita AND knew what they were getting into enjoyed it. The problem is Sony has an issue with HYPETRAIN (as in, it isn’t represented as what it actually is) followed by nonsupport (every peripheral they’ve ever released for their stand up consoles has been empty a few months after release) for anything not “mainline” Playstation. I sort of wish Microsoft released a handheld under the Xbox brand but somehow it probably would have ended up like the Vita.
WahHahAhaAha The time is come no more UPDATE for me