In recent times, the PSVita has only been receiving minor updates that don’t do much except add some security fixes and remove features. Now, Sony released FW 3.70 which is yet another minor update and interestingly enough, it doesn’t even change NpDrm (game decryption) keys!

What changed in FW 3.70?

As far as the regular end-user is concerned, FW 3.70 barely changes anything as most of its changes are all under the hood. From SilicaAndPina’s comparison between files found in the 3.69 and 3.70 PUP file, the following saw changes:

• The Calendar application and its background although VitaTricks didn’t get patched so it’s anyone guess as to what Sony did.
• The Near application, which was discontinued on July 31, 2017
  

  Yifan Lu tweeted this as the string found in the plain text of the Vita’s secure kernel but it’s almost certainly just a meme!

• The Settings and PS Store app.
• Some things having to do with the kernel, Twitter and the store checkout plugin
• The f00d key was apparently changed although Yifan Lu still appears to have been able to access the secure kernel’s plain text and get the master key which means that Sony’s measures didn’t change much when it comes to hacking.

Will reF00D still work? Should I update to FW 3.70 if I want hacks?

As the npdrm keys remained identical to those found in FW 3.69 and 3.68, reF00D will still work out the box without any modification.

Thanks to this, you will still be able to play the latest Vita games that require FW 3.70 on a hacked PSVita running FW 3.60-3.68 even though there aren’t an awful lot of games to look forward to since Catherine Full Body won’t even be released in English on the Vita.

If you want to hack your PSVita, then it is recommended not to update to FW 3.70 even if it’s on FW 3.69 as it may have some security fixes lurking around which could make it more difficult to hack. That being said, there might not be much to worry about as TheFlow hinted that the hack he’ll release later this year (which he believes is the Vita’s EOL) will also support FW 3.70!

Conclusion

As the npdrm keys in FW 3.70 haven’t changed, it’s safe to say that this update won’t affect users sporting a hacked PSVita/PSTV. If your Vita is hacked, the only thing you’ll probably have to do is to change the spoofed FW version to 3.70 from HENkaku Settings in the Settings app if you want PSN access.

On a concluding note, it seems that Sony barely cares about FW 3.70 as they haven’t updated the Vita firmware page even though the update has been out for hours!