Team XYZ shows off FW 3.70 hack for the PSVita / PSTV and TheFlow teases ‘modoru’ which may be a hombrew utility letting you downgrade your PSVita’s firmware!
If you’re stuck on firwmare 3.69 or firmware 3.70, then keep your eyes peeled because apparently Team Molecule are currently sitting on an FW 3.70 hack that works through the browser similar to FW 3.60’s HENkaku. On the other hand, if your Vita is currently hacked, there’s other stuff to be excited about as TheFlow might be releasing a homebrew utility called ‘modoru’ soon!
Team XYZ shows off a FW 3.70+ exploit chain
If you thought that no exploit existed for FW 3.70, think again because xyz (@pomfpomfpomf3) posted a video on Twitter proving the opposite.
In this video which can be seen in the tweet linked below, xyz boots up a PSVita 1000-series model running FW 3.70 (latest version of the Vita’s system software as of writing this article) in unhacked state.
After that, he opens the web browser and runs the exploit from a local server since Team xyz’s hack targets WebKit similar to FW 3.60’s HENkaku. Towards the end of the video, MolecularShell (VitaShell) 1.43 is opened which indicates that some homebrew has already been fixed to function on FW 3.70. From the video, it can be seen that the main people behind this exploit chain (hack) are xyz, st4rk and davee; all of which are PSVita hacking veterans.
As of right now, there is no mention of a release date or whether the exploit chain will be released or not. However, if you’re waiting for a hack to get HENkaku/taiHEN capabilities on FW 3.69/3.70, you’ll be getting a hack later this year by TheFlow for sure so you needn’t worry about being left out for too long!
TheFlow teases ‘modoru’ homebrew utility
Cryptic tweets are nothing new in console hacking scenes and yet another one has surfaced to make us scratch our heads. This time, it’s a tweet by TheFlow teasing a homebrew utility called ‘modoru’ and Reddit users were quick to point out that “modoru” means “to return” in Japanese which might be hinting at a utility allowing for firmware downgrading.
To further this suspicion, modoru’s LiveArea screen (by Freakler) features a clock with an arrow going back which makes it quite likely that this homebrew is indeed software which lets you downgrade FW 3.67/8 to FW 3.60/5. If this is true, it would be quite useful since a downgrade to these firmwares would allow you to use HENkaku Enso thus granting you a hacked PSVita at boot-time therefore eliminating the need to rehack/rejailbreak your PSVita/PSTV every time you reboot it!
Similar to the exploit mentioned above, it is uncertain about when/whether ‘modoru’ will be released or not. That being said, TheFlow has a history of releasing great stuff such as Adrenaline and H-Encore and downgrading a PSVita’s firmware is apparently possible according to Yifan Lu. This is because on Discord, he said that downgrading may be as simple as modifying an encrypted min_vers buffer sent to syscon during a firmware update.
Conclusion
As mentioned by the text in bold, the software mentioned in this article does not have an ETA so it may or may not be released in the near future! This means that you shouldn’t nag Team XYZ or TheFlow for a release since you’d only be risking a Twitter account block from them if you do so.
For now, all you can do is sit tight and wait for a while since a FW 3.70 hack will certainly be coming later this year and TheFlow has a past history of delivering so ‘modoru’ may be released in the near future potentially letting you enjoy HENkaku Enso on every hacked Vita you own soon!
You may also donate a few bucks to the talented developers mentioned in this article through their Patreon links (if they have such an account).
TheFlow’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheOfficialFloW
Davee’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/daveeftw
https://twitter.com/pomfpomfpomf3/status/1092870224481640448
Gj guys, you are awesome!
Great news! Now if we can only get Gundam Battle Assault 2 working properly through Adrenaline and/or RetroArch that would be awesome. A save state feature for Vita games would be also appreciated, if possible.
Bloody typical updated the pstv to 3.65 this morning with henkaku and enso, Right in the middle of dumping ux0 off the vita to me desktop for henkaku and enso on that one aswell
I love the naming convention for these exploits
I assume modoru works only on vita that came with firmwares 3.60 and below
Long gone were those days in which we where waiting for the next ninja release! 😀
cowabunga!
good day I wanted to use it to work with my molecularshell on firmware 3.70?