Santa, where are my Christmas hacks?
The end of the year has been surprisingly quiet in terms of console hacking news so far.
December is traditionally a huge month for hacks (I think it’s fair to assume hackers get more free time to work on their important releases towards the end of the year), but so far no rumor has been going on for an end of year “big” release on our beloved consoles.
Last year in December, KaKaRoTo released ps3xport for the PS3, Major Tom & Mr.Gas released their “Bubble Trick” on the PS Vita, and new usermode ePSP exploits were discovered on the PS Vita.
In 2013, December was even bigger, with many ePSP exploits released (and Sony reacting to those), Yifan Lu diving deep into the PS Vita’s hardware, Total_Noob releasing update after update of his excellent TN-V, a Dump of the PS4 Flash memory, and the release of JAISPI to read and write the PS4 NAND.
In 2012, several ePSP exploits were released, the ARK eCFW was announced for the PS Vita, and a bunch of alternate menus were made available for eCFW on the Vita. Also, more eCFW releases.
In December 2011, we witnessed a “day 1” hack of the PS Vita (through its psp emulator), followed by more “Hello world” proof of concept announces. In December 2011, yours truly started working on what would be the first VHBL release on the PS Vita.
December 2010 was a big month for PSP exploits, with the release of TN Hen on the Day of Christmas, which to this date was the highest amount of traffic this website ever received. Several exploits were also revealed, leading to some long awaited HBL releases. Virtuous Flame also released something known as the Prometheus iso loader, a component with high compatibility for PSP isos, that would later on be part of all PSP CFW releases (including on the eCFW releases of the Vita). Virtous Flame would later on contribute to Pro CFW and ARK with Coldbird.
By comparison, this year’s Christmas feels like it won’t be filled with many presents so far. I have seen no huge rumor or no confirmed date for anything big coming up… but there are still a few weeks until the end of the year, so who knows, maybe Sant-hack-laus will still bring us some presents.
I see what you did there.. ha ha ha, Sant-hack-laus, lol. Seriously though it would be great to see something that would bring the community back to the roar of a few years ago. Needless to say thing have been quite tame in comparison for some time now. On the real note, thank you to all the dev that provide their work for free for the communities enjoyment. Merry Christmas to all
Things have been tame? Where were you a couple months ago? That was one of the biggest bits of news for the vita since rejuvenate.
Don’t get wrong, that was awesome but what I’m talking about is when there was new news popping up daily if not multiple times a day. I remember hitting the refresh button on the hr to catch the newest feeds and yes I was one of those “1st” guys for a while as it just *** so many people of… lol
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Total_Noob releases that 3.35 pops loader. I’m sure that pops loader will work on newer firmwares as well. That would be THE BEST gift I can get in terms of Vita stuff. Well, a brand new memory card would be nice. haha
I pray with you wololo.
Pssstt, Psssstt, Half Life 3 for PsVita confirmed.
The best hack we can get is a way to play a ps4iso or the superslim gets a crack at cfw to vita has been gerked off really nice and smooth and could use a break.
3ds cfw for 9.9
Buy games morons!!!
I buy more games than you do
Don’t forget mr.gas’s and tomtomdu’s realease pack (pastebin.com/QvZ5h2Ew )
5 Years passed.vita still isnt even hacked for 5%
What would be really great would be firmware revision independent game whitelist for Vita TV.
The best hack will to unlock psvita U version sim-lock which seem to have been forgotten.
You can use a hardware add-on for the SIM card that overrides the sim-lock. It’s not expensive, it’s simple to use and it’s confirmed working with the Vita.
The only hack that will ever be worth it is full kernel access to the PS-Vita and PS4 so ISOs can finally be played on both platforms (disregarding the Brazilian incident with the PS4 a few months back proving that the PS4 can indeed play ISOs). But hey, the PS-Vita is dead, lol. Nobody wants to try anymore. I’m hoping will actually make me take back my words and actually find a way though. As for the “pro-buy-games” people, sometimes people cant afford to buy games, and some people dont want to waste their money on games that they may not like, since they would not be able to return them. I mean, by all means, buy games and support the franchises you want. But piracy has been constantly proven not to hurt both franchises, consoles and developers time and again. Don’t believe me? Look at the entire history of video games and piracy. Look at PC and Piracy (PC Master Race)
if only some one could just make a custom firmware for the vita like the psp had (ex: 3.10 and 3.03 oea from dark alex (that could has rejuvenate, TN-V, VHBL, and ark 2 right out of the box)
Ah more “PS Vita is dead” rhetoric. Big surprise! *rolleyes*
I don’t think it is. We got Yifan Lu’s Rejuvenate for native Vita home-brew. There’s been several emulators released for this already – some indie home-brew like my personal favourite CATSFC 1.1.1 (the most recent version of which skogaby announced a mere 3 days ago which I personally thanked him for) plus RetroArch, classic game adaptions as proof of concept, all sorts of things. Including the first steps in being able to play backups of Vita gamecarts – it’s early days yet but still impresses me no end!
I’ve done more exploits this year, purchased more games on PSN/new, bought more consoles than ever before. A huge part of it has been the mature PSP hacks and the maturing Vita ones. The point is the security on the newer consoles is a lot more impenetrable than earlier hardware, and because of the “everything online” ability and social media it’s much easier for the manufacturers to plug any holes diligent hackers find in a way that wasn’t possible even five years ago. It’s a constant arms race of hackers versus big business – that we have any usable exploits at all is kind of stunning. In the past we’ve been spoilt by a deluge of stuff, so what if it’s slowed down a bit, we’re still seeing progress made by the passionate developers using their limited free time and sharing their findings so we can get more value out of our gaming systems.
I’m grateful for what we’ve been given and think everybody should be – imagine you were a developer working hard on a way to make the most of some or other exploit and you saw the community saying they haven’t seen anything good lately. Might just discourage them from continuing their work! Be supportive, not spoilt. That’s what I’m saying.
I’m not trying to rant here, just calling it like I see it. Thanks to big official developments and equally important smaller home-brew ones I’ve enjoyed gaming more this year than I have in the past five years. For me that’s a win, and a Merry Christmas and genuine thanks to all who are contributing positively to the scene, whether it’s finding the exploits, writing the tutorials to use them or simply pointing people in the right direction on the Wololo/GBATemp/other forums.