Cobra Black Fin PS Vita “game sharing” device apparently retails for $77, but good luck finding it
Early December, a new website surfaced to announce the upcoming release of the Cobra Black Fin, a piracy device for the PS Vita relying on some P2P sharing network. Although it did not appear to be a very convenient hack, the concept feels pretty creative and got me curious. Officially a system to “share games over the internet”, the device was supposed to hit retailers in December, 2015.
Today’s January 1st, 2016 (happy new year, by the way), and the Black Fin’s official page hasn’t been updated in a while, except for a tiny fix on the site’s mail address. The device itself is not seen on typical console modding retailers, and google searches only return articles written back when the website initially surfaced. The official site still has no link in its “retailers” section.
We’ve only found one site (TY @judjdigj_1) that seems to have the Black Fin device in stock: popular Chinese e-marketplace taobao sells the device for 499 yuan (approx $77).
Cobra Black Fin apparently retails for $77
News sites have been wondering if the device was just a hoax. I argued that nobody would invent such a complicated p2p network concept for the sake of a hoax. Additionally, when I contacted the Black Fin sales people in early December, they quickly replied and told me they would send me a Black Fin for me to test it, “in December”. Unfortunately I haven’t received the device yet, and the Cobra team hasn’t replied to my ping from 2 days ago.
Either the Cobra team’s enjoying the holiday a bit longer than they should, or they ran into production issues. The fact that the device is listed on Taobao reduces the possibility that this was a hoax, but if you’re a potential buyer* I wouldn’t take the chance and order it from there just yet.
* I still believe that the device will be at best impractical for pirates: As I stated when Cobra black Fin was announced, “Long term too, this is most likely not a viable product: as less people use it, less and less games will be available on the network.”.
Actually i found it really useless, lets talk about this:
it works like an P2P ODE..and it cost 80€ + shipping, basically you can get 4-5 games for that price supporting the Dev that worked on that game.
There’s really no sense to buy something like this if not for piracy.
i have a vita, and a psTV i really would like to play some games, of course i want.
but i prefer spent my money over hte game then over a piracy system that would die soon..
4-5 games for 80€?! Where do you live?
Europe. Vita games generally arent very expensive.
For me it’s 1 1/2 games.
I’m not going to pirate with this device if I do bother myself into getting it, but I don’t really care if people do. I know the Vita doesn’t need anymore help becoming an even bigger failure of a gaming device so yeah don’t pirate and hope this thing doesn’t reach Japan or the only lifeline for the Vita.
I just wanna play my way.
Personally, I’d probably buy it just because it’s cool. And maybe to share/borrow/demo a few games from my friend that lives across the country. I enjoy supporting my developers and would more often than not just buy all my own PS Vita games.
First! Gimme my trophie! ️️
It was a matter of Time that this Thinge Wolf Show Up on the chineese Sites…
This is why I love Wololo’s delayed posts. 🙂
wrong loser..
This device is just screaming “Oh look, I’m doing illegal stuff.” on Sony’s servers..
Or “Sony pls ban my PSN Acc”
You guys realize you can block all Sony servers through your router right? I do it on my 3DS and WiiU so I don’t get prompted to update my WiiU so I can still use the Loadiine game loader until something better comes along.
$77 USD? For the equivalent in GBP I have bought about 6 games. I have a case that can hold up to 9 physical carts plus whatever DLC games I have on the memory card which is part of the same hard case which holds the Vita itself. Not a massive inconvenience to have to change those over as needed for gaming on the move. It’s one of the most pointless things ever and a total waste of plastic and microchips not to mention the time of those who made it, but if it is bought and reverse engineered and someone finds out how to make a PS Vita Gamecart -> microSD converter that can be used like a memory card (I’m also thinking highly unlikely) then it would be useful from that standpoint, but still ultimately useless for what it was designed for.
It’s very irritating at how expensive ps vita memory cards are.
I would buy a piracy device for the ability to put my purchased games on a 64/128 gb Micro SD card.
That’s the only real interesting thing about it for me. I would much rather use a 99 dollar 200 gb microsd card. Not only would you be able to hold more games but you wouldn’t have to deal with Sony’s Content Manager app which is busted half the time
I just dont understand, if you do this hack , how excactly portable will be your ps vita ? Dont think that this will last long . Its pointles with all the sales, and second hand games to buy a device for 80 $ and play only at home and most likely no online(there will be software update) than rader just buy some games on sale (alot of games I just get Street fighter X tekken for 5.99 € )You do the mat.
Are you bulgarian?
499 yen approx $77 ? 499 is about 4.20 dollars
499 Yuan – which is the Chinese currency is what the article said.
Yen is the Japanese currency, which wasn’t mentioned.
Chinese Yuan != Japanese Yen
Your thinking of yen this is yuan
I dont get the hate on piracy on this site. The ps vita is literally the only gaming system that deserves it. Majority of its library in the 2 years has been horrid and theyre cutting support and moving on. If a company moves on i wouldnt give them a penny. Would you buy dreamcast, gba, or super nintendo games right now? If a company is being fair and supporting the system i would never steal a game. But ill be damned if i give anyone associated with sony a penny on the vita after the support we received.
That’s just your opinion, in the last two years I’ve almost bought more games on Vita than PS4 and PC combined.
I’ve bought about the same amount of games on the Vita as the PS4, but the difference is that on the Vita I’ve actually *played* them – lot of the PS4 ones got sold because they were, in my opinion, not what I was expecting and were ***, or Remote Play (which according to Sony is what the Vita is for now). Whereas the Vita ones are solid – having a blast plugging through Persona 4 Golden at the moment, for example, and apparently that one’s good for 60-90 hours. Not bad for £10 in the November sale.
The Cobra Fin Dongle is just like napster maybe it was the inspiration of this device
The Cobra Fin Dongle is a little bit like napster but for games maybe it was the inspiration of this device
Are you bulgarian?
C’mon guys, why supporting this useless device when you can play vita games nowadays dirty cheap? with 77dll I am pretty sure you can buy must of the games you are looking for the vita.
unless it’s day one release imports, which cost about 6-7k yen
it’s listed as pre order on the site, so, its not really publicly for sale yet
If this device comes to Iran with a resonable price i would surely buy , cause i dont want to pay around 90$ in iran for a 32gb memory , and im agreed with some on up here in the post 😀 that said would u pay a penny to a company that no longer support their games , yeah im agreed , i dont want to pay some insane money ( to our country currency ) just for some games that no longer will be supported and i cant use their online features due to ePSP hack
It’s prohibitively expensive for a crowd-supported device, which also cripples the portability of Vita.
And if Cobra team relies on their own game library to share with their customers, one cheap DDoS on their server will instabrick all these devices.
I’m not even talking about firmware update essentially banning you from either P2P or PSN or a real ban from one or both of these networks. After all, this one is always online DRM where you have no control over it whatsoever.
Besides, I can get about 8 used Vita games for that money or a used Vita in a good condition with some accessories.
There’s only one scenario where I could buy it: to play games which I’d otherwise have to import, adding a hefty sum for shipping and taxes to an already expensive cost of the game itself.
Thanks, but as long as I still can transfer PSN games to Vita using PS3, I’ll keep using that option instead.
Hi guys, the item listed on taobao is pre-order only.
In fact, the sale is zero
And the moral of the story is, when piracy costs more/is trickier than just buying the games, piracy fails. 😀
The Item’s title is cobra black fin “pre order”
預定=pre order
Hey everyone any news of black fin ? and wololo did u recived the device ? im really hoping to see the device in iran