Sony never cease to amaze us and this time, they’ve released yet another exploit-breaking firmware update for the PSVita. In this article, we’ll be looking at the recently released FW 3.71 and why you really shouldn’t update!

Sony releases FW 3.71 – What does it bring along?

Surprsingly enough, Sony has released a new PSVita firmware with version number 3.71. According to Sony’s changelog, this update has nothing significant in it except the fact that it “improves system performance” (like FW 3.70 and many other FWs before it).

TheFlow confirms that the Trinity Exploit Chain is fully patched so FW 3.71 is unhackable.. for now

However, there’s a bit of a hidden-yet-expected surprise bundled within and that is the fact that it fixes every bug found in TheFlow’s Trinity Exploit Chain which allowed for native PSVita hacks on FW 3.69/3.70 through a 3 stage exploit starting from the PSVita’s ePSP mode.

This update got released a whopping 2.5 months after TheFlow released his Trinity Exploit Chain on May 6, similar to how FW 3.69 was released around 2.5 months after TheFlow released H-Encore which is a hack for FW 3.65-3.68.

While the release of FW 3.71 makes the latest PSVita FW unhackable again, this situation might not last too long as St4rkDev tweeted out a video showing a PSVita running FW 3.71 being hacked with an exploit chain written by himself, davee and pomfpomfpomf3 (‘me’ in the video). From the video, it seems that the exploit chain is very similar (or the same) to the one demonstrated in February which was intended to show that FW 3.70 was already hacked although the hashtag below reads #2051 not #2050

 Will this update affect me? Should I update?

If your PSVita is already hacked, you won’t have much to worry about although make sure to turn off Automatic System Updates if you have PlayStation Plus.

The exploit by Team XYZ that was demonstrated in February seems to be alive and well on FW 3.71!

Thankfully, according to PSSDude’s comparison with FW 3.70, npdrm and module keys are the same from FW 3.70 which are in turn identical to those found in FW 3.69/3.68; this means that you’ll still be able to play games that require FW 3.71 with reF00D.

It’s not recommended under any circumstances to upgrade to FW 3.71 because as mentioned above, it fully patches TheFlow’s Trinity Exploit Chain. Futhermore, there’s no word on if/when the exploit mentioned above will be released so it could be a while before FW 3.71 is hackable.

On the other hand, if your PSVita is still on FW 3.70 and you haven’t hacked it yet, you can still access PSN to grab a PSP game by following these instructions shared by Reddit User BombBloke. For those on FW 3.69/3.70 that rely on the Trinity exploit, it’s highly recommended to downgrade to a lower firmware (FW 3.68 or below) that doesn’t need a PSP game (and thus PSN access) to be hacked via Modoru.

Conclusion

If you want to access PSN on your hacked PSVita, make sure you change your spoofed version in Settings->HENkaku Settings to FW 3.71 or else you won’t be able to connect to PSN on any currently hacked FW. It’s also important to note that if you have a FW 3.70 PSVita, get a move on and hack it before that firmware is fully barred from accessing PSN!

Full PasteBin Comparison between FW 3.71 and 3.70: http://pastebin.com/raw/HXDvHU7w