Mr.Gas and Major_Tom, two well known hackers on the PS Vita scene, have released a method by which owners of Sony’s handheld or its living room equivalent, the PlayStation TV (PSTV), can enable additional functionality. These include cosmetic features like customising the user interface’s “bubble” design on the PS Vita or PSTV to tremendous additions such as being able to back up an entire game cartridge to your PS Vita or PSTV memory card.
(Also see:Sony PlayStation TV Review: Dubious Things in Small Packages)
Specific PS Vita games such as Uncharted: Golden Abyss and Gravity Rush, which could not be played on the PSTV, will now apparently work as well. And if you’re hunting for more trophies without the hassle of playing through a game, there’s a way to do that too. This is not the first time the PS Vita has been hacked. In the past, users exploited security loopholes in specific PlayStation Portable (PSP) digital games that are playable on the PS Vita, resulting in Sony pulling these games from the PlayStation Network (PSN) until they were fixed.
At the moment the duo have not released the entire feature set. Though it won’t be long before other ambitious hackers use this exploit to allow other possibilities on the PS Vita and PSTV such as full scale piracy and everything else that comes with it. Nonetheless, you can bet your house on the fact that the next firmware update for Sony’s consoles will fix whatever has exploited to enable all this.
Considering how poorly the PS Vita and PSTV have sold, one can speculate that these would do wonders for their sales. However it does little to inspire confidence in the platform, with an already dwindling number of developers opting to support these devices.
If you’re looking to try this out remember that it will void your warranty. Also, piracy does little to keep game development afloat and prevents newer, better games from seeing the light of day. Something to keep in mind before you decide to uncover how this works.
