PS Vita Fully Hacked To Support Homebrew And Emulators

With the prevalence of mobile gaming and then the focus on VR, both PC and console based, it seems that the biggest casualty in the gaming world are the handhelds. To add insult to injury, the PlayStation Vita, and especially the PS Vita TV, a.k.a. PlayStation TV, hasn't really been given that much love by Sony of late. It still has, however, its share of loyal owners who are more than happy to extend the use of their handhelds. Luckily for them, at least for the most adventurous ones, there now exists an easy to use hack that opens the door to more content, legit or otherwise.

One may, perhaps, marvel at how the PS Vita has withstood the test of time as far as being hacked to run games and software not meant for the gaming handheld. It either speaks highly of the complexity of the PS Vita's software, or that there isn't a large homebrew community behind it.

Either way, that is, as they say, history. A group of hackers going by the name of Team Molecule has just released HENkaku, what they bill has the first Homebrew Enabler (hence the name) for the PS Vita and PS TV. It is also perhaps the most comprehensive and easiest to use. Users simply need to be on version 3.60 of the Vita firmware and nothing else. They then simply have to visit a website to activate the exploit that opens the doors to new, or old, content.

There isn't much homebrew content available for the PS Vita at the moment, beyond a port of the classic FPS DOOM. That said, the hack also allows emulators for other systems, like SNES, to run on the device, considerably expanding the number of games one can play on it.

But PS Vita owners need not go far from home. The hack allows them to access the deeper levels of the file system to create a whitelist of Vita games. Sony has notoriously blocked some of those titles, including a few of its own, especially on the PS TV.

The hack will undoubtedly bring up questions about playing pirated content on the handheld. HENkaku, however, doesn't disable DRM features. Someone else, of course, might be able to do so in the future, but as far as the developers are concerned, they're not going to aid in any such attempt.

VIA: Eurogamer