Over the past few weeks, several distinct groups of (or individual) hackers have contacted me with proof that they can dump and run pirated PS Vita games.

We’ve seen a couple warez games surface on the PS Vita scene since Henkaku has been released. Adventure time, which had been confirmed to be a DRM-free developer leak (and as such did not involve any method to bypass the DRMs found on commercial games), and Tokyo Xanadu, for which the circumstances behind the release are still unknown (some people claim it is also a DRM-free developer leak, potentially from a translation company in China).

On that note, rumors surfaced that the person behind the Tokyo Xanadu warez release might have been famed PSP hacker liquidzigong (a.k.a. Virtuousflame). He confirmed to me this wasn’t him (he hasn’t been active on the scene for a long time), so these rumors can be put back to sleep.

I have now been provided enough evidence by several hackers that Piracy on the PS Vita is a technical possibility. I have been sent proof of concept pkg files, and explanation on how the dumping process was done, by different groups.

Interestingly, not all of them have the same binary dumping process. Some of the things I have seen include the possibility to just install the pirated games as a vpk package from Vitashell, others involved a separate “iso loader” app update: the separate iso-loader app was a misunderstanding on my end. The games are dumped into files that can run “as is” on a Henkaku console. On the other side of the fence, the dumping process was sometimes extremely clever to bypass some of the PS Vita’s security mechanism. I can’t tell more here but some of the hackers have shared some really creative “out of the box” thinking with me on how they achieved things.

From what I can see, there are now enough groups with the technical ability to pirate PS Vita games, and I’m sure piracy on the PS Vita is now just a matter of time. None of the people who contacted me have stated they would release anything, however I’m convinced that given the number of people with the know how, the technique will ultimately be released or leaked. This could happen publicly, or we will start seeing modding shops in Brazil or Indonesia charging for 3.60 Vita consoles with 64GB worth of pirated games or something.

Wololo.net’s focus remains on homebrew support. Although I do believe game piracy is a personal choice, this site does not condone copyright infringement. As a reminder, people sharing links to illegal content are legally responsible for what they post, and the moderation team at wololo.net will take necessary measures against people posting such links.