PlayStation Vita hacked, homebrew on the way

Just nine months after launch, and gamers claim to have hacked the PlayStation Vita, meaning homebrew games and apps might not be so far away. Back in April, the Vita Half-Byte Loader meant that Sony‘s latest handheld was capable of playing unsigned code within the built-in PSP emulator. Now though, an affiliated developer claims he’s figured out how to get unsigned Vita code running as well.

PlayStation Vita: Firmware Update Required

Yifan Lu is working on a new project, Usermode Vita Loader (UVLoader), which is based on an unspecified Vita exploit. It currently works in theory, with “just a few lines of code” written to take advantage of the new ability, but after word gets out, it won’t be long before unauthorised apps and titles start popping up.

The original hack apparently “could not” be used for piracy reasons, as the unsigned code was only able to run in “user mode”, rather than at the root level – the PSP emulator can only access 32MB of RAM and is nowhere near the Vita operating system. It is unknown whether this new hack will allow the hardware to play pirated games.

Piracy – and hand-coded homebrew titles – run rampant on the PSP, so Sony will be keeping a close eye on this one, closing all loopholes as soon as they are found.