UVLoader: Usermode PS Vita Loader is Now Under Development

37w ago - Today PlayStation Vita hacker freddy_156 announced that UVLoader, a usermode PS Vita loader, is now under development and the project is currently seeking the assistance of the community.

To quote from wololo's blog: Sure, running PSP homebrews on Vita is fun, and VHBL is a very nice piece of work, but it's about time we move on, isn't it?

Developer yifanlu started a new project called Usermode Vita Loader (UVLoader), it will be a homebrew loader for the PSV, basically. Not PSP homebrews, but native PSV code, isn't it awesome?

This project is based on a PSV exploit he found (there are no details about this for now, for obvious reasons), but it's still in its early stages. Just a few lines of code have been written so far (you can find the code on his github (github.com/yifanlu/UVLoader)), so, back to the title, developers are needed.

If you're a developer and you want to help, fork the project on github or get in touch with yifanlu on /talk or on IRC (#vitadev on EFnet).

If you're not a developer, there's nothing for you... yet. But it's still an awesome news, isn't it? And please, avoid asking useless questions: there's no release date yet and it doesn't work for now, just be patient for now and let the developers do their job.

Yifan Lu will eventually post updates about this project on his blog (yifan.lu) or on twitter (twitter.com/yifanlu), so make sure to follow him.

Last but not least, congratulations to yifanlu for his Vita hack

- Freddy

Update: It appears the WololoVHBL 1.80 game name has leaked out Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (Monster Hunter 2ndG in Japan) as pictured below, however, according to Sony's own forums they don't intend to pull the game from PSN until the exploit becomes public.

Shortly following, wololo made it public (via wololo.net/2012/09/08/4th-times-the-charm/) to quote:

A vulnerability has been found by Neur0n a few months ago in a PSP game, and this vulnerability has been leveraged to port VHBL in order for us to run PSP homebrews on the Vita. Following the request of many Vita owners, this announcement was postponed to wait for the release of Vita firmware 1.80, a firmware that brings PS1 compatibility.

As usual, we've let the members of our forums know about the vulnerability a few weeks in advance, in order to let them buy and download the game before Sony pulls it from their store. Protip: If you're a member of our community and haven't seen the announcement by now, you probably need your eyes checked (unless you joined in the past 24h).

Hmm, this one might hurt a little bit, given how successful this game is on the PSP

Disclaimer: This announcement comes with absolutely no guarantee of you successfully running VHBL on your machine. We've been testing this for a while now, but there's always the possibility something gets patched between this announcement and the release.

The game used for Neur0n's VHBL port is Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, also known as Monster Hunter Portable 2ndG in Japan. Similar vulnerabilities exist in Monster Hunter Freedom 2 and in Monster hunter Portable 3rd, for which we also have VHBL ports (although I haven't personally tested these ones).

We expect Sony to pull the game from their stores within the next 48h, so if you are interested in homebrews, you might want to buy that game asap before it is out. For those who worry that we are sacrificing one of the best titles of the PSP in the name of homebrews, please keep in mind that so far the PSP games used in VHBL exploits have always returned to the PSN after a patch has been pushed by Sony.

I don't expect brainless gamers to read that far, so I assume this blog will, once again, be filled with comments in the form of "you guys are killing the vita", "this will lead to piracy", "why would you guys prefer to play pong over Uncharted?", "hackers should die", "OMFG leave Sony alone they already have so much trouble with the bad Vita sales" or, my favorite one "wait until Sony removes psp support from the Vita because of you". But in case you read that far, I just want to remember everyone that VHBL has never led to PSP or Vita piracy in its 2 years and a half of existence.

Well, that's it, hurry up and buy the game. It also happens to be a very popular franchise, so if only for the game itself, it's probably worth it.

Oh, by the way, some people mentioned that the game only supports one save slot. This is true. If you actually want to play the game, you will have to regularly swap your own save and the VHBL save.

Once you have downloaded and installed the game, it is recommended that you do not update your console. In particular, do not update the CMA client. The VHBL files will be released, as usual, after the game gets pulled from the store.