At the end of last year, you may remember us telling you about a semi-hack for the PS Vita, which took advantage of a game save exploit within PSP games to enable homebrew applications to run on the Vita.
Now though, after a few months of being in circulation, it looks like Sony has taken the first steps in attempting to cut all routes off from users being able to access the exploit. For those of you that are unaware, MotorStorm: Arctic Edge was the game that first enabled the exploit on the PS Vita. It was available to download from the PlayStation Store at ease, and was later joined by Everybody’s Tennis – another game which allowed users to exploit a game save glitch to gain access into the PS Vita’s system files.
Now we can say that Sony has removed both games from the PlayStation Store, even if you have already purchased the game you’ll no longer find them in your transaction history – so Sony isn’t messing around here. It’s important to note that the exploits don’t allow users to pirate PS Vita games – yet. Instead the exploits just allow users to use existing homebrew programs such as various emulators and other small applications.
What’s interesting is that Sony has already responded to Eurogamer following on from their removal of the two PSP games in question, and they stated that they have removed both titles in order to ‘improve software stability’. We’re hoping that this is just a temporary move and those who have purchased the games legitimately without any knowledge of the exploits can still re-download the game at their discretion. Otherwise, Sony may have a problem on their hands.
What are your thoughts on this? Are you glad that Sony are removing all access to homebrew usage on the PS Vita, or do you argue that since no PS Vita game piracy is taking place, it should be allowed?
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