Hacking Questions and running homebrew trackers...

[Metatronaut]

Hey everyone!

So, I make chiptune on the original nintendo gameboy from 1989 using a tracker called LSDJ (http://www.littlesounddj.com ) and I'm planning to start using a tracker named LittleGPTracker (http://littlegptracker.com/ )that runs on a variety of systems (the PSP version is the one I'm interested in due to being able to play it during live shows).

I have a PS Vita that I haven't really been using BUT I still want to play some games on it from time to time (like on plane rides, vacation, power outages, etc...)

I have a few questions to installing homebrew apps like LGPT onto the PS Vita:

1) With the TN V4 hack, does that get rid of ALL ability to play PS Vita games, or is it like a bootcamp style dual boot like Mac & Windows

2) Is there any way to not hack the system all together, and have the app on the Vita menu, ready to launch? (like downloadable classics on the PS-Store)

Thanks!
-Sam

(for those interested in what I make...):
https://metatronaut.bandcamp.com/
https://www.soundcloud.com/metatronaut

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

First of all, TN-V4 is like...a year old now. TN-V10 is the latest (IIRC) so you should be running that (assuming your exploit supports it).

To answer your questions

1) Absolutely not. The exploits are in PSP-Mode, which the Vita runs in a sandbox and not as a separate OS. You'll be able to play any Vita game that's supported on whatever firmware you're at, as well as most PSP homebrew that's supported with eCFW.
2) Not at the moment, though there is a "Bubble hack" that's still in development. Nathan Drake has more info on that than I do, though, so he can expand on that.

 

[Nathan Drake]

Okay, so, the Bubble Hack. Quite frankly, it's not all it was made out to be, and I'm greatly disappointed by it at this point in time, but here's the run down.

They found the ability to basically install custom bubbles on the Vita home screen. This means that you could directly install something like TN-V or even the PSP XMB and launch it like any other game or app. They got this working with PSP games as well as PS1 games, regardless of whether they had ever been available on PSN (ie: FF Type-0 English patched), and functioned with homebrew. One caveat is that apparently this is still a game exploit, so basically, it doesn't really do anything that former game hacks didn't except that it might make things slightly easier to launch by being able to install directly to your home screen. They haven't announced the exploit game(s) at this point in time, and considering they pulled the "stay on 3.18" card, it means that unless you already bought and installed the exploit game, you'll have to do the PS3 transfer to get the exploit game on your Vita. I believe they did say that it worked on 3.35, but in a much more limited capacity due to the current inability to run TN-V on that particular firmware.

The last downside is that this still does not grant the ability to run Vita unofficial Vita games. Basically, it's just another PSP mode hack that requires an exploit game and is really nothing we haven't seen before.

Developers are still plucking away at the webkit exploit, but there hasn't been news on that lately. It also doesn't work above 3.18, and as I personally value access to PSN, I updated beyond, so I'm personally no longer following the progress on that too closely. Last I knew though, they still hadn't found kernel level access with it, so at this juncture, it is still totally useless.

 

[SLiV3R]

They are doing baby steps progress. We can read that on wololo. I updated as well. Very happy with it. If/when a native hack is working an ppl are doing stuff with it, i will buy a second vita for 3.18 use..