Only one Destructoid reader would ever deny that piracy was a major problem on the PSP. According to some developers, it was enough to keep them away from the system entirely. Sony is naturally concerned about similar issues on the PS Vita, but promises that it'll be protected for quite some time.
"That was front and center in the early specs of this machine," said worldwide studios SVP Scott Rohde. "We needed to have something that would combat piracy from day one, and that's why the cards that you can purchase for the games are in their own proprietary format.
"It's something that we felt was completely necessary to make sure that people could not pirate these games. I mean, it's a custom security solution on each one of these cartridges. That is something that we are confident will protect us from piracy for the long term."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the PSP use a proprietary format? And didn't the 3DS use specialized cards? And won't boasting about the Vita's protection be seen as a thrown gauntlet to crackers who love a challenge?
Nah ... I'm sure it'll be fine.
Sony: Vita specs offer 'long term' piracy protection [Gamasutra] [Image]
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
2:30 PM on 02.22.2012 | 
It just feels like they're trying to justify the proprietary nature of the cards, even though most of us already know thats simply a Sony thing to do and have long since written it off as such.
So yeah.
What many people still don't realize is that not every hacker hacks with malicious intent or to pirate software. A lot of people just enjoy the challenge of seeing how far they can take their gadgets beyond the capabilities listed on the box.
That sound you hear is every hacker in the world saying "challenge accepted."
While I don't doubt that Vita's piracy protections will be cracked at some point, keep in mind that Vita lacks the diagnostic "backdoor" that Sony left open with the PSP's battery and that became the primary attack vector for initial exploits. That alone is going to make it a lot more difficult.
Attacks will either have to come against the Vita management software, since it obviously is able to access the data on Vita hardware, or through reverse engineering of the hardware (either the device or memory cards). Either way, it will take a lot longer to do that than figuring out that you can boot a debug mode on the device by blanking a memory field on the battery.
The protection on Vita doesn't have to be complete forever, just long enough for them to build a large enough audience that is accustomed to purchasing content for it. Given the current market conditions for handheld games I'd say that building that audience is going to be a much bigger hurdle for Vita than any eventual piracy. Especially given the price of admission, which will deter both pirates and paying customers.
Sony's pretty much screwed on this one, if you ask me. The market for dedicated gaming handhelds ain't what it used to be, and I'm not sure it was ever there for one that costs $250-300 before you start buying games.
Put yourself in the shoes of a Hack. It's Friday night, but you can't have sex, and you can't jack off. There's sand in your eyes and probably in the crack of your ass, and then some company comes along where people are getting laid, and mocks your skillz. Well you know what? I'd be pretty pissed off too!
I don't think they're "bragging" about how "hack-proof" the Vita is. I think they're trying to convince publishers who haven't put a lot of time and money behind the Vita yet to change their mind because piracy won't come as quickly and won't be as easy. Calm down, Jim.
Ahh well. They tried!
I'm expecting the homebrew crowd to make the system much much more interesting before long.
Not that long actually considering the first real attempts only started when other os got removed.
Games haven't been cracked yet, but it's only a matter of time. Proprietary media males no difference -- Hell, there was a homebrew PSP program that let you rip UMD PSP games to your memory card USING THE PSP ITSELF. Simply buying the Vita gives people a way to read Sony's proprietary data, so that aspect makes no difference, unfortunately.
And no one pirated 3DS.
Good luck, Sony. I give it another week or so before the firmware cherry is popped. And it won't even take a roofie to do it.
That's what internet anonymity is for. The PS3 crackers only got caught because they went publicly bragging about it.
Does that mean emulation is out of the window as well? or just PlayStation Vita games.
can't we have away to provide homebrew apps and emulation without causing piracy for the vita?
By the way, as someone who knows his way around a hacked console, let me tell you something most folks haven't really considered.
The Sega Saturn? Still uncracked. That's right; no one has ever truly cracked the system so you can play burnt Saturn games without a modchip or swaptrick. To THIS DAY, the Saturn remains the one unsoftmodded console. Sega apparently knew what they were doing, because people STILL can't figure out how to burn Saturn discs.
It's like the secret ingredient to kicking pirate ass.