A skilled group of amateur hackers has found an exploit in PlayStation Vita software that will allow them to run homebrew software.
In an interview with Crave, hacker Yifanlu talked at length about the discovery his team made, which will not allow pirated games to be played. Rather, the exploit is described as "userland", which means that will only open the door for home-developed software and not bootleg Vita games that a kernel exploit would welcome.
In fact, Yifanlu is 100-percent against piracy, if his statement to Crave is to be believed. "As a developer, I am completely against piracy. My tools, when released, cannot be used for that purpose."
Instead, homebrew users can look forward to the most popular use for this kind of exploit: emulation. Much like the early days of the PSP, the PS Vita would presumably be opened up to playing classic games from the Nintendo 64, Super Nintendo, Game Boy, and more. Even PlayStation games are fair territory, if the Vita’s hardware can prove to handle the stresses of emulation.
There’s no official release yet for this installation, but we’ll update you as the project unfolds. For now, it seems that Vita is safe from piracy, though Sony would certainly frown up on the work of Yifanlu and his cohorts.