AdinB::Log

Posts in this series:

  1. Tinkering My PS Vita
  2. Tinkering My PS Vita: Hello World
  3. Tinkering My PS Vita Interlude: Emulator
  4. Tinkering My PS Vita Interlude: My Workspace
  5. Tinkering With Vita: Animating Sprites

Tinkering My PS Vita

Some Background

I bought a 2nd hand Vita on May last year. 2 games were included in the package: FIFA 2013 and Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus. Senran Kagura has some questionable content, and is not really my thing so sold it the following week and then got stuck only playing FIFA. Sadly it gets boring after few consecutive plays. Few days later, I borrowed Disgaea 3 from my friend and played it for around two month until I got bored again.

When I was browsing for more game info, I stumbled upon a forum thread (or a blog post, I forget the details) about a release of homebrew enabler called HENkaku for PS Vita. It had been known that Vita is very hard to hack, so I immediately interested. I tried to install HENkaku, and it works. I was really excited seeing a proper file manager inside my Vita. You can browse files, including system files inside your PS Vita using that file manager. Even more , you can even transfer any files via FTP.

I also found an open source toolchain for Vita development. I’m a nerd, so I tried writing simple hello world code and run it on my Vita. And it worked. I also tried writing a program using Box2D. When that program ran on the Vita, I was very thrilled. However, I got busy with uni stuffs so I stopped writing program for my Vita.

Inevitably, piracy also started showing at that time, as the access to game data is easier. Being a cheap person, I searched for pirated games and I found Ar Nosurge, a game I want to play since a long time ago. I played that until around last month (I even got the platinum trophy). Driven by guilt for pirating a game, I decided to tinker my Vita again and make homebrew after finishing that game. PS Vita hacking scene has improved quite a bit since last time. And so, I start my journey again from the beginning.

Ar Nosurge Platinum Trophy

Installing HENkaku

Proceed with your own risk. HENkaku installation is safe, but anything can happen. Also, this whole process only works with firmware 3.60. if your firmware is newer than that, currently no way for installing HENkaku. However if it’s lower than that, you can follow the instruction here. Note that I only have one Vita, so I haven’t try the guide. This post is more like my log for installing HENkaku rather than tutorial. Proper guide for installing HENkaku can be found at http://henkaku.xyz/usage.

The installation process hasn’t changed since I started tinkering my vita last year. Just open http://henkaku.xyz in the Vita browser and follow the instruction carefully. If an error message from the browser pops up, just press Ok and try again. In my case, three error dialog showed 3 times before the installation begin. You can find the troubleshooting page here so consult that page if anything weird happen. There’ll be a black screen with installation information when the installation starts. Just wait until the installation is done.

After the installation is completed, your vita will automatically return to Live Area. There, you can find a new app called molecularShell. You can use that to transfer file with your PC via FTP.

molecularShell bubble.

If you check the Vita settings, there’ll also a new menu called HENkaku Settings. You can configure various settings such as version spoofing and unsafe homebrew support.

New settings menu

Congratulations! You have enabled homebrew in your PS Vita.

Now What?

You can start browse files inside your Vita using FTP client like FileZilla. To start FTP connection, both of your PSVita and your PC must be connected to a same local connection. Open molecularShell and press SELECT to start the FTP server. Then a dialog will pop out with server information. Connect to that server using FTP client and you are good to go. Go find some game dumps homebrews and install it by putting the .vpk file inside ux0: then open it inside molecularShell. As for me, I ended up installing a cool homebrew called VITAident this time. It shows you various information about your machine. Very cool homebrew indeed.

I’m planning to make this post as part of a series. In the next part, I’m going to write simple program and run it on my Vita.