Als het op Firmware updates aan komt is Sony de ongekroonde koning, want deze updates zijn meer een regel dan uitzondering. Wie nu de PlayStation Vita aansluit zal de melding krijgen van firmware 18.1 en deze is eigenlijk een pure stop op de Vita Half Byte Loader (VHBL) die het mogelijk maakt om homebrew (geen .iso's) games en emulatoren te draaien op de handheld die een chronisch gebrek heeft aan nieuwe games.

De onderstaande tekst komt van de website van de zeer gerespecteerde hacker Wololo. Want de bal ligt nu weer bij hem, en zoals altijd is en blijft dit een eeuwig kat en muis spel tussen hackers en Sony.

As expected, the latest PS Vita firmware update is a "security release" which will prevent you from running VHBL through Monster Hunter. It still remains to be confirmed if all games of the series have been patched, but I'm pretty sure the answer will be yes.

Does this mean you cannot use VHBL anymore? No! As long as you stay on firmware 1.80 (and assuming you did Buy one of the Monster Hunter games when it was still time), you can use Open CMA to copy your homebrews to the Vita without upgrading. If your Vita (or CMA) insist that you update to 1.81, don't lose hope. I have been told that the Vita can "forget" it saw the latest update if you hard-reset it. Or was it that you need to reset factory settings? Well, either way, try to not put yourself into a situation where the Vita asks for an update, but if it happens, be sure to try and reset it before you decide your console is doomed to upgrade.

Of course, you might want to update to 1.81 in order to be able to connect to the PSN. If you do this, you will lose access to VHBL through the Monster Hunter exploit. There might be other VHBL releases in the future to bring compatibility with this new firmware, but we don't have anything scheduled yet, and one thing is sure, we will not be able to magically revive the exploit from Monster Hunter, so don't even ask, and update at your own risk.

For those of you who decide to stay on 1.80 for VHBL, openCMA is currently the only way to copy homebrews to your Vita.