One of the major questions that has surfaced after the HENkaku hack release for PS Vita 3.60, is the support (or lack thereof) of PSP isos and Vita game “backups”.
The jury is still out to understand if Vita piracy is now technically possible through HENkaku. Team molecule, the developers behind HENkaku, said they have made it “difficult”, but of course can’t guarantee it’s impossible. As I’ve stated before, if it’s easy we will see the release of a backup loader within days of the HENkaku release. So far, this hasn’t happened.
PSP isos on the other hand feel like they should be “easier”. The PSP Homebrew Loader VHBL can be installed in a Bubble, so why not PSP isos?
The current state is that running PSP isos would require an ePSP kernel exploit (a kernel exploit within the kernel emulator on the Vita). All the publicly known ePSP kernel exploits have been patched is past Vita firmware updates, and nobody on the scene has stepped up so far to release one, or even announce they have one.
But you never know, hackers are full of surprises.
In the meantime, people are toying with other ideas. Certainly, with HENkaku unlocking some native parts of the PS Vita, there might be other approaches that could work. People have gone as far as suggesting to modify the ePSP emulator at runtime through HENkaku. I have no idea if that is even possible, although I assume it could be a possibility if HENkaku does have access to all running processes once it is loaded in RAM…
PSP piracy on the PS Vita would probably not do too much damage to Sony at this point. the PSP has been pirated since day one. PS Vita piracy, on the other hand, is currently limited to the (not so popular) Cobra blackfin. A Vita backup loader could become a problem for the company (although at this point I do believe the bulk of their game sales does not come from the PS Vita – and that’s a euphemism here).
But so far, the answer is no. Neither PSP isos nor PS Vita backups can be run through HENkaku.