Hacked PS3 Firmware Busts PS Vita Remote Play Wide Open

At a time, one of the PlayStation Vita's biggest selling points was a "Remote Play" feature that would essentially allow people to play any PlayStation 3 title on the shiny new handheld. As it turns out, the feature is maddeningly restricted to a paltry selection of games (Peggle? Bejeweled 2? Really?), which is carefully managed by a series of mandatory firmware updates. However, a hacked version of the PS3's 3.55 firmware highlights a very interesting loophole.

Joystiq reports that the hack actually reclassifies the PS Vita as a "mobile phone" rather than a gaming system, enabling Remote Play to recognize quite a few higher-profile games. If such a thing can be done with the 3.55 version of the PS3's firmware, there's no reason to think that the hacker and homebrew collective won't be able to catch up to later versions. (Currently, the latest version of the PlayStation 3's system software update is 4.00.)