Launch List

The PS Vita Launch Lists are some SPKG files downloaded from Sony servers by the PS Vita OS, to be used as whitelists to allow, and consequently disallow specific games and contents. There are four known Launch Lists and they were updated various times.

Location

Filesystem

The Launch Lists are stored in two different partitions on the internal eMMC. The vs0 partition being read-only and updated by System Software update only, the Launch Lists downloaded from the network are installed into the ur0 partition.

In the vs0:data/internal/launch/ folder, list_launch_teleport.dat remains encrypted whilst version_launch.dat, list_launch_vita.dat and list_launch_emu.dat are stored as plaintext (to confirm).

In the ur0:game/launch/ folder, ...

URL

On the servers, every Launch List is encrypted.

Note that the two known servers (vitacl.ww.dl.playstation.net and vitacl.xx.dl.playstation.net) apparently contain the exact same files.

http://vitacl.<LAUNCH_LIST_TYPE>.dl.playstation.net/vitacl/<LAUNCH_LIST_TYPE>/j/<LAUNCH_LIST_FILENAME>.dat

• LAUNCH_LIST_TYPE: xx or ww. The difference between xx and ww is maybe PS Vita versus PS TV or WRITE versus EXECUTE.
• LAUNCH_LIST_FILENAME: list_launch_vita, list_launch_emu, list_launch_teleport or version_launch.

Structure

After decryption a launch list consists in a text file, separated by line returns.

Main Header

It must contain the following header.

format_version:XXX

where XXX is an incremental 3-digit decimal number.

Secondary Header for version_launch.dat

list_type:Y

where Y is either "w" or "x".

Content for version_launch.dat

list_<COUNTER>_version:ZZZZZZZZZZ
list_<COUNTER>_url:<URL>

where

• ZZZZZZZZZZ is an incremental 10-digit decimal number,
• COUNTER is an incremental counter starting from 0,
• URL is detailed in the #URL section

Content for list_*.dat

After the secondary header, the content is a list of Title IDs, one per line.

Types of launch lists

version_launch.dat

Contains URL links to download the actual encrypted Launch Lists.

vs0:data/internal/launch/version_launch.dat -> plaintext
?ur0:game/launch/version_launch.dat?
Server -> encrypted
http://vitacl.ww.dl.playstation.net/vitacl/ww/j/version_launch.dat -> w version
http://vitacl.ww.dl.playstation.net/vitacl/xx/j/version_launch.dat -> x version
http://vitacl.xx.dl.playstation.net/vitacl/ww/j/version_launch.dat -> w version
http://vitacl.xx.dl.playstation.net/vitacl/xx/j/version_launch.dat -> x version

Example:

format_version:001
list_0_version:0000000125
list_0_url:http://vitacl.ww.dl.playstation.net/vitacl/ww/j/list_launch_vita.dat
list_1_version:0000000111
list_1_url:http://vitacl.ww.dl.playstation.net/vitacl/ww/j/list_launch_emu.dat
list_2_version:0000000001
list_2_url:http://vitacl.ww.dl.playstation.net/vitacl/ww/j/list_launch_teleport.dat

list_launch_emu.dat

Whitelist for PSP, Minis and PS1 games.

vs0:data/internal/launch/list_launch_emu.dat -> plaintext
ur0:game/launch/list_launch_emu.dat -> ?plaintext?
http://vitacl.ww.dl.playstation.net/vitacl/ww/j/list_launch_emu.dat
http://vitacl.ww.dl.playstation.net/vitacl/xx/j/list_launch_emu.dat

list_launch_teleport.dat

Whitelist for Teleport (?PS TV and PS3 link?).

Teleport is type "x" only, not "w".

vs0:data/internal/launch/list_launch_teleport.dat -> plaintext
?ur0:game/launch/list_launch_teleport.dat -> plaintext?
http://vitacl.ww.dl.playstation.net/vitacl/xx/j/list_launch_teleport.dat

list_launch_vita.dat

Whitelist for PS Vita games on PS TV (since System Software version around 2.61).

vs0:data/internal/launch/list_launch_vita.dat -> plaintext
ur0:game/launch/list_launch_vita.dat -> ?plaintext?
http://vitacl.ww.dl.playstation.net/vitacl/ww/j/list_launch_vita.dat
http://vitacl.ww.dl.playstation.net/vitacl/xx/j/list_launch_vita.dat