Sony might be taking it too far in protecting their device from hackers/developers. It’s not a bad thing to protect your device from being hacked, but forcing people to upgrade to a new firmware is taking it to a whole new level. This is how the update works.

- Connect your Vita to PC via the cable.

- Content Manager checks if the PC is connected to the internet.

- If yes, the Vita connects to your PC and updates to the new firmware

- If not, the Vita does not connect to the PC

Now imagine a hypothetical situation like this. HBL runs on firmware 1.50 but was blocked in firmware 1.51 and you are on firmware 1.00. Now to run HBL you connect your Vita to the PC only to see that your Vita is being upgraded to 1.51 and your HBL dream shattered.

Thanks to Wololo for the quick update.  Head over to his blog for more details