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Sadly for Nintendo there are already two exploits known to work on 4.3U, this one (http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Smash_Stack) and this one (http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Indiana_Pwns). Granted you have to have a copy of the game to use them but for most people that is not a problem.

The main thing they blocked are bannerbomb (http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Bannerbomb) the exploit used by most everyone to "softmod" a Wii which allowed you to place a file on the SD card and run it via the system menu and the hackmii installer (http://hackmii.com/2009/08/hackmii-installer-v0-3/) which installed the Homebrew channel and bootmii. The hackmii installer should be updated in the coming days as they've been stockpiling exploits and not releasing them to the public in case the one they currently used was ever blocked.

All that said there is no reason to update anyway if you already have homebrew. The shopping channel can always be updated with a homebrew tool and accessed on any version of the system menu. They didn't add anything new to the System menu this time around it was just aimed at removing homebrew just like the last update (4.2).

Ah, but homebrew can help here. The wii-shop update is just a full 4.3 update (it's the carrot on the stick for updates, every update contains a new version of wii-shop to force people to update).

However, you can update just the wii-shop with DOP-Mii: http://wiibrew.org/wiki/DOP-Mii

If they had any intention of trying to sue over something like that, Nintendo would've been in court already.

For those playing at home, IOS4 is a really old version of the Cisco router operating system and a version of the Wii kernel used to load the initial contents of a Wii console's flash chip. But then what abbreviation isn't taken nowadays?

I'm surprised that there aren't hacks available yet that would take care of that issue.

There are, they're just not kosher to Nintendo. Once you've got homebrew running, you can do all sorts of things with your channels and savegames, including move them between consoles.

Further, Nintendo's proprietary way of doing this has also been leaked, and basically they just change the WiiID of the new console to match the old, so the Wii Shop Channel believes it's the same console and allows free redownload.

Not quite the same, but we've got Super Mario War Wii for Wii Homebrew, which lets you select dozens of different sprites. They all do the same thing, though.

http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Super_Mario_War_Wii

You might want to weigh your own confidence against the authority of the person making claims you disagree with before launching into an attack.

I don't really understand your objection to a), and I think Marcan's claims about b) are justified but deserve a bit of clarification. It's not so simple; as Michael Steil discusses, the efforts (piracy vs homebrew) often leverage each others' work. The only reason you can "run homebrew [on the Wii] without modifying the DVD drive to accept pirated discs" is that ... we were able to bootstrap our efforts by using modified disc images, which requires modifying the DVD drive to accept burned discs. The first unsigned code execution we demonstrated used a patched Lego Star Wars disc with code injected into it. Later, we used the same technique to inject debugging code into a copy of Zelda, and then used that to facilitate making a save-game exploit that ultimately did not require hardware modification.

It might have been possible to reach that end goal in some different way, but it would have been much more difficult.

I should weigh my own confidence against and authority that is demonstrably incorrect? How so? You have no idea what my authority is, nor do I care to advertise the fact. In fact, my authority is immaterial since you can verify my claims against countless sites around the web.

My objection to a) is the claim that somehow the pro-piracy people are crappy hackers. It is, as I've said, demonstrably false. If you believe otherwise, please provide a definition of a "good" hacker.

The claims about b) are refuted by your own quote - piracy and homebrew leverage each others works, so by Marcan claiming that piracy piggybacks on homebrew, and there is no return in the other direction, his statements are again, demonstrably false.

It's funny, because it's fairly clear that neither yourself nor Marcan were around in the days of NES or Atari 2600 piracy. Since the days of the first consoles, the pirates have _always_ been clever and impressive in defeating the obstacles in front of them to pirate the games. I remember being amazed at the NES and SMS piracy contraptions that were available and the sheer engineering that had to go into them. It's one of the things that got me interested in hardware hacking as opposed to working purely with software.

Make absolutely no mistake - if homebrew didn't exist, the pirates would still have found a way to exploit the consoles. Just because the homebrew may have made the way easier/faster does not mean it wouldn't have happened. Otherwise - why would there have been console piracy before homebrew was even a consideration on a console? I mean... if pirates are such poor hackers, there's no way they could have figured out how to pirate every game console ever made.

No, there are two words to explain that: Other OS. Check out this table (slightly outdated, it's a year old or so) by console hacker Michael Steil (or watch him talk about it on any of his talks). Every console post-PS2 was hacked for homebrew, and then those hacks were abused for piracy. The PS3 comes with homebrew, therefore there is little motivation to crack the native system. Pro-piracy people are rarely good hackers, and need homebrew to piggyback on.

This is just plain BS. Piracy on modern consoles (at least in the case of the Xbox 360 and Wii) involve bypassing the DVD drive's built in security check. This really has nothing to do with homebrew and you can, in fact, run homebrew on either system without modifying the DVD drive to accept pirated discs. So your statement that pro-piracy people are a) rarely good hackers and b) are piggybacking on homebrew is complete crap.

Get your facts straight before commenting on something you obviously know nothing about.

You might want to weigh your own confidence against the authority of the person making claims you disagree with before launching into an attack.

I don't really understand your objection to a), and I think Marcan's claims about b) are justified but deserve a bit of clarification. It's not so simple; as Michael Steil discusses, the efforts (piracy vs homebrew) often leverage each others' work. The only reason you can "run homebrew [on the Wii] without modifying the DVD drive to accept pirated discs" is that ... we were able to bootstrap our efforts by using modified disc images, which requires modifying the DVD drive to accept burned discs. The first unsigned code execution we demonstrated used a patched Lego Star Wars disc with code injected into it. Later, we used the same technique to inject debugging code into a copy of Zelda, and then used that to facilitate making a save-game exploit that ultimately did not require hardware modification.

It might have been possible to reach that end goal in some different way, but it would have been much more difficult.

Actually,
I can run linux on my Wii as homebrew software.

it's even worse than not being able to watch DVDs on your Wii's DVD drive..

http://wiibrew.org/wiki/MPlayer_TT/

Both the Xbox1 and the Wii can run Linux. On the Wii nowadays this means using BootMii + Mini, which is a completely new framework that has no relation to any Nintendo code (though strictly speaking it isn't cleanroom, as we didn't go through the cleanroom process which involves having separate teams write a spec and implement the software to it). This is a completely legal setup as far as we know.

"Native" Xbox1 homebrew (running on the Microsoft kernel) uses the Microsoft SDK, which makes binaries illegal to distribute. Most "Native" Wii homebrew (using Nintendo's IOS) uses a "homebrew" library (libogc) that is derived from a decompiled version of the Nintendo Gamecube SDK (exceptions: exploit stuff which is based on segher's Twilight Hack codebase, TinyLoad which also is, little else), so effectively most Wii homebrew binaries are also illegal. However, the author of this decompilation pretend the code was an original work of his for a long time, and by the time we found out just how ripped it was everyone and their mom was using this library, so the net result is that most know that the resulting Wii binaries are about as illegal as the Xbox1 ones, but everyone pretends they aren't and they are happily distributed through "official" channels.

No, I don't approve of the latter.

when is Super Mario War coming out for the Wii? :-)

If you have the homebrew channel then last year

Someone even ported Supertux, but it needs some huge tweaks.

You'd honestly compare a three-device-hackery solution to a single tablet?

I'll make this comparison at least until the day Apple announces the tablet's features; until then, it's vapor. The three devices I mentioned exist. Recent Mac mini units have Bluetooth, the Wii Remote protocol is fairly well understood, and cables from the DVI-D port on the Mac mini's included mini-DVI adapter to HDMI are easy to find. So it isn't any more "three-device-hackery" than a Mac mini, a mouse, and a monitor is "three-device-hackery".

Not all of us want to buy a Wii for the couple games on it that are actually worthwhile.

It's ok, you don't have to diss the Wii to be cool any more. Or do you not even know what games are available? Every single one of the games in that top 10 list is fantastic and worth owning. To be fair, if you have Metroid Prime Trilogy then you don't need MP3, but there are more games than just those that are good, and many of them aren't available on any other platform. And if good games aren't enough, you should also buy the Wii for its homebrew scene, which is much better than what's available for the PS3 and 360. Playing the original Quake with the wiimote is awesome.

I'm sure you can provide even one example of where an emulated machine has ever had a vulnerability allowing a program running in the emulated hardware to do something malicious to the (usually) unrelated host hardware.

Will this do as an example?
http://seclists.org/bugtraq/2004/Jun/211

VICE is a program that runs on a Unix, MS-DOS, Win32, OS/2, Acorn RISC OS or BeOS machine and executes programs intended for the old 8-bit Commodore computers. The current version emulates the C64, the C128, the VIC20, all the PET models (except the SuperPET 9000, which is out of line anyway), the PLUS4 and the CBM-II (aka C610).

There is a format string vulnerability in the handling of the monitor "memory dump" command. If the string to be output contains any % sign, it is interpreted as a command for the output, normally resulting in a crash. Even more sophisticated exploits, like arbitrary code execution on the host machine, are possible.

Now, the obvious counter-argument is that such a vulnerability is possible in a wide variety of programs, not just emulators. One widely known game example (and games are obviously allowed on the iPhone): http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Twilight_Hack

The Twilight Hack works by employing a lengthy character name for the horse in the game ('Epona') in order to facilitate a stack smash. This gets triggered when talking to the man next to you when you start the saved game as he loads the name to use it in his dialog or upon attempting to enter the next zone, before the man talks to you and reminds you to go the other way to get the horse.

http://wiibrew.org/wiki/QuakeGX
And for nethack: http://wiibrew.org/wiki/UAE_Wii

http://wiibrew.org/wiki/QuakeGX
And for nethack: http://wiibrew.org/wiki/UAE_Wii

I am a big fan of XMBC and while it's not a perfect replacement just yet, MPlayer CE on a soft modded Wii is showing some real promise. The Wii has the advantage of already being under your TV in your living room, unlike a PC.

boot0 is read straight from ROM. When you set the boot0-enable bit, boot0 overlays a part of what normally is Starlet SRAM. You can't write to it. This is pretty typical embedded system behavior (ROM overlays RAM during boot, gets disabled later on). If you later disable boot0, whatever was in the RAM it overlayed is retained, so it isn't getting loaded into RAM. Boot0 is disabled by the boot2 ELF loader (strangely enough - boot1 could easily do that task), which is how it was originally dumped (modified boot2). Later we found out that you can just reenable the thing whenever you want later on.

Keep in mind that the bus master stuff is already used all over the place: the PPC bus bridge is an AHB master, and so are most peripherals, since they need to be able to DMA data to RAM. While it is possible for there to be some kind of debug master, there's still the issue of how it would talk to the outside world. It would indeed be possible to have some sort of sequencer able to talk to the NAND registers and RAM (to write to NAND), but it still needs to talk somehow.

Indeed, Hollywood has multiple power rails (of course). We haven't tried sequencing them in odd ways, so it might be something to watch. Still, I have a hard time believing they latch onto the chip for programming - especially since they have tons of testpoints! There are no testpoints for the NAND pins. There's still the issue of the NAND output drivers being just drivers. If they're plain CMOS outputs in the silicon (which would be the obvious way to implement drivers like this, since there's no need for tristating), then they simply will not have a tristate mode: as soon as 3.3V is up, they will drive either high or low.

Configurable USB Loader ( http://www.gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=147638 ) can back up and launch disc images from a usb hard drive or SDHC. You'll need a drive/SD card dedicated to this, though, since it needs to be specially formatted. It can be launched from the homebrew channel, or it can be isntalled as a channel in your system menu.
 
Here's another good place to start reading: http://gwht.wikidot.com/usb-loader. It has links to installation instructions for prerequisites as well. And if you want to read up on the vocabulary, check out the WiiBrew wiki: http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Main_Page.

You're not required to install it, but Wii Shop (which is online) won't work unless you

...use WiiSCU to update only Wii Shop Channel and Wii Shop Channel's IOS files, not the Wii Menu.

How to get around Disc Channel's update requirement

http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Wii_Linux

Not sure about the 360, though.

MPlayer can play youtube, so that might help?

I am amused that it took too long to get homebrew running in the Xbox 360... I thought that homebrew was already running.

Funny that in the case of the Wii, homebrew has been running very well since quite some time now.

In fact, due to the terrible "official" releases available for the Wii (all the games are soo boring, or as the guy at Zero Punctuation put it, they seem made for wand-shaking-retards), the homebrew has been a breath of fresh air.

I have had the Wii since the day it came out (I *preordered* it, with high hopes) but it is has been a general disappointment. I am waiting for an OK RPG (not kid-oriented) or an RTS (for which the Wii control would serve really well!)...
Although nowadays I guess it would be better to port any of the open source RTS...

I'm curious if something like Wiibrew counts as circumvention. I used the Twilight Hack to install the Homebrew Channel. Mostly I use it for listening to my favorite radio station on the nice stereo in the living room. Though, I have downloaded some of the free applications from the website. I bought the Space Quest collection and play it under Dosbox* on the Wii on my TV. In the future, I might consider playing Gauntlet on it, though I might buy a used NES version to make myself feel better about it.

Is that so wrong?
-l

* I tried the ScummVM port, but it was crashy. The only problem with Dosbox on Wii is the mouse emulation for the Wiimote.

I'm curious if something like Wiibrew counts as circumvention. I used the Twilight Hack to install the Homebrew Channel. Mostly I use it for listening to my favorite radio station on the nice stereo in the living room. Though, I have downloaded some of the free applications from the website. I bought the Space Quest collection and play it under Dosbox* on the Wii on my TV. In the future, I might consider playing Gauntlet on it, though I might buy a used NES version to make myself feel better about it.

Is that so wrong?
-l

* I tried the ScummVM port, but it was crashy. The only problem with Dosbox on Wii is the mouse emulation for the Wiimote.

I'm curious if something like Wiibrew counts as circumvention. I used the Twilight Hack to install the Homebrew Channel. Mostly I use it for listening to my favorite radio station on the nice stereo in the living room. Though, I have downloaded some of the free applications from the website. I bought the Space Quest collection and play it under Dosbox* on the Wii on my TV. In the future, I might consider playing Gauntlet on it, though I might buy a used NES version to make myself feel better about it.

Is that so wrong?
-l

* I tried the ScummVM port, but it was crashy. The only problem with Dosbox on Wii is the mouse emulation for the Wiimote.

Am I the only one who read this and though of harmonium?

Actually, all you need to do is install the Homebrew Channel and start coding with DevkitPro
http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Main_Page

The problem is that Nintendo doesn't really appreciate that, and they do everything they can to stop it.

Microsoft, however, encourages indie games on the Xbox (till now, anyway), because with XNA they can limit what indie developers can do.

I ported it to the Wii

http://www.wiibrew.org/wiki/Bfi

It plays pretty well with ScummVM on the Wii

Doesn't this show that scummvm is the best scumm emulator out there, what are the advantages of re-licensing to lgpl? To me it seams like a bad idea, give why not lgpl a read, particularly

we can achieve much more if we stand together. We free software developers should support one another. By releasing libraries that are limited to free software only, we can help each other's free software packages outdo the proprietary alternatives. The whole free software movement will have more popularity, because free software as a whole will stack up better against the competition.

It will always be unlikely that closed SDKs are going to allow code to be released (to protect the API), while GPL guarantees that homebrew ports stay 100% open. It is also unlikely that developers will want people to be aware they are using scummvm because (they will think) it may increase piracy, as people will take the game data and play the games elsewhere (they can do this if it runs on a scumm emulator anyway, but corporate boss's don't always follow logic).

Obviously this is just my humble opinion as I've not contributed to scummvm but please be weary of opening yourself up to proprietary (scummvm+evil console closed code) offshoots, especially if there is little benefit.

Of course, if someone were to somehow figure out/reverse engineer the Nintendo API's without signing any NDA or contract with Nintendo, they could maybe create an open-source SDK which is 'compatible' with the Nintendo SDK, at which point third parties could start creating GPL programs for Nintendo (although you might not be able to get the software to RUN on a Wii without hacking the wii with some sort of modchip or Bios-flash or something. . . several posters have mentioned that software won't run on a Wii if it's not cryptographically signed using a key from Nintendo.

You mean like this?

Live and learn:

http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Wiimote/#IR_Camera

Everywhere. Just enter 'homebrew' with your favorite console name in google, and you'll find it. Wii for example: http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Main_Page And then we have the handheld consoles build around the oss concept (gp2x, open-pandora, wiz)

Right, so I should probably include relevant links for those too lazy to Google. Consider this a mini-guide to homebrew on the Wii.

• The Homebrew Channel: This is essentially a launcher for unsigned code on the Wii. Follow the instructions on the page to install it onto your pre 4.0 Wii. As of now, there are no hacks to install it on 4.0 but it will only be a matter of time. This page also includes the Twilight Hack, which is a hacked save file for Twilight Princess that causes the Wii to crash and I presume elevate privileges so that you can run unsigned code from SD. The idea is that you run the Twilight Hack, which launched the HBC installer, and then it's on your Wii's system memory.
• HackMii: The blog of Team Twiizers, the group that does all the ground breaking hacking of the Wii. Definitely add them to your RSS reader if you decide to hack your Wii. It's also an interesting technical read. Note that Team Twiizers are firmly against piracy, and any mention of it there will not be tolerated.
• WiiBrew: Also run by Team Twiizers and co, this is the wiki for Wii homebrew. Contains apps and general information about Wii hacking, as well as technical information on the software and security of the Wii. In particular, this list is a fairly thorough list of legit homebrew applications on the Wii.
• The Homebrew Browser: This gets a special mention out of all the apps because it's basically a package repository type program for the Wii. The guy also runs a blog at codemii.com with updates on included applications and also a few basic Wii coding tutorials.

Phew. That's probably the most effort I've ever spent on a Slashdot post. These links should be enough to get anyone started. Since I'm tired of typing HTML tags, I'll just list a few recommended apps: GeeXBoX is an excellent media center app, and there's also a handful of mplayer ports, then there's all the emulators, Gecko OS lets you tweak a few aspects of the System menu as well as use cheats (but don't use them online, people have been getting banned), FTPii is useful if you're too lazy to take your SD card out of your Wii, there are a few Wii Linux distros in their infancy, and of course, a plethora of games (including Quake!).

One last thing, Team Twiizers is working on something called BootMii, which is essentially a replacement of some very low level boot code on the Wii. Once this is finished, Wii homebrew will essentially have complete access to everything on the Wii. Keep an eye out for it; among other things it should make a Wii relatively brick-proof. It'll be on Hackmii of course.

Right, so I should probably include relevant links for those too lazy to Google. Consider this a mini-guide to homebrew on the Wii.

• The Homebrew Channel: This is essentially a launcher for unsigned code on the Wii. Follow the instructions on the page to install it onto your pre 4.0 Wii. As of now, there are no hacks to install it on 4.0 but it will only be a matter of time. This page also includes the Twilight Hack, which is a hacked save file for Twilight Princess that causes the Wii to crash and I presume elevate privileges so that you can run unsigned code from SD. The idea is that you run the Twilight Hack, which launched the HBC installer, and then it's on your Wii's system memory.
• HackMii: The blog of Team Twiizers, the group that does all the ground breaking hacking of the Wii. Definitely add them to your RSS reader if you decide to hack your Wii. It's also an interesting technical read. Note that Team Twiizers are firmly against piracy, and any mention of it there will not be tolerated.
• WiiBrew: Also run by Team Twiizers and co, this is the wiki for Wii homebrew. Contains apps and general information about Wii hacking, as well as technical information on the software and security of the Wii. In particular, this list is a fairly thorough list of legit homebrew applications on the Wii.
• The Homebrew Browser: This gets a special mention out of all the apps because it's basically a package repository type program for the Wii. The guy also runs a blog at codemii.com with updates on included applications and also a few basic Wii coding tutorials.

Phew. That's probably the most effort I've ever spent on a Slashdot post. These links should be enough to get anyone started. Since I'm tired of typing HTML tags, I'll just list a few recommended apps: GeeXBoX is an excellent media center app, and there's also a handful of mplayer ports, then there's all the emulators, Gecko OS lets you tweak a few aspects of the System menu as well as use cheats (but don't use them online, people have been getting banned), FTPii is useful if you're too lazy to take your SD card out of your Wii, there are a few Wii Linux distros in their infancy, and of course, a plethora of games (including Quake!).

One last thing, Team Twiizers is working on something called BootMii, which is essentially a replacement of some very low level boot code on the Wii. Once this is finished, Wii homebrew will essentially have complete access to everything on the Wii. Keep an eye out for it; among other things it should make a Wii relatively brick-proof. It'll be on Hackmii of course.

Right, so I should probably include relevant links for those too lazy to Google. Consider this a mini-guide to homebrew on the Wii.

• The Homebrew Channel: This is essentially a launcher for unsigned code on the Wii. Follow the instructions on the page to install it onto your pre 4.0 Wii. As of now, there are no hacks to install it on 4.0 but it will only be a matter of time. This page also includes the Twilight Hack, which is a hacked save file for Twilight Princess that causes the Wii to crash and I presume elevate privileges so that you can run unsigned code from SD. The idea is that you run the Twilight Hack, which launched the HBC installer, and then it's on your Wii's system memory.
• HackMii: The blog of Team Twiizers, the group that does all the ground breaking hacking of the Wii. Definitely add them to your RSS reader if you decide to hack your Wii. It's also an interesting technical read. Note that Team Twiizers are firmly against piracy, and any mention of it there will not be tolerated.
• WiiBrew: Also run by Team Twiizers and co, this is the wiki for Wii homebrew. Contains apps and general information about Wii hacking, as well as technical information on the software and security of the Wii. In particular, this list is a fairly thorough list of legit homebrew applications on the Wii.
• The Homebrew Browser: This gets a special mention out of all the apps because it's basically a package repository type program for the Wii. The guy also runs a blog at codemii.com with updates on included applications and also a few basic Wii coding tutorials.

Phew. That's probably the most effort I've ever spent on a Slashdot post. These links should be enough to get anyone started. Since I'm tired of typing HTML tags, I'll just list a few recommended apps: GeeXBoX is an excellent media center app, and there's also a handful of mplayer ports, then there's all the emulators, Gecko OS lets you tweak a few aspects of the System menu as well as use cheats (but don't use them online, people have been getting banned), FTPii is useful if you're too lazy to take your SD card out of your Wii, there are a few Wii Linux distros in their infancy, and of course, a plethora of games (including Quake!).

One last thing, Team Twiizers is working on something called BootMii, which is essentially a replacement of some very low level boot code on the Wii. Once this is finished, Wii homebrew will essentially have complete access to everything on the Wii. Keep an eye out for it; among other things it should make a Wii relatively brick-proof. It'll be on Hackmii of course.

Yep, the Twilight hack was disabled. Check http://wiibrew.org/ for more details.

The Will has several ports of mplayer available. The version called MPlayer CE is the most actively developed.

http://www.wiibrew.org/wiki/MPlayer_CE

It can be installed by the Homebrew Channel. The downside of the mplayers port is that they has no memory protection so attempting to play files that they can't play can crash the Wii requiring a hard reset. I've done this a number of times and haven't suffered anything evil like bricking the thing.

Wonder no more...

Someone's been living under a rock since December 2007.

I'll just point you to the recent 25th Chaos Community Congress Console Hacking talk (slides, video) which neatly summarizes a year of hacking and how much of a horrible failure Nintendo's security has been.

Spoiler: their signatures used to have 8-bit security. Literally.

We've had lots of fun.

Nintendo did a genius thing, rereleasing games from older consoles via the Wii Shop Channel. Or even playing old ROMs or LucasArts SCUMM using emulators via the Wii Homebrew Channel.

What I want is a Sierra emulator for the Wii, so I can play all the old classic point-and-click games. If they can port ScummVM, surely they can do something for Sierra.

Some keyboard, especially Apple ones, have pass through connectors for usb mice, meaning they use the same as a single control pad... And there are always wireless options too, the wii has bluetooth for instance.

And then the operating system (yes, consoles have them too) has to go and screw it up by making it difficult or impossible for an application to tell which keyboard a particular keypress comes from, or which mouse a particular movement or click comes from. Besides, even under a perfect operating system, a keyboard and mouse still require more physical space than an Xbox 360 controller, a Dual Shock 3 controller, a Wii Classic Controller, or a Logitech Dual Action controller.

It has been made perfectly clear that any action taken by a manufacturer to deliberately break interoperability with competing products is illegal.

Then what lets the lockout chip business model continue in the market for set-top video game players? Say Nintendo makes a video game console called Wii, but all software for Wii must be digitally signed by Nintendo in order to run, and such signatures aren't made available to microISVs. Then I develop and self-publish a GPL game called "Lockjaw", which competes with a game called Tetris that's licensed by Nintendo. Lockjaw requires an additional piece of software called Twilight Hack in order to work around the signature verification. Nintendo has released two updates to the Wii system software that specifically detect Twilight Hack and block it from running. Wouldn't your interpretation make these system software updates illegal?

It has been made perfectly clear that any action taken by a manufacturer to deliberately break interoperability with competing products is illegal.

Then what lets the lockout chip business model continue in the market for set-top video game players? Say Nintendo makes a video game console called Wii, but all software for Wii must be digitally signed by Nintendo in order to run, and such signatures aren't made available to microISVs. Then I develop and self-publish a GPL game called "Lockjaw", which competes with a game called Tetris that's licensed by Nintendo. Lockjaw requires an additional piece of software called Twilight Hack in order to work around the signature verification. Nintendo has released two updates to the Wii system software that specifically detect Twilight Hack and block it from running. Wouldn't your interpretation make these system software updates illegal?

It has been made perfectly clear that any action taken by a manufacturer to deliberately break interoperability with competing products is illegal.

Then what lets the lockout chip business model continue in the market for set-top video game players? Say Nintendo makes a video game console called Wii, but all software for Wii must be digitally signed by Nintendo in order to run, and such signatures aren't made available to microISVs. Then I develop and self-publish a GPL game called "Lockjaw", which competes with a game called Tetris that's licensed by Nintendo. Lockjaw requires an additional piece of software called Twilight Hack in order to work around the signature verification. Nintendo has released two updates to the Wii system software that specifically detect Twilight Hack and block it from running. Wouldn't your interpretation make these system software updates illegal?

As stated many times before the main strong point of consoles (used to be at least) that they just worked. Buy game, put game in console, play game. No drivers, no wacky DRM raping your dataz and privacy

Instead, you have a different kind of wacky DRM trying to exclude games developed by a team of dedicated amateurs. Nintendo has stated on warioworld.com that won't consider granting your team a license even for WiiWare unless you have leased office space and ideally a prior published title on another platform (in practice, Windows or Mac OS X).

Obviously, SSD's are in their infancy. NO OS has been even remotely optimized for them yet

The Wii console has a 512 MB SSD, formatted in an SSD-specific file system called SFFS.

How exactly would they remove the ARM7 cpu when all DS games use it? It is the ONLY processor that can talk to the sound engine, input systems and wifi.

Like the Wii, the DS has two CPUs: an ARM9 CPU to run the game and an ARM7 CPU to act as an IOP (input/output processor). The ARM7 runs IOS, which handles API calls from the ARM9 to perform sound, input, power management, and wireless communication. Each DS game includes a specific version of IOS that it expects. But if the DSi's IOP can speak the same protocol that the game's IOS speaks, the ARM9 can't tell the difference. Wii's GameCube back-compat works the same way: a special version of IOS (called MIOS) emulates enough of the GameCube I/O to get games to run.