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Nintendo Wii Homebrew Contest 2007
Croakyvoice writes "DCEmu is hosting the worlds first Nintendo
Wii and Nintendo Gamecube Homebrew Coding Contest with prizes of $500 on offer
for Homebrew and Emulators for the Wii and Gamecube, The hope is that through
this contest an exploit will be released that will allow full homebrew on the
Nintendo Wii without a Modchip. Gamecube
Homebrew is already on the Wii with a host of systems emulated such as Snes,
Genesis, Gameboy and Neogeo."
This money would be a great incentive to get homebrew running on the Wii, (which is lacking due to the availability of modchips). The wii is an excellent console, and I'm looking forward to being able to do more with it.
I recently managed to get myself a Wii and from playing around with it, I feel there is a lot of untapped potential. Much of this could be accelerated if they made it easier for individual developers to add new channels. Although the Wii does not have a huge amount of processing power, when compared to a home PC, some of the stuff that I could see being added to it:
- MP3 Player, accessing music from SD card or a media server such as iTunes. Currently the only MP3 player is part of the slide show.
- Ability to play MPEG and MPEG4 movies, using codecs other than Motion-JPEG, from SD or a media server
- Support for Bonjour, for discovering services on you local home network.
I know that the Wii is meant to be a games machine, but once you have explored the weather, news and internet channels you realise it could be so much more. This price also makes it very attractive.
On the game front this kind of competition could foster more imagination, than some game companies are will to provide, especially when it comes to using the controller.
BTW you can play Flash based games with the help of Opera.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
How long did you have to wait for the wii to come out?
;) Seriously, I have been going to various stores, every once in a while, asking them when their next batch is due. Most either don't know and tell you, that you have to call almost every day to find out and then they are usually sold in a couple of hours. The other day I went to buy a home phone, didn't find the one I wanted and asked on the off chance if they if they knew when the next batch of Wiis was due. Guy told me they actually happened to have two in stock, so I bought it in an instant, along with Rayman - now that's one crazy game.
Until you get lucky
So in my case about seven months, since release date.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
By who? Nintendo isn't sponsoring the contest. It's unofficial.
I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
Allowing anyone to develop a Wii Channel -- even if it's only restricted access through something like RSS -- would only have a positive effect on the console.
I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
This Coding Competition will hopefully ignite a mass of interest for creating homebrew and emulators on the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo Gamecube.
The article does not encourage homebrew developers to find a new way to run homebrew on the gamecube, far less on the wii itself (in wii-mode). As far as i can tell from the news post, it is just a GC homebrew competition which does not limit the loader to known methods.
It would be far more interesting if someone already 'known' to the homebrew scene would create a bounty for the first person who is able to run homebrew on the wii (in wii mode, that is).
Something similar to what StoneCypher did with the dswifi library, which was done by sgstair(thanks!).
How long did you have to wait for the wii to come out?
Until you get lucky ;) Seriously, I have been going to various stores, every once in a while, asking them when their next batch is due.
If you are in the UK, then GAME make you do this. Those of us who have better things to do than hang around video game stores would be well-advised to try GameStation, who will take a deposit and phone you up when your name reaches the top of the list.
The Wii is a thoroughly well-designed and enjoyable toy. I'd certanly like to see it opened up a bit. How else will we get Wii change-ringing?
Remember, they're still a for profit company.
I bet you're right. With all those Wii consoles just sitting on the shelves, Nintendo really needs to step up it's advertising.
It's not even for real money. It's $300 store credit to some junk store that sells crappy handheld knock offs.
The marketting divisions of Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony seem to be exceedingly blinkered when it comes to home games production on their consoles. It worked for the Amiga, which because of direct support from Commodore (docs and tools) saw the emergence of a huge and extremely buoyant community with legions of Amiga supporters worldwide. And that's only one example.
There is really no reason for NOT supporting private developers, because every console that is purchased will also lead to commercial games sales as well, it's totally inevitable. Some people have suggested that the manufacturers are afraid of competition from the amateur sector, but that is just totally unsubstantiated. After all, all those years of game development and millions spent in asset production cannot easily be rivalled at home.
While there will always be some people who simply cannot afford commercial games, in general the existence of a successful amateur sector would be *additional* to the success of commercial products, and it wouldn't replace them. The argument that the console manufacturers want their cut from licensing games doesn't stand up either, because they will continue to get their cut from those commercial games. If the sectors are additive, then that income is not reduced.
Of course, if the multi-million dollar games are so crap that people prefer the amateur products instead, then there would indeed be an effect, but that's not likely to happen in the general case. Even if the commercial investments are highly inefficient and tied to games with poor/boring gameplay, they still provide *gloss* at least, and so people will still buy them.
I put it down to the truism that "marketting is clueless", as always. Which is a big pity here.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Prize Details
[--banner from gp2xstore.com--]
1st Prize) $300 to spend at GP2X Store
2nd Prize) $150 to spend at GP2X Store
3rd Prize) $50 to spend at GP2X Store
I give you 3 tries
Where are the inexpensive dev kits you promised last year, Nintendo? Sony and Microsoft are actually supporting homebrew, Nintendo is dragging their feet. I hope I can look forward to interesting and exciting news at E3 with regard to homebrew, dev kits, and VC originals ... but I'm not holding my breath. Please live up to your promises, Nintendo, don't turn this into another GameCube broadband adapter.
+0 Meh
Game and Gamestation have stocks, my local Asda has them. I ordered mine on Amazon UK or else I would have got one from Asda today.
...as if you could get one to play around with in the first place.
Apparently it's possible to stream your iTunes library to Wii:t unes-on-wii-for-free.html
http://hackaddict.blogspot.com/2007/06/tutorial-i
Haven't tried it yet though.
My other SIG is a Sauer.
The one thing that truly bugs me is the lack of support for Wii import games by both chips and loaders. Currently you have to buy a Japanese console to play them. I would love to give Naruto Shippuuden: Gekitou Ninja Taisen EX for the Wii a try. It is supposed to be the best Naruto game yet. The imported Naruto fighting games on the Gamecube are amazing. Japanese released Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen! 3 and 4 (which are not available in the US) are much better than the previous versions. I am very glad that I am able to play them on a gamecube with a "Freeloader" disc.
"What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?" - Doctor Who
Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft all want to sell development kits and licenses to use them. Officially allowing homebrew would mean commercial developers could make their own devkits, thus depriving the console makers of that revenue stream.
I did the same thing. I didn't quite go to the store every day, but I made sure to check every time I was near a store (about once a week). I managed to pick one up a few weeks ago. It's definitely not something you can walk into a store and buy on any day, but they are out there, and believe me, it's worth it. The Wii is awesome.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I'm sorry, but where do you live? I'm in Alberta, Canada. I can walk into any store around here and they have at least 10 Nintendo Wiis all the time. They've had a good stock since the end of April. The fact that people are still having such a hard time finding them is really surprising. If you're in the UK I can understand a bit, but if we have so many here couldn't they improve stock over there very easily?
I'm in Ottawa. There is still a major shortage of Wiis here. And Accessories too. When I got my Wii, I picked up Wiiplay with the controller (although they had just controllers in stock), but was unable to get a second nunchuck. The store clerks reaction was something like, "I swear we had them in stock 5 minutes ago". It was easy enough to find the second nunchuck at Walmart the next day. I completely believe you that there's 10+ machines sitting on the shelves though. I think that some places just have different demand for the products, and they don't really spread them around to where there is the most demand. For instance, if each store is allowed to order 10 per week, then they will only get 10, regardless of whether or not they will sell out of them in 10 minutes, or 5 days. I'm not sure if this is the way it is, but it might make sense as to why one store as 10 sitting on the shelf, and the other store is continually out of stock.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Microsoft has the semi-right idea with letting people use the XNA stuff to create games for the 360. Sure it is pretty locked down, but it is still is doable and well documented. The real hard part is that coming up with the idea for a 360 game is HARD, not to mention people expect "next-gen" graphics and sound for 360 games which is almost impossible without a large team. On the other hand, anyone who picks up a Wii controller immediately can come up with 10-50 ideas along the line of a Wii Sports or other mini games. And I think people are just fine with the quality of the graphics of the Wii. Throw in a standard "Mii" library for creating the characters and you are rolling right along.
Too bad I don't think Nintendo has their system set up for this. Oh well.
Sorry, no store in the world has "at least 10 Wiis all the time". So you're clearly a liar. But just to be sure, I checked. Not a single Best Buy in Alberta has a Wii in stock right now. The online stock locator showed zero, but I called the Edmonton North store to double check. He told me no one in the province had any either, and checked his own stock locator. I then checked Future Shop online, even though they're owned by Best Buy, and still nothing. Please give me a store in Edmonton that has a Wii in stock that I can call to verify.
I'd pay to be able to play Lunar: The Silver Star and Dark Wizard on my Wii. Anyone else?
Of course, that assumes that the drive is capable of reading standard CD-ROMs, which the Sega CD used.
Cynicism, like dogmatism, can be an excuse for intellectual laziness. - Susan Shirk
So how do I make Flash games without a $700 devkit? With the DS, I need $500 for a PC, $130 for a DS, and $50 for an R4 and a microSD card. I download the software to CD or microSD at a public library, and then I take it home and install it on my PC. With the Wii, I need $500 for a PC, $250 for a Wii, and either $700 for an Adobe Flash license or $250 for an Adobe Flash Education Edition license and at least $450 for a semester of community college.
Of course it is, you see how many ads are on that site?
It'd be nice if they'd admit that it's actually a GameCube and emulator contest, since nobody can load homebrew Wii code yet. It'd be even nicer if they focussed their efforts on helping load homebrew onto the Wii, instead of getting emulators developed for a system that doesn't have homebrew at all; some people find that worrisome. DCEmu means well, I guess, but their priorities could sure use a reinvestigation.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
I didn't have to wait. Wiis are in stock in most places around where I live (I live in New Zealand) so I just walked in and asked for one :-D
I used Sitting Outside Wal-Mart for Eight Hours and got a Wii in November.
Part of the whole homebrewing philosophy stems from the high cost of development of some of these systems (case in point PS3 dev box is 10,000 dollars)
But if you REALLY want to create some good games for the Wii, and maybe even sell them via the Virtual Console for 5-10 bucks, then 2k for a developer kit aint that bad at all.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
You said "most expensive place". What does that mean. Every shop I've seen in my city sells it for exactly the same price which is exactly the same as the MSRP. I didn't think there was much pricing competition on consoles, but maybe that's just the way things are in Canada.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I thought that the only thing running on Wii was gamecube code. I haven't heard of any actual homebrew that can make use of the wiimote. Did I miss something big here? I hope so because that would be awesome!
I used My-Girlfriend-Got-On-Ebay and got me one for Christmas. Now she won't stop playing Cooking Mama on it. Somehow, I feel bamboozled.
IAALS.
Seriously, I have been going to various stores, every once in a while, asking them when their next batch is due. Most either don't know and tell you, that you have to call almost every day to find out and then they are usually sold in a couple of hours.
That reminds me of something.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Saturn stores here in Germany have massive numbers of Wii's.
I just walked in and got one.
Actually, it's part of what killed the Amiga. During the end of the Amiga's life cycle, many game devs stopped support for the Amiga and moved to the Genesis and SNES instead, because piracy on the Amiga was so rampant.
Turrican III, for example, one of the archetypical Amiga games, came out for the Genesis first, and was only later ported back to the Amiga. Factor 5 quoted piracy as the reason why the franchise moved to the Genesis.
I'm not sure where he's talking about, but I do know that a lot of people may not even think to go into a 'hi-buck' place, even if the price will be the same. Or, perhaps it's like Sears. They carry games, but they're not known for them. I'm in the Twin Cities area and I haven't seen a Wii on store shelves since I met my brother in line at the release. He got one so I haven't been checking in as ardently as others. I can just head over to his place.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
Not that I can really talk - I bought mine from Best Buy, home of the incompetent salesperson.