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Wii Hacked for Better Homebrew Games

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the playing-with-your-own-toys dept.

arbourp writes to mention that hackers Michael Steil and Felix Domke have demonstrated a way to hack the Wii that makes running homebrew code much easier. "The hack advances the possibility of running homebrew code with access to full system resources on the device, not just programs that Nintendo has sanctioned. Such games might be developed to run from a DVD drive, at least in theory. No such games are available as yet and Nintendo may respond by attempting to revoke compromised encryption keys. However history shows such countermeasures are likely to ultimately prove futile."

3 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. Smart Thinking by MBCook · · Score: 5, Informative

    I love the way they did, it shows good ingenuity. If you watch the video, they explain that they can get into GameCube compatibility mode (what is used for GC style home brew) but that the ATI chip acts as a gateway to the extended RAM and other new neat stuff (SD card slot, BlueTooth, etc.).

    By physically tying address lines on the memory chips, they could circumvent the address lock and read areas of memory they shouldn't be able to. Through this, they dumped the RAM though the controller ports (using them as serial ports) and were able to pick through it and start decoding it to find things like the signature that let them break out.

    Very neat. I love reading about this kind of stuff.

    It will be very interesting to see what people do with this. I never really heard about any interesting XBox homebrew, just running Linux and XBMC type stuff. Ditto with the 'cube. But the Wii should prove interesting.

    --
    Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
  2. Re:hint hint by hansamurai · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm sure you're aware but I would recommend buying an Xbox and install Xbox Media Center on it. It can do everything you want plus more (hard drive built in opens many opportunities), and they're really cheap right now. I run an Xbox at home and use it as my media center, great stuff.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBMC
    http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/

    --
    Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
  3. Re:Why a console? Why not your own breed? by Abcd1234 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Wha? The Wii controller is a standard Bluetooth device. This page is just one of many that provides links to drivers, and details on how to install them, for using the Wiimote on either Windows or Linux.