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Wii Hacked for Better Homebrew Games
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."
Just to point out they use Star wars as an entry point, however on its own the game is wicked and you can use your wii-mote as god intended :)
liqbase
Wii Hacked for Better Homebrew Games
And the majority of these homebrew games look like retail games, except they're free.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Does this mean that lorena bobbit runs nintendo now? With all this "Wii Hacking"...
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
Considering how many of the games on this console are minigames, there is the very real possibility that some of the homebrew stuff could end up being as good as the regular games. Bad news for Nintendo, good news for Wii gamers.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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.
Doesn't this mean someone can produce a pressed disk that the Wii thinks is the real deal and all the disk does is unlock the system so we can "possibly" run software off memory sticks, external disk, or swap the disk itself?
I understand they can revoke the encryption key with an update but if certain games only had one key, wouldn't revoking the key break the older games? And couldn't they just dump the memory again to find the new key?
From what Ive read so far on this hack. It seems it can be as easy as the Dreamcast hacks that didn't require modifying the hardware.
Personally I just want a homebrew emulator so I don't have to pay the ridiculous prices for the Virtual Console games.
The most useful thing that could be done with this is to allow emulation of discs from a USB harddrive. That way I could put my originals away for protection. Yeah, that's it.
Shh.
My guess is, the Wii has to sign the keys itself for downloaded channels, so they got it from there. I don't know though, this article was really sketchy and I'm fairly suspicious of it.
Bears don't normally eat things that talk and move backwards.
It can already be done with Guitar Hero 2 on the PS2. My brother has an entire ISO of GH2 filled with custom songs. It's really kinda neat.
Ah, so you'll be able to run unsigned code on your Wii, which is connected to the internet 24 hours a day.
I can't wait for my Wii to get compromised. Awesome.
(Yes, I have a firewall, which - statistically speaking - is better than yours.)
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
All I want is a wired LAN adapter that works. I accidentally bought one of the third-party adapters (curse you Best Buy- stocking a knockoff clone in trademark-infringing packaging immediately adjacent to the real Nintendo gear), which worked pretty well for the ten minutes it took to download the update that killed my online access. :-(
Uh, "if it looks roughly mouse-shaped according to my infra-red sensitive pit, eat it"? --Chris Burke 09-08-10
Given that all the controllers are bluetooth, couldn't one just develop the games for the computer and use the Wii-mote that way? Reduces the need for on-system homebrew, especially with the fairly easy ability to hook computers up to TVs. Actually, you don't even need a Wii, just a Wii-mote.
Technically you can do ANYTHING with your pc - if anything is what you want to do.
I can't use a Wii controller on my PC.
Well at least without a soldering iron.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I wonder how you might pull this off with the wii version... I might have to investigate...
That post really needed some more to be organized into coherent paragraphs, but I'll answer anyway...
is it because of the "scene" or is it because you "can"?
Yes, it's because they can. They enjoy the challenge.
When you have broken the system security to release your own homebrew - then what? Challenge over?
Yep, and then you move on to a new challenge. In reality, though, breaking the system security is just one of the first steps to making homebrew software; there are still many challenges left.
Now realize this my friend - why not create your OWN hardware with your OWN challenges?
Because that's a different kind of challenge, and not as fun to some people. Why don't you forge your own plate armor? Or learn a new language? Or study Tai Chi? Those are all challenges, but they're different and appeal to different types of people. Some people -- the people who are working on this kind of project, in fact -- think that breaking a system's security and making homebrew software is much more fun than making their own hardware.
Point is - whatever you end up doing - make sure you use that time you got - wisely - otherwise you're technically just wasting your time doing it!
If you spent your time having fun, is it really wasted?
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
The hack was NOT presented by Steil and Domke. It was only presented at the end of their talk about xbox360 security at the CCC Congress. But the actual hack was presented by another person which name i don't know.
Many times I've been thinking - why is it so important to break the latest console to work with your "insert-homebrew-here"? Is it because it's some hardware that most have been importing in to your homes? is it because of the "scene" or is it because you "can"?.
I don't know. Did Edmund Hillary climb Everest because he thought there was prime real estate up there?
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.
No they told you exatly how they did it.
The keys are stored in protected memory. This memory is not accessable under normal conditions, as the gatekeeper chip disallows access to this. When the Wii is used in GC mode, this chip is disabled, but so is addressing to the upper regions of memory, so you still can't address it properly. BUT if you use a small peice of metal and join some of the address bus lines, in order to address higher addresses, these keys can be recovered.
Watch the video, very interesting.
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I've fiddled with the GBA and I'm looking into the DS. I haven't done any of the home consoles. I've done stuff on my Mac and on PCs for years and years and years, from native to Java. I've even fiddled with TI calculators.
It's just a different experience. There is no challenge in making a Mario style game on the PC. On a system that is more constrained (like a handheld) there is challenge. There are other attributes as well. I can take a game I make for the DS with me easily, where my Mac is a little heavier. The DS has a great touchscreen, which my computer doesn't. I have a tablet, but it's not the same.
Then there is just the style. On a PC you either write the frame buffer, use a library, or use OpenGL type stuff to display sprites. The DS and GBA (and others) have this in hardware. You put the X co-ord in one memory address, the Y in another, a few other little things and it displays it for you. You want a tile background? Just put tile numbers in this magic area of memory, your tiles here, and it will take care of that for you, scrolling too.
It is a very different challenge
I'd like to make hardware too, but I don't know enough. Even if I did, I know there is no way I can make something as advanced as a GBA or a DS any time in the next decade.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
[b]if you spent your time having fun, is it really wasted?[/b] no! But I bet you already knew the answer to that one - seriously.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
One of the things that make consoles so attractive is that they are standardized hardware that so many people have in their homes. Development can be targeted for this specific hardware - to take advantages of its unique features.
Here is my home page.
DRM and Copy Protection Schemes are cancer.
Screw the new songs, fixing the dolby pro logic track should be at the top of the agenda.
Why do people bother with OS projects when they could invest their time in something useful like curing cancer?
I don't know if that makes much sense. Let's see through a hypothetical interview.*
Interviewer: So Mr. X, you are the creator of the hugely successful homebrew application GenericApp.
Creator: Yes, I am.
Interviewer: Well, many of your critics have said that your efforts could have been better spent in an effort to cure cancer.
Creator: Um...
* DISCLAIMER: Such interviews would not actually occur. A more realistic incident would be a forum thread littered with people complaining about the functionality, the interface, getting it to work as they want it, and of course, the con side telling said idiots to do something themselves.
I dunno, maybe they aren't doctors?
Thanks for being a jerk. (It makes me look better)
I remember when the gamecube was hacked using a similar method, it was suppose to herald the dawn of homebrewing... But instead it proliferated gamecube piracy. it started with streaming a copy of Animal Crossing and within months it made pro-pirate gamers all around the world happy.
same with xbox, xbox 360, psp and ds. it will probably be the same once a dark-alex of the ps3 world appears.
hack-4-homebrew are just an insignificant minority... but a major gateway for the pro-piracy group.
just make sure that they only read roms from the virtual console games instead of raw roms from the harddrive
but why? things like lets say.. online multiplayer via kalliera,2xSAI,IPS translation patching,(urg) savestates >.>,high resolution textures...
Hacking consoles reminds me of the people who "modify" their consoles to the point they have practically build their own. But if it's fun, why not ?
You can already use the Wii as a frontend to a media server. Tversity can convert any video to FLV and stream it to the Wii. It has a nice flash interface, and you can also use it to display pictures and play mp3s located on your PC (via the Opera web browser). It's also free, which is good, as it has its limitations:
- Configuration options are a bit limited (no choice of framerate, for example).
- My Wii is connected by 801.11b, which limits quality of the videos (from what I can tell). I have the video resolution set to 240x180, which really sucks on a 46" tv, as Anything higher drops frames. I suspect that using a wired connection or the G protocol would allow for a higher throughput.
- I was watching a 90 minute video yesterday and the Opera browser gave me an "Out of memory" message about 85 minutes into the show. I'm not sure if higher resolutions or bitrates would fill the memory faster.
YMMV
The best Wii homebrew hack would be one that lets you play World of Warcraft on the Wii, and use the controller to perform attack combos.
But, alas, we won't see that this year, and probably not until 2009 at the earliest.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
All I want is the thing to ignore the region on the disc so import games work.
... and Mandarin Chinese is also fairly common on the West Coast of the US and Canada.
While many Wii games are region-free, it would really be cool to be able to pop in a Japan-only Wii game and play it.
Some of us in North America can understand Kanji and in fact many primary, middle, and high schools teach Japanese
So it's an untapped market, IMHO.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
People could just get an XBox and pay $99 to be able to develop home games without having to go through so much trouble and probably violating some sort of terms of use, but I guess some will just never be satisfied if they aren't defying someone in order to do something. And before anyone calls me an XBox fanboy, I've never even owned one.
Dear gods I hope this leads to a simple and effective region unlock. I'm sick of being told that I can't play games until well after they've been released elsewhere, and that, as an aussie, I have to pay twice as much as US consumers for the privilege.
This is really another nasty side of the DRM/Copy Protection culture as a whole
DRM's logic is flawed with respect to content, since it proposes controlling the consumer after they had already PAID. At least with music, there is some genuine confusion. "unauthorized copying", EULA type agreements, etc. You have been licensed the right to the IP, which is the point that anti-DRM advocates post constantly. The expectation, which is quite reasonable, is that after purchasing a CD you get the rights to listen to that particular piece of music FOREVER. It has always been the confusion over a piece of plastic, that it gives you a right to the music forever like a book. This is a pervasive belief in our society, which is held sacrosanct, quite emotionally and vociferously sometimes. The music industry has not been in any rush to confirm or correct this perception either. The vagaries and flexibility of licensing agreements are often too much for the average consumer. For many, it is a black and white situation. They own it completely, or not at all. Although the use of a piece of music could be limited to so many uses, 1 year, etc by a properly constructed licensing agreement, it is not always expected or understood by the consumer. The entertainment industry has, in my view, acted deceptively and/or stupidly in not advertising in a very clear way, what our rights are under their licensing agreements. They have continued to demand $15 or more for a CD and comparable prices to online downloads, while not clearly defining the differences of the license agreements. It is clear, beyond any doubt, that they have not been conducting their interactions with consumers in good faith, since you have different rights depending on how you purchased. The consumer could be forgiven for all the confusion created.
They need to come clean and just state they no longer intend to sell the artist's music, but rent it to you. Renting, which with respect to IP content is licensing, is the only situation in which the owners have the right to dictate what is permissible with their property. After all, they are not giving it to you. They maintain ownership, but allow you to enjoy their property with certain restrictions. If the music industry would do this, then when nobody "purchases" it anymore, certainly at those prices, we consumers can speak as one and tell them where to "put it".
NOW, when it comes to hardware..... their is no confusion whatsoever. They did not RENT you with Wii. They SOLD you the Wii. Last time I bought a car from Toyota, they did not tell me what states I could drive it in. Nor did they list what music I could listen to in the car. Nintendo is no different than an auto manufacturer. Nintendo, quite incorrectly and immorally, attempts to control what we all do with OUR hardware. If one wishes to write his own code for the Wii platform, there is no legal, logical, or moral reason for Nintendo to limit that, merely a corporate profit driven reason. Nintendo is not alone in this behavior sadly.
This may not have been true in the past, but todays devices can contain quite valuable hardware that can perform very well at other tasks then what was intended by the manufacturer. Just about every device I know of lately has had its firmware hacked. It should be clear by now, to all involved, that consumers can be quite sophisticated and wish to use their devices to their full potential at their whim.
Now, the most common argument posed by DRM-advocates is that they are preventing IP theft from occurring in the first place. By doing so, they increase the value of their device as a platform to the content providers in the industry. This is ABSOLUTELY FLAWED LOGIC. It is wrong, to assume that someone will commit a crime in the future. We all value innocence before guilt, but that only comes into the picture after an action has taken place. You could say that DRM/Copy Protection eliminates the TEMPTATION. That goes against what I believe American culture, as well as other cultures
The breakthrough here is giving the GameCube HomeBrew Scene access to the Wii's unique features (Motion Sensitive Controllers shown in video)
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Who do you think you are really "proclaiming" the majority use of a system.
You sound just like those congressmen who proclaim "p2p and the internet are just dens of piracy, we should shut them down and replace them with tv 2.0", then introduce monstrosities like the "induce act" and the DMCA
ever heard of XBMC?
Everyone I know used it on their moded xbox
It makes the token piece of #$@ they put into the 360 look like it was coded by lemurs.
I can't wait for at least one of these consoles to be fully opened to xbmc devs.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I've never heard of any Wii games being region free, are you thinking about DS games?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
It's just like the PSP situation all over again. People pretend they're using the hack for "homebrew" when the vast majority are using it to play pirate software. If it's a software only hack Nintendo is screwed.
Exactly. And different people like different things. For some people, the fun part is just breaking the security, and homebrew or whatever is not particularly exciting. For others, breaking the security is a necessity, but the fun part is what comes later.
In the past, I've been playing around with Playstation (the original), Dreamcast, and PSP. Although I did end up writing a devkit for Dreamcast, nothing became of it, and I realized that the interesting part for me was just reverse-engineering and figuring out the hardware. I'll let someone else do the other stuff.
If I try to explain why it's fun, maybe I can compare it to a crossword puzzle. It's challenging and as more and more stuff becomes clear, the easier it gets. The difficult part is at the beginning: nothing is known and everything is like a blank-slate. Everything is possible...
And there's nothing quite like discovering a security flaw. Sometimes it's almost unbelievable, like when I found the backdoor in the Dreamcast firmware. Almost makes you wonder if there is not something to it when people claim piracy helps a console and the console makers know it...
"Give me six lines of C++ code written by the most competent programmer, and I will find enough in there to hang him."
Now what we need is for someone to port Frets On Fire and support the Guitar Hero III Controller.
I only buy pepper spray that's been tested on anti-vivisectionists.
That's real funny. When I moved into this house with my gf, I was happy to have enough space to separate my computer and tv viewing areas. The networked xbox with xbmc is enough computer for me in the TV room. The result? She thought it would be nice if we had a computer there like at my old place.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Why do people bother with OS projects when they could invest their time in something useful like curing cancer?
Why do you bother with posting on Slashdot when you could invest your time in something useful like curing cancer, or even OS projects?
You just got troll'd!
Gamecube Homebrew has been on the Wii for ages using the SD Media Launcher. the list of homebrew thats works on Gamecube and Wii is an impressive one. Heres the full list from the Gamecube Emulation Site http://gcemu.dcemu.co.uk/ Arcade Midway Space Invadors Emulator XMame (GC Linux) Atari 2600 StellaGC Chip 8 Chip 8 Emulator Dotriem Dotriem Emulator GBC Gameboy Emulator GnuBoyGX GBA GBAEmuPlus VBA Genesis Genesis Plus Master System SMS Plus Neo CD NeoCD Redux Neo Geo Pocket Neopop Nes FCE Ultra GC Nintendo 64 Mupen64 PC Engine Hugo Playstation GCSX ScummVM ScummVM for Wii/GC Super Nintendo Snes 9x GC Emulator Snes 9x GC(Linux) Snes 9x GX Edition Snes9xgx2 Snes9xGX Unnoficial Homebrew for Gamecube All in One Emuloader ASCII Fighter CubeDoom GameCube pong GC Forth GC FTP Gcos Massager Memory Card Backup Mines Nitrorally OpenTyrianGC Quake Gamecube SD Boot Speed Pong 4p Supertux Tetris Terraringma demo Wolfenstein 3D XRickGC Yeti 3D
Insofar as they protect content that is 'rented' temporarily, streamed or downloaded, DRM is gold. Insofar as they protect my right to sell my art without assholes taking it and giving it away fro free (or charging money for it, though this is uncommon in the US), DRM is gold.
I like being able to watch shows and hear music for free on the internet, and without DRM, I'm not going to get the opportunity as much.
Hacking the wii is a cool thing to do, and I think just fiddling with electronics is a worthy opportunity in and of itself. Insofar as these guys are going to steal Gamecube games, etc etc, I hope Nintendo does as Sony does, and fights back. The richer Nintendo and Sony get, the more stuff my family gets to enjoy.
So I don't think DRM is cancer, it's a tool. If misused, it's bad. But that's not the DRM's fault. (guns don't kill people, etc).
I'm saying piracy is common, not that everybody, or even the majority, does it. And I'm saying that the hardware manufacturers who make piracy easy (people who make things like R4DS, etc.) mostly stand on the shoulders of the homebrew community - and everybody therefore takes it for granted that homebrew = piracy - despite the fact that the homebrew folks generally want nothing to do with it. And so (news flash!) I told people not to forget that there really is homebrew for the sake of homebrew. It's not a myth invented to legitimize the sale of flash carts.
But denying the fact of software piracy in all its forms does not help the homebrew scene. This is why I take the time to acknowledge it - even the forms of piracy people tend to ignore, like emulators. You gotta keep your perspective grounded in reality.
Take the time for a bit of comprehension before you get all high and mighty, OK?
Bow-ties are cool.
I love Anonymous Cowards, there so cool.
Yeah.. way to think out the box, dude..
You just got troll'd!
BUT if you use a small peice of metal and join some of the address bus lines, in order to address higher addresses, these keys can be recovered.
I was under the strict impression this was a software-only hack. They joined 2 addresses in their own code...you don't "join" addresses using soldering wires.
How long has Guitar Hero 2 been out on the Wii?
Well, somebody at Sega certainly seemed to be a "fucking moron" when they decided to put in that backdoor...
"Give me six lines of C++ code written by the most competent programmer, and I will find enough in there to hang him."