Unofficial Homebrew Channel For the Wii

marcan writes "The Homebrew Channel is a tool that can be installed on any Wii (no hardware mods required) that lets you run unsigned homebrew software from an SD card, or upload executables via WiFi or a USBGecko. We've tried to make it friendly for users with a simple GUI, and powerful for developers with direct upload features and reloading which we hope will make testing less painful. The channel can be installed using a DVD if you have a modchip, or using an exploit in Zelda: Twilight Princess which only requires an SD card (or any future hack or booting method). Once installed, it simply shows up as a Channel on the Wii Menu, just like any official channel. Hopefully, this and other recent developments (such as the upcoming devkitPPC r15 toolchain, much improved and with many bugs fixed) will help make the Wii an appealing platform for DIY software. And yes, it also runs Linux."

Comments

Free as in what ? beer ? speech ?

[DrYak]

How does this help me brew my own beer??? No, no. You got it wrong. It's not free as in beer, but free as in linux.

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More seriously, it's sad that the users have to resort to such hacks to enable homebrew. The only console designed from ground up to run 3rd party software are Dreamcast (mainly done for 3rd party music discs, but used a lot by the homebrew community) and PS3 (boots Linux CDs out of the box. Although the hypervisor restricts access to the GPU. But the Gallium3D team is successfully making a software OpenGL implementation that runs on the Cell's SPU).
I think a lot of console could benefit from having homebrew developer in mind.
Specially the Wii with its peculiar controllers just cries to see a vibrant community of homebrewer making clever use of the accelerometers & IR cam.

But I guess that Nintendo will just fix the hole and disable homebrew in the next firmware upgrade they will push.