Slashdot Mirror
Nintendo's Homebrew-Blocking Update Hacked
ElementC writes "Team Twiizers, the group behind almost all of the Wii Homebrew scene, has released an update to the Homebrew Channel (and installer) that allows for installation on a Wii with the most recent update installed. While the team still recommends against installing the Nintendo update, those who accidentally updated or purchase games that require the update are no longer left out to dry. This update to the Homebrew Channel also adds SDHC support, a feature Nintendo has not implemented in vanilla Wiis. The community has also created an app that updates just the Wii Shop Channel — allowing users to purchase Wiiware and Virtual Console games without losing their homebrew. It took the team only two days to get the fix out."
Like when Nintendo doesn't condone it, but leave little bits of stuff "open" for someone to find and break to keep a scene healthy?
Task Mangler
Both Wii homebrew users are reported to be delighted.
The biggest news out of the whole thing for me is that they have added SDHC support through a _channel_ in the Wii dashboard. People have been speculating why the Wii would not support SDHC and if it was some hardware limitation...well, it seems like it isn't. Which really makes me wonder why Nintendo has not added it, yet...in this day and age it's almost getting hard to find a non-SDHC card...
Seriously...WTF. This isn't the first time some 3rd party tool squeezes more functionality out of hardware. But this should really be a no-brainer to implement for the big N.
I feel sorry for Nintendo on this one.
That's nice. I'm sure profitable corporations need your sympathy.
The console is about as cheap as they get, and Nintendo put an incredible amount of research and effort into making the best games in the world. When do you folk feel a bit ethically obliged to let the company just make some money out of the good work they've done.
Nintendo sell the console at a profit. They make money off anyone who buys one, including the homebrewers. Anyway, Nintendo don't lease you a wii under a signed contract, they sell you one in a shop. Therefore, aren't they ethically obliged (not to mention legally) to let you do with it what you wish?
Secondly, the because its there argument. I cracked games in the past, way back in the days of C-64, All those Block executes on track 5 sector 5 etc. But I didn't distribute - I cracked it cause it was fun to do and for my own benefit - I didn't want to get in trouble, or ruin those software companies.
My goodness, not only did you not read the article, or summary, you also failed to even read the article title. NB: Home-brew.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The console is about as cheap as they get, and Nintendo put an incredible amount of research and effort into making the best games in the world. When do you folk feel a bit ethically obliged to let the company just make some money out of the good work they've done.
Nintendo makes about $50 on each Wii, compare that to MS and Sony who lose money whenever a 360 or PS3 is bought. Plus, most homebrewers are exactly that, homebrewers, this isn't a 1337 W@r3z h@ck either, its simply homebrew.
Thirdly Nintendo may not have deliberately broken the previous hacks anyway. All they did was release a new binary and the compiled code moved a bit in memory. I think a little too much credit may be being given here.
Ah, yes, because there was so much else in that update. Oh and never mind the fact that it searched for modified saves and deleted them, that's certainly not intentional.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Who said anything about cracked or pirate games? This is about installing homebrew and open source software on a hardware platform which has been paid for by the consumer who bought it - and Nintendo are not selling Wii's at a loss like Sony's PS3.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The console is about as cheap as they get, and Nintendo put an incredible amount of research and effort into making the best games in the world. When do you folk feel a bit ethically obliged to let the company just make some money out of the good work they've done.
Err, I really like Nintendo, I really like the Wii, and I'd really like some of what you were smoking.
1) The console price hasn't gone down AT ALL since it was released almost two years ago. Compare that to the prices of the PS3 or Xbox360 during the same timeframe. Also compare it to the fact that the Xbox360 is now way cheaper than the Wii while being much, much faster.
2) The last few months there were nothing but half-assed games coming out for the Wii, especially from Nintendo. I don't see "the best games in the world" anymore, anywhere. Think back to the last Nintendo press conference and tell me you were really positively surprised with what they came up with.
3) The Homebrew Channel can do a lot, but what it can't do is play Wii games off of burned discs. You still need a modchip for that. You can play copied WiiWare games, but team Twiizers officially denounces warez. They're doing it to open up the platform itself, not to open it up for the warez kids.
Check this article to find out why this is not really surprising.
Yup, that is indeed Nintendo featuring on TheDailyWTF.
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
People don't buy $250 systems just to play homebrew. Conversely, people that already have the system will dabble in homebrew to increase the value of their hardware, and allow it to do things it couldn't otherwise (like play Monkey Island, or watch DVDs).
If Nintendo is smart, they will put of a token fight - mainly to stay within contractual obligations with their game developing partners and keep them happy - while leaving plenty of loopholes for homebrew to exist. Best of both worlds for all involved.
Better known as 318230.
SFA was developed by Rare, not Nintendo. It also came out 5 years ago for the Gamecube. Would you care to try again, or is that really the best excuse you can come up with?
Uhm, for the hardware you get, it's actually rather overpriced (Nintendo makes a nice profit from each console sold). Also, the topic is about running homebrew software, not necessarily about running pirated games. (Yes, I know a lot of people will use it to do just that).
This is decidedly not true; they add code that specifically fixes the symptoms (current exploits against known holes), but not the real cause (horribly broken usage and implementations of crypto/hashing/signing algorithms, among others). This is why new cracks typically appear within a day or two. Putting in such code, however, can hardly be designated "accidental". Please do a little fact-checking next time.
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
And who will be permitted to own a TV and a camera at the same time you think?
As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.
You should do research before opening your mouth, the October 23 system update did infact *deliberately* break existing homebrew for the simple fact that ~90% of it was patches for a bug in the Wii's IOS modules (firmware of sorts) that most homebrew application exploit in order to install content to the Wii's NAND (filesystem). Additionally the update blocks direct access to the Wii's NAND for most IOS modules, an attempt to stop people dumping the contents of their Wii's.
Most of the update (as with the previous one) are direct attacks against (the use of) homebrew, the fact that Team Twiizers managed to find new exploits in mere days just goes to show how incredibly skilled they really are.
I think not enough credit is given here.
Sources:
- http://wii.marcansoft.com/wiimpersonator/reports/20081023-031234.log
- http://www.wiibrew.org/wiki/Wii_System_Updates
Anything that opens up the Wii platform is good news, so a hearty cheer from me.
If Nintendo created a proper home-brew platform, making it easier and cheaper to make small games and apps, the Wii could become a killer home entertainment platform (especially if they add DVD and local storage support). Something along the lines of the iPhone/Android apps store, where you can sell cheap games and they take a small cut. Currently the selection on WiiWare is pretty limited unless you want old NES games.
If they did that, I'd become a Wii developer overnight.
Paul Leader
Nintendo put an incredible amount of research and effort into making the best games in the world. When do you folk feel a bit ethically obliged to let the company just make some money out of the good work they've done.
How does allowing me to run my own software on hardware I have purchased prevent Nintendo from making money? In fact, it makes me more likely to buy the console. At the moment I don't have a Wii - if it were possible to run Linux on it I would buy one and it would become my MythTV frontend. So they would make more money since they would have another customer. At the same time, because I would then have a Wii, I would buy games for it, so they would make more money. By preventing me using the hardware how I like, they have reduced the value of the Wii to the point where I cannot justify the cost of buying one. Forgive me for saying, but doing whatever you can to reduce the value of your product doesn't seem to be a bright marketing strategy.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
I had no interest in hacking my wii until I heard they had blocked it. That got me looking into homebrew and then I found mplayer for wii. That night I went out and bought a sdcard reader for my computer and installed the homebrew channel on my wii.
DRM does not work.
Mathematically speaking.
Door locks do not work. Because it is always somehow possible to bypass them - be it by picking, drilling, bashing the door down or smashing a window.
They do, however, keep honest men from temptation.
They do, however, keep honest men from temptation.
Honest men aren't tempted by an unlocked door. Door locks are designed to convince the casual thief to rob your neighbour.
They sell their product for profit?!!! The scoundrels!
I disagree with you on this. They are well within their rights to sell the wii at a profit.
Because, you know, most successful companies just give their stuff away.
I believe you are mistaken.
No, not when what you're doing with it is illegal.
Since when is homebrew illegal?
They are ethically obliged to do as much as possible to ensure you can't run illegal, unlicensed software on it.
What about legal software, legally licensed from homebrewers? Or legal software which you legally wrote yourself? How are they ethically obliged to stop you running legal, licensed software?
Just from a glance at the wiki, some of the games being made available are clones of Nintendo's own games!
And none of Nintendo's games are clones of what has gone on before, and may well be available for free? People have been cloning ideas in computer games for years. That has nothing to do with homebrew.
If you're going to defend homebrew do not take the stance that Nintendo should be happy and endorse it.
If you're going to attack homebrew, don't just invent stuff about it being illegal and unethical.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
These guys are nothing short of awesome :). Only two days after the update. For those of us who couldn't possibly afford a Nintendo dev kit (or get one if we could since we're not publishers) this is the only way we're able to write games on an actual Wii.
Thanks Team TWiizers!
Even when they secure the path all the way from the UV-ray disc to each dot in the LCD/plasma/OLED display in 2038, all one needs to get the color of each pixel with greater than 99.999% accuracy is half a dozen US$ 100 cheap cameras
True, analog reconversion defeats digital restrictions management on non-interactive works. But Nintendo publishes video games, which are interactive works.
They are ethically obliged to do as much as possible to ensure you can't run illegal, unlicensed software on it.
Illegal under what law, and unlicensed under what exclusive right? Please name a few "illegal, unlicensed" titles you're looking at, so that other people following this discussion can understand what you are talking about.
Just from a glance at the wiki, some of the games being made available are clones of Nintendo's own games!
So bleeping what? Game play is not copyrightable. In fact, Nintendo's own Balloon Fight, available in the North American versions of Animal Crossing (for GameCube) and Wii Shop Channel, is a clone of Midway's Joust.
Yes, you can. You will need to make use of the Twilight Hack, so you definitely need Twilight Princess if you don't own a modchip. It's ok if you borrow it for an hour or so, you just need it to get your foot in the door.
Check out everything you need to know here: http://hbc.hackmii.com/
People don't buy $250 systems just to play homebrew.
No, but they do buy $330 systems just to play homebrew. Heck, if you define "homebrew" to mean "software released without a negotiated licensing agreement between the developer and the computer's manufacturer", people buy $300 to $2,000 devices for homebrew, called "personal computers".
Yes, but you need an original copy of "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess" for that. Then you just copy a save game onto a SD card. Google "wii homebrew channel", it is as easy as it gets.
But it is wrong to say that this does not allow playing "backup" games from regular burned discs. It is still early, but there already tools (that can be run from the Homebrew Channel) that allow you to play burned games without a modchip, and the compatibility list is increasing by the day. I heard you don't even need to patch the ISO before burning it anymore.
It is actually a pretty fierce struggle between homebrewers, hackers and pirates. Hackers open up the platform, usually for homebrewers, but then pirates step in to install WiiWare, VC games and, recently, to implement those backup loaders. And the thing is, I really don't think Nintendo gives a rats ass about homebrewers, but they have to attack wathever hackers do with their system because there is another group of people that uses those hacks to pirates games on it.
You can't hack your way around this: if you want to get online, you have to play by the network's rules. Of course you could always make your own network, possibly with blackjack and hookers, but if the usefulness of a network is O(n^2) in the number of users...
If it is possible for you to pass your own information across this network, then it's possible to send information across this network anonymously. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darknet_(file_sharing)
And while a darknet is necessarily more limited than an open system of sharing, you'd be surprised at how effective one can be, even with a small population. All it takes is one person on the darknet to obtain a copy of the material and put it up for everybody to get it. Private sharing networks are not uncommon, and often interlinked by virtue of members being in more than one.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Otto, above, made most of my arguments for me. :-)
With encryption, no one can know what I am passing in the network.
Hell, one can even encrypt and embed (steganographically) others' copyrighted works _inside_ one's copyrighted works (I can make a video with six hours of me sitting on a chair picking my nose and steganographically embed on that video the whole "SpiderMan 2040" feature) Not to mention that false identities will _ever_ exist, and one can distribute (and download!) the works under a false or stolen ID all the time...
But, thank you for playing!
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Actually, DRM does not equate to a locked door. Here is what DRM, generally, does:
It encrypts the content with a key (sometimes unique to an instance of the media, sometimes it is shared among a whole release) and then that key is sent to the consumer via a different channel. For example on DVD players (of both new and old) the key is embedded in the DVD player on a chip (or, so much less securely, inside a sotware player).
This is DRM's only trick, hide the key a little bit!
In the end in order for the user view the content it has to be decrypted. Since the user has the key (in some form) to view the content then they can use that key to remove the DRM form that content.
I hope that you can see the DRM is not a locked door, it is more like a locked door with the key under the doormat!
md5sum
d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
The word 'plays' can be interpreted in a few ways here. 'It plays' can be considered that it simply runs the games, and the game (eventually) loads and runs. But if it causes the DVD to read @ 1x or 2x, causing 4-5x longer loading screens, would you call that playing? I've even tried Mario Kart online, and keep getting disconnected because it simply takes too long to load.
They're working on version 0.2, which apparently brings up the read speed to 3x which should help considerably. However, it's still not near flawless and may be downgraded from 'plays' to 'semi-works'. It's still a huge milestone for the homebrew community since you're now able to run patched discs without hardware mods.
No, not when what you're doing with it is illegal. They are ethically obliged to do as much as possible to ensure you can't run illegal, unlicensed software on it.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Door locks just tell theives you have something worth locking up. Really you should leave your doors unlocked and open to show you have nothing worth securing. Better yet, just remove the doors entirely. If you do have valuables, put them in a big pile by the front door. Theives will be so suspicious of a hoard of unguarded treasure, they'll be sure you're watching them.