Hacking Any way to make a homebrew app that can bypass the stupid 292 game limit?

[03bgood]

Then you are literally wasting money on hoarding. The limit is there because it's completely silly to have that many titles that you aren't going to play

So what, it's my life. It's not like anyone else owns my Wii U or 3DS.

The limit is there because Nintendo still thinks it's 2002 and not 2017, not because that most gamers aren't going to play "all" of their games. Some people will have kids of their own, you know. Do you not understand that were going "all digital" soon? I guess not.

What are you all gonna do when you want your ENTIRE VC library on the Switch? Even if you don't want most of them. There's at least 100-150 of the greatest hits of retro gaming and at least 50-100 good eShop games, so that right there is over 200-300 games.

 

[Futurdreamz]

I'm not downloading these for free. I have bought them all "legally". I never usually keep pirated games, I always ended up deleting them. I did so on the Wii years ago, when installed WAD files of NES, SNES, and Genesis games. I buy all of my eShop and VC games. I don't pirate them. Only VC games that are either hard to find or are only available in Wii Mode.

How many games do you have? I've bought literally every single game I want to eventually play and only have about 160. This is not like Steam where you can get 20 games for $20.

 

[03bgood]

How many games do you have? I've bought literally every single game I want to eventually play and only have about 160. This is not like Steam where you can get 20 games for $20.

On Wii U:

275 VC games (all of them)
59 eShop games
28 Wii games (all of them)
5 "digital" Wii U games

Yes, 367 games is way too many, but I'm fine with that. I might have kids someday.

 

[Futurdreamz]

So what, it's my life. It's not like anyone else owns my Wii U or 3DS.

The limit is there because Nintendo still thinks it's 2002 and not 2017, not because that most gamers aren't going to play "all" of their games. Some people will have kids of their own, you know. Do you not understand that were going "all digital" soon? I guess not.

What are you all gonna do when you want your ENTIRE VC library on the Switch? Even if you don't want most of them. There's at least 100-150 of the greatest hits of retro gaming and at least 50-100 good eShop games, so that right there is over 200-300 games.

The Switch only supports microSDXC for expansion, and while they say that 2TB cards work, realistically only 256GB MicroSD cards exist (and if you're going to link to that 512GB card you should really spend five seconds trying to find it first). You will not get 300 games onto 256GB

 

[03bgood]

True, but what if there was a way to save home menu layouts (like on the 3DS) and use multiple SD cards?

The thing that got me excited about the Switch the most was, being able to carry all of my games digitally, except for NS cartridges.

 

[Futurdreamz]

On Wii U:

275 VC games (all of them)
59 eShop games
28 Wii games (all of them)
5 "digital" Wii U games

Yes, 367 games is way too many, but I'm fine with that. I might have kids someday.

Kids nowadays have iPhones and iPads. What makes you think your kids will want to use a banged up old Wii U? And who knows? Nintendo may decide to make the VC service a Netflix-like subscription, making your thousands of dollars worth of unplayed games worthless.

 

[03bgood]

Kids nowadays have iPhones and iPads. What makes you think your kids will want to use a banged up old Wii U? And who knows? Nintendo may decide to make the VC service a Netflix-like subscription, making your thousands of dollars worth of unplayed games worthless.

Those "Wii U" games will have been transferred from like 3-4 game consoles since then.

If the Switch's VC is like Netflix, DO NOT make it like PlayStation Now. That service is garbage! Constantly having to have a wifi or 4G connection is so annoying! Owners should allowed to either stream them through wifi or just have them stored on their system/SD card. That's one thing PSNow lacks, storing games on the PS4. The subscription approach could work and or it could end up like PSNow. Hopefully it's more like Netflix and not PSNow.

 

[VitaType]

Kids nowadays have iPhones and iPads. What makes you think your kids will want to use a banged up old Wii U? And who knows? Nintendo may decide to make the VC service a Netflix-like subscription, making your thousands of dollars worth of unplayed games worthless.

You understand that wrong. He is to start a generations spanning quest to complete all of this games. It's the project the honour of his family will be based on in the centuries to come

 

[03bgood]

You understand that wrong. He is to start a generations long quest to complete this games. It's the project the honour of his family will be based on in the centuries to come

Video games are no different than movies or TV shows, so what's the big deal if someone wanted at least 300-500 games?

DVDs and Blu-ray are stored on discs. I know some people that have over 500+ DVDs. When I was a kid, I'd go over to a friend's house and they had a big closet full of VHS tapes and DVDs!

MP3s are stored on iPods and such. I have at least 5,000 MP3s on my iPod.

 

[Futurdreamz]

You understand that wrong. He is to start a generations spanning quest to complete this games. It's the project the honour of his family will be based on in the centuries to come

Meanwhile I'll just pick up the NES Classic, SNES Classic, N64 Classic, Gamecube Classic, GBA Classic (though my Micro with a EZflash IV is basically the same thing), NDS Classic, Wii Classic (nobody ever hacked the Wii Mini?), etc; hack them all and load them with their respective libraries and play them that way. The Wii U's VC has pretty crummy emulation compared to the NES Classic, and you know Nintendo's going to ride that gravy train like a cheap whore.

 

[03bgood]

Meanwhile I'll just pick up the NES Classic, SNES Classic, N64 Classic, Gamecube Classic, GBA Classic (though my Micro with a EZflash IV is basically the same thing), NDS Classic, Wii Classic (nobody ever hacked the Wii Mini?), etc; hack them all and load them with their respective libraries and play them that way. The Wii U's VC has pretty crummy emulation compared to the NES Classic, and you know Nintendo's going to ride that gravy train like a cheap whore.

The only bad thing about the NES Classic is the sound. But I heard that early NES systems had sound hiccups. I didn't know this because I when I was little, I had a top loader NES console and the sounds weren't off.

Also, why have more than 5 consoles, we're moving into a digital future, like I said. Sure, that would've been okay for the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, but the 2010s is leading us into a "digital only" future, as far as I know. I'm not saying I should have all my Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox games on one device, but several decades from now, that might be necessary. I did read somewhere that all video games will be on one device, someday in the near or distant future.

 

[Futurdreamz]

Video games are no different than movies or TV shows, so what's the big deal if someone wanted at least 300-500 games?

DVDs and Blu-ray are stored on discs. I know some people that have over 500+ DVDs. When I was a kid, I'd go over to a friends' house and they had a big closet full of VHS tapes and DVDs!

MP3s are stored on iPods and such. I have at least 5,000 MP3s on my iPod.

Your iPod also has something called "Shuffle"

 

[03bgood]

Why can't games do that, too? Then scrolling through hundreds of games would be easy or better yet, how about a search button on the Switch and you type in the game you want to play, so you don't have to cycle through 300+ games? I heard that the PS Vita could hold 500 games, and that 500 limit wasn't the problem, memory cards were. They cost over $150 for a 64GB one and don't get any larger. I have like 90+ PS1 games on that and I'm fine with it.

If the PS Vita can store over 500 games, why can't the 3DS or Wii U? It's just Nintendo being Nintendo!

 

[CeeDee]

Why not just download a ROM set?

 

[OrGoN3]

It's an anti-piracy measure by Nintendo. Unless you purchase every game digitally and have DLC for all of them, you aren't getting near the limit. Stop insisting on installing every VC injected game.

Is there a way around it? I'm sure there is. Someone can achieve this in CFW. Has anyone done it? No.

 

[QuarkTheAwesome]

Jesus Christ.

1. Reverse-engineer IOS-MCP, the HOME menu, and whatever else comes up as a dependency to try and find where the title limit is implemented.
   • As a prerequisite, you'll need to know and understand both ARM and PowerPC Assembly. You'll also need to pirate IDA, a piece of software that goes for thousands of dollars, to start the process. Don't forget to brush up on the Wii U's hardware.
     
   • Start reading and searching through the thousands of lines of machine code to find the title check. You may be able to recognize it by the distinctive 292 number (0x124, o444).
     
   • If you're lucky, it's a software check. If you're unlucky, there's a decent reason behind the limit. If you're mildly lucky, the reason will still be about software. If you're anywhere else on the luckiness spectrum, there's a hardware limitation meaning you can't progress further.
2. Conceive and write up a patch to work around the check.
   • This, like the rest of the program, would need to be either in ARM or PowerPC Assembly. Watch out for the stack pointer on the PowerPC.
   • The specifics of what such a patch would entail depend on what you found in Step 1. Try reading through some of the patches in iosuhax to get an idea of what might be needed.
   • Keep in mind that you can't test a patch like this - be very thorough and prepare for the leap of faith.
3. For ARM patches: Add the patch to your CFW of choice. Maybe add loading of kernel.img from the SD while you're there, would make step 4 way easier.
   
4. For PowerPC patches (no kernel.img): Write up a HBL application to overwrite the instructions.
   • You'll need to know the exact ins and outs of the kernel exploit, memory addressing, the PowerPC cache system, and the block address translation registers. Most of these are only accessible via Assembly. If it's not kernelmode, you might be able to use COSSubstrate (when I finish writing that up).
   • HID to VPAD may be able to help.
5. For PowerPC patches (kernel.img): Add the patch to your CFW (modified to load kernel.img, of course).
6. Take the leap of faith and run all this on your Wii U.
7. Install more than 292 titles.
   • If it didn't work, restart from Step 1.
   • If it did work, keep following these steps. Do not stop here.
8. You must now leave your console on. Permanently. You're running a system with too many titles, and rebooting will lose your patches, likely rendering all titles inaccessible. No, you can't use CBHC, since that is also a title.
9. Enjoy your games, and enjoy the reason Nintendo added a title limit. 292 is a bit weird for anti-piracy, don't you think? Why not 300?

Now, here's a few problems you might face, just off the top of my head.

• Nintendo uses a proprietary filesystem on both USB and NAND. Nobody has made it known that they have reverse-engineered it. Long story short, we have no idea how it works. There could easily be a limit - number of directories, number of files, maximum size of a single file, maximum number of files/directories in a subdirectory... the list goes on.
• The HOME menu has to read and process meta and icon data for each title before it can start to render or index them. This might take too long. There might not be enough system memory to hold more than X icons. There might be some shoddy programming involved - a band-aid over a buffer overflow.
• There might not be enough memory for the MCP module to index and process all these titles. IOSU memory is already tight as it is.
• If there's only X slots on the HOME menu, having more than X titles would become a problem if the folders get removed.
• There's almost certainly some catastrophic bug that's been taped over here. It smells like "not my job".

Well, there you go. I hope that answers your question.

 

[VitaType]

You'll also need to pirate IDA, a piece of software that goes for thousands of dollars, to start the process. Don't forget to brush up on the Wii U's hardware.

He also could use Radare2 instead. That he could get for free (well he would pay with his patience ). Not that it changes something essential about the point you made.

 

[The Catboy]

So what, it's my life. It's not like anyone else owns my Wii U or 3DS.

The limit is there because Nintendo still thinks it's 2002 and not 2017, not because that most gamers aren't going to play "all" of their games. Some people will have kids of their own, you know. Do you not understand that were going "all digital" soon? I guess not.

What are you all gonna do when you want your ENTIRE VC library on the Switch? Even if you don't want most of them. There's at least 100-150 of the greatest hits of retro gaming and at least 50-100 good eShop games, so that right there is over 200-300 games.

That's cool, but making an app to change the limit would require changing the actual software code. Something we don't have access to. No one is going to go through that effort so a few hoarders can keep stockpiling on games that they will never play.

And even if we did go completely digital, no one is going to install more than 300 games on their system. Even if they do lift the limit, it would still be extremely unlikely anyone would keep all of their stored on their system.

And I only have like 10 VC games. I am not that interested in stockpiling on games that I've either already finish or have no desire to play.

 

[QuarkTheAwesome]

He also could use Radare2 instead. That he could get for free (well he would pay with his patience ). Not that it changes something essential about the point you made.

I tried to avoid pirating IDA.
That didn't go well, and further sunk down the plughole when I tried to load in an RPX. Suffice to say, I'd consider IDA essential (unless you want to write loader plugins)

 

[ClayClaymore]

So this is what video games and welfare money does to a person? They become a digital hoarder with an unhealthy obsession.

With how much thought and effort you're willing to put in to preserve your digital crap, it's a shame you don't put that same thought and effort towards something more meaningful, like moving to California or going to an art school to work on your cartoon.