[Rumor] WiikeÜ ?

[Slimmmmmm]

Some of the posts make good reading...

It is really easy to detect and block a mod chip on a per game basis. If Nintendo want to block it they can, take tueidj and his coding as an example.

The Wii had a really bad drive motor (not laser) and running games from USB was a life saver for many (just picking up on FAST's post).

At this point there are not enough games to justify spending the cash on it imho if you want it to pirate, and that's assuming every game gets dumped.

Homebrew on the WiiU though.... I have so many dreams, I can't wait for THAT to move forward, ...c'mon TT stop teasing...

 

[Dinzy]

I don't think console modding is that big nowadays. Most people don't know how to do it, and if they do they are the type that only buy the system when it is hacked. Does anyone know of any data to confirm or contradict this notion?

 

[ElYubiYubi]

Confirmed to be REAL.

http://k3yforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=11113

 

[WiiUBricker]

You seem to miss an important point about "hacking". Hackers in the gaming scene do have a big responsibility. Their actions often affect the industry. Sometimes barely noticable and other times with a huge impact on a group of companies. In return, this board, gbatemp, is depending on the industry. You could say it is a form of parasitism (no offense though). You see, a parasite never kills or harms the host too drastically. That is the responsibility we and, above all, the hackers have. We are not supposed to harm the gaming industry. There is a thin line between plain piracy, which you could sometimes call a peccadillo, and blind destruction. This hack, if it is true, could conclude in massive damage to Nintendo, which is in a very critical state with its new console. As a "Supervisor" I hope you think over the way you publically speak here.

This sounds good on paper, but look what TT's "responsibility" has turned out for the Wii. The parasite has taken over the brain and made it to a Las Plaga. If hackers succeed in enabling homebrew for a console without making it vulnerable for piracy, much respect to them. But when they fail and then complain about piracy, this sounds to me that they are making excuses to prevent people from calling them hypocrites.

 

[jaouad]

The wii died a horrible death because of piracy. The only games that sold were the big mainstream ones which still drew kids and parents, but other hardcore games drawing gamers like us sold like trash. I am so happy that the 3DS does so well. Just look at all the software that keeps getting anounced both 1st and 3rd party. It's because the 3rd party numbers are doing well. Kingdom hearts 3D probably did very well hence bravely default is coming this way too now. And more 3rd parties are finding it attractive to create a game for the platform.

The wii u is gonna die a horrible death if this becomes big. If I were one of these hackers, i'd rather inform nintendo instead of killing them off. I understand the pros, but the cons are way bigger than the pros. Worse sales and less games is not what we want.

And the worst part, I really don't wanna be part of this. Before the 3DS and Wii u, I hacked wii and the ds as well. Never bought anything after the hack. I don't wanna feel bad or stupid buying something, knowing that everyone around me is doing it for free, so i really hope nintendo is paying attention

 

[FAST6191]

Actually motors are rapidly rising on my "most replaced components" list so I will concede/give that one Slimmmmmm. I do not know if it is just trash on the market and lowest price wins or if standards have genuinely slipped (not impossible from what I have seen) but that is probably a discussion for elsewhere.

That said if they have full dumps of discs (sector by sector, error sectors, unreadable lead ins and whatever else) and some proper emulation and the games are held at a lower level of functionality as far as hardware reads are concerned (and given what we have seen of the 3ds I am guessing they would not have let the Wii U loose without a proper hypervisor) then per game might get slightly harder.

@Dinzy a way to get accurate numbers of people playing games let alone people modding things is notoriously hard to get. http://hackmii.com/2012/02/the-homebrew-channel-v1-1-0/ says they were just north of the 3 million unique installs of Homebrew channel 1.0.8 via online methods (they reckon some 3.4% of Wii consoles sold). Now the conversion rate from that to those that played copied games is not easy, especially given that not everybody would, not everybody needs HBC to do what they want and you probably want to weight it a bit as one that copies everything, one that copies casually and one that might only do it once or twice would probably want to be counted differently in general and maybe differently depending upon your game (on the DS things like GTA were probably expecting/expected to take a bigger hit than stop smoking coach).

This sounds good on paper, but look what TT's "responsibility" has turned out for the Wii. The parasite has taken over the brain and made it to a Las Plaga.

Because Nintendo's awful security system design did not pay a role in that at all?

@jaouad an interesting theory, can't say I agree entirely (for one the 360 also saw a fairly easy hack done and it did plenty well so it could possibly have been the wii was relatively underpowered) but it could be interesting to pursue that further.

 

[jaouad]

But that's how it is. Even the people that don't wanna pirate, will feel stupid buying anything that most are getting for free. So I can see myself and many others forced playing along.

However the reason why ps3 and 360 didn't have the same effect is because it required a bit more effort and because it affected certain online features. Thankfully that's the case for the wii u as well. I can't use the e shop or play mario kart 7 on the 3ds without updating so that's at least "something". But still the wii u can't use this.

 

[Wanderlei777]

One update from Nintendo and this thing will be junk. These for profit piracy guys are selling the gullible and greedy wolf tickets.

 

[djbubba2002]

They were working on this for a while. Now it's real and I can't wait to test this out when I get it.

 

[jaouad]

Yeah nintendo really gotta make people who don't update their systems feel like they are missing out on a lot of things. I never thought the 3ds would get me so far to not be able to use my flashcart anymore, but it did eventually with the lack of mario kart 7 online modes and some very worthy e shop titles like mighty switch force.

 

[Subzero100]

Well this thing just actually might help sales.

 

[jalaneme]

It is highly unlikely the modchip would remove region locking, Nintendo managed to stop modchips from doing that on the Wii after a few updates, it wouldn't be at all surprising to see similar measures in place on the WiiU, meaning no region lock bypassing via modchips.

hmm, maybe a software hack would be more viable? after all in this day and age modchips are proving to be more obsolete, a software solution offers much more and is easier to update compared to a hardware mod that can be easily blocked.

Yeah nintendo really gotta make people who don't update their systems feel like they are missing out on a lot of things.

That's the thing, they don't, the only thing firmware updates do is block and patch things so they will have no reason to update at all.

 

[ElYubiYubi]

hmm, maybe a software hack would be more viable? after all in this day and age modchips are proving to be more obsolete, a software solution offers much more and is easier to update compared to a hardware mod that can be easily blocked.





That's the thing, they don't, the only thing firmware updates do is block and patch things so they will have no reason to update at all.

In the Wii everything started with a modchip...
Even if the Modchip are so easily detectable it open the road for Software Hacks

 

[Maxternal]

It's interesting, I was anticipating TT's work which would allow HOMEBREW (which ... eventually ... would probably lead to piracy) and now this comes along which is made SPECIFICALLY for piracy (or backups since I'd assume it would also allow you to dump your games ... but I'm sure plenty of people would take advantage of this to then seed their backups.) and will NOT allow homebrew (until .. maybe .. sometime long after a normal softmod is available when/if people can sign their OWN software instead of just copy the already signed software from existing devs.) It's an interesting feat, kinda like it is that a third party company makes makes a Pro Controller clone having reverse engineered the communication for THAT. Looking at it that way, this would kinda fall in the category of a 3rd party optical disk drive ... without the optical disk drive

well this thing just actually might help sales.

Well, might help hardware sales that they lose money on and NOT help software sales where they actually make their money.

Basically, yes but it just means they lose more money and make less money.

 

[AaronZ]

One update from Nintendo and this thing will be junk.

Which is why they shouldn't release it so early in the life of the console.

 

[Rizsparky]

Well this thing just actually might help sales.

Its a double edged sword, it will increase sales but decrease thrid part developer support.. kinda sad.

 

[HollywoodX]

How likely is it that Nintendo will just patch this when it is released?

It's a start for homebrew and other things I guess, and that's all you can ask for. The other overflow team or whatever it's called might get on the ball and release some info now, or they'll be passed by with the info coming out anyway.

 

[Devin]

Loving the "easy to patch" train going on here. I'll have you all know ODEs aren't new. The PS3 has one, as does the Xbox 360. They've been out for a while, and still haven't been patched. Sony, as well as Microsoft are really on the ball with updates against piracy. (More than the Wii is that is.)

Not saying it's going to be patched, or that it isn't. But either way I wouldn't say it's an easy thing to do. This thing literally emulates the disc being in the disc drive. No other modifications.

 

[MAXLEMPIRA]

what really worries me is that third-party companies stop making games for the Wii U for fear of their games being pirated, which would result in a Wii U without games ... I know that now hasn't have too many titles, but hey, if this is real, we will get a Wii U with no more titles that now ... so, this is really a bad news to us, Wii U owners... it's ok with the Region Lock, but piracy... maybe it's not the time for that, I know that in some places (Like in México) the price of the games are too much crazy, but people, this's not the way to battle this... we have to find another way, that's my opinion, now I'm working, and working hard, to buy my own retail games. I know everyone can do it.

 

[FAST6191]

One update from Nintendo and this thing will be junk. These for profit piracy guys are selling the gullible and greedy wolf tickets.

The wiikey people seem to be a fairly long term team and not too many survive a cut and run approach here. Now I am not in a great hurry to discount Nintendo's security engineers as the wiikey team have not faced updates yet it seems they are not either (most of their sales patter screams "we have made it like what we previously faced and defeated but we have not seen what happen here we are not going to claim unbeatable") but I would have thought the Wiikey people would made some assessment of the longer term viability of the device and would then have made efforts to allow it to stay viable (again the sales patter).
We do not know what happens on the wii U and what the wiikey people have done so much more is baseless speculation. I do have to note that if they have done something as spectacularly dumb as kicking verification all to the drive as MS did for the 360 then it may well be hardware revision time.

But that's how it is. Even the people that don't wanna pirate, will feel stupid buying anything that most are getting for free. So I can see myself and many others forced playing along.

However the reason why ps3 and 360 didn't have the same effect is because it required a bit more effort and because it affected certain online features. Thankfully that's the case for the wii u as well. I can't use the e shop or play mario kart 7 on the 3ds without updating so that's at least "something". But still the wii u can't use this.

Again interesting. I am not sure I can get there though- the 360 up until the later liteons was more or less €10 of hardware if you were unlucky and a torx bit screwdriver, online was not all that troubled by DVD mods (though they have since made them harder we have not seen banwaves in several years). Also can I get a go on your crystal ball that says the wii u will have online services blocked for those using what appears to be full disc emulation. I can agree that blocking online services/play and/or requiring updates to play big games can provide a reason for someone not to hack a console and were I to be in charge of a console I might look here for various things as well but it is not entirely clear cut. Also it was possible to be banned from online on the wii, granted it tended to take cheating to happen (though I dare say it could have happened by other means if they wanted it to happen, I have no idea why they did not go in for it) and WAD installs took care of the no online shop titles bit but it was still possible.
Now if I am to believe the whinging types that occasionally appear around these sorts of places that wonder why and complain when they can not hack their console to do it all with just a USB drive or SD card then yeah having to touch a screwdriver might as well read "you have to learn to fly", however even on the wii we still saw "local experts" take over.

Similarly "just because they can means they will" is the a rewording of your sentence there and given people buy new games rather than waiting a year and getting them for next to nothing second hand would seem to rather damage that logic.