Hacking Wii U as a Steambox!?

[daicon]

This might be outlandish question so I don't blame anyone for being annoyed..

People following the Raspberry Pi and Steam Machines might have heard of Limelight: Gamestreaming from the output of your GPU to a RasPi (or other device) sort of similar to an Nvidia shield. https://github.com/irtimmer/limelight-common

With the proper control of the Wii U (big if..), could some sort of half-way sophisticated setup of Limelight work on the Wii U while still having the ability to play our Wii U and Wii disc..?

TL;DR question is, could a Wii U double as a game console and Steambox or am I missing something critical here?

 

[FireGrey]

Seems like too big a task that noone would want to take on.

 

[daicon]

Seems like too big a task that noone would want to take on.

What your reasoning with that statement?

 

[moerik]

What your reasoning with that statement?

For starters you would need a devkit for the WiiU, which we do not have, to program such application. Even then it would take months, maybe even years to program such an application from the ground up.

 

[daicon]

For starters you would need a devkit for the WiiU, which we do not have, to program such application. Even then it would take months, maybe even years to program such an application from the ground up.

So that sounds more like "homebrew is worthless on WiiU" more than anything relevant to the actual concept.

And what is there to program from the ground up? The limelight code is right there, and works on Windows, Linux, Android and RasPi...

 

[The Catboy]

So that sounds more like "homebrew is worthless on WiiU" more than anything relevant to the actual concept.

And what is there to program from the ground up? The limelight code is right there, and works on Windows, Linux, Android and RasPi...

No, the issue is, you can't create homebrew for the Wii U since it's not hacked and no one has a dev kit for it. You can't just make homebrew when you can't even gain access to the hardware.

 

[daicon]

No, the issue is, you can't create homebrew for the Wii U since it's not hacked and no one has a dev kit for it. You can't just make homebrew when you can't even gain access to the hardware.

This is a general theorizing thread as I put in OP which I guess alot of people didn't read that part..
It's assuming if a proper WiiU homebrew ecosystem got off the ground, would it be possible, and the answer is looking like a "Yes"

 

[The Catboy]

This is a general theorizing thread as I put in OP which I guess alot of people didn't read that part..
It's assuming if a proper WiiU homebrew ecosystem got off the ground, would it be possible, and the answer is looking like a "Yes, but I speculate anything other than a backup loader is too much effort".

Possible, maybe, will it happen? Probably not.

 

[daicon]

Possible, maybe, will it happen? Probably not.

And is that a 'Probably not' to a homebrew ecosystem, or just to limelight specifically?

 

[The Catboy]

And is that a 'Probably not' to a homebrew ecosystem, or just to limelight specifically?

It's more like I do see this having a huge demand for it. I am not saying there isn't one, but since anyone can download Steam OS and install it on any computer, one can just make my computer a Steambox. Once the Wii U is hacked, maybe someone might be interested, but that's only a simple maybe.

 

[stinkoman]

What your reasoning with that statement?

It'd take time and energy and raspis are like <$40.

 

[daicon]

It'd take time and energy and raspis are like <$40.

All things take time and energy, the cost of a raspi has nothing to do with that.

Seems like we're alittle quick to take a dump on any idea that isn't backup-loader or piracy related, which is a real shame. Most of the appeal to homebrew is about adding functionality to the hardware we already own. Things like adding back in Gamecube support, enabling blu-ray playback, and now in-home streaming to a TV are potential things that are exciting!

Topics like these are a good chance to enjoy thinking about what could be and bounce around ideas and relevant insight. "It's too hard" is insight sure but it doesn't really relate why or in what ways besides people jsut dropping in to say very, very obvious things.

 

[metroid maniac]

Uh, what's the point of this again?

 

[Bladexdsl]

but how can you even gamestream to this?!

 

[Foxi4]

If by Steambox you mean running SteamOS then that's a definite and resounding "No" - the SteamOS linux distribution and all of its applications are built to run on an X86-family CPU and using anything other than that will render them completely inoperable. You could run a different strain of Linux, but even then, Steam is not made to work with anything other than X86, so pulling this off would require some wicked virtualization setup and that in turn requires resources which the Wii U doesn't have a lot of.

If you mean a "stream box", as in taking video directly from the system into another device and streaming that signal as you say in your opening post, yes, that's entirely doable, however I don't know why you'd go through the trouble of getting the picture straight from the GPU when you have a perfectly usable HDMI port ready to use. Why overcomplicate things when all you really need is a capture card?

 

[stinkoman]

All things take time and energy, the cost of a raspi has nothing to do with that.

Seems like we're alittle quick to take a dump on any idea that isn't backup-loader or piracy related, which is a real shame. Most of the appeal to homebrew is about adding functionality to the hardware we already own. Things like adding back in Gamecube support, enabling blu-ray playback, and now in-home streaming to a TV are potential things that are exciting!

Topics like these are a good chance to enjoy thinking about what could be and bounce around ideas and relevant insight. "It's too hard" is insight sure but it doesn't really relate why or in what ways besides people jsut dropping in to say very, very obvious things.

Let me reiterate. It's possible, it could be useful, but the alternative is paying very little money for a device that like 90% of hackers own anyway. It's possible, but nobody would make it because obviously you're not going to, nobody would use this over the raspberry pi or HDMI cables, and we're so far behind this even being possible right now that it's not even worth thinking about.

 

[daicon]

If by Steambox you mean running SteamOS then that's a definite and resounding "No" - the SteamOS linux distribution and all of its applications are built to run on an X86-family CPU and using anything other than that will render them completely inoperable. You could run a different strain of Linux, but even then, Steam is not made to work with anything other than X86, so pulling this off would require some wicked virtualization setup and that in turn requires resources which the Wii U doesn't have a lot of.

If you mean a "stream box", as in taking video directly from the system into another device and streaming that signal as you say in your opening post, yes, that's entirely doable, however I don't know why you'd go through the trouble of getting the picture straight from the GPU when you have a perfectly usable HDMI port ready to use. Why overcomplicate things when all you really need is a capture card?

I mean the latter, but using "Steambox" in the title is just alot more fun. And when you're streaming BigPicture mode it's basically the same as SteamOS... in a way. The appeal is really getting to play your PC games on your TV while your comp is in another room. (Just starting to realize you'd need a ethernet adaptor..) Atleast I see the appeal, and over on the in-home streaming forums on Steam, there's quite a few threads about ideas for cheap streaming devices.. I could see WiiU being a really interesting one (although I'll echo what others said here and say I doubt a homebrew ecosystem will ever really happen).

Let me reiterate. It's possible, it could be useful, but the alternative is paying very little money for a device that like 90% of hackers own anyway. It's possible, but nobody would make it because obviously you're not going to, nobody would use this over the raspberry pi or HDMI cables, and we're so far behind this even being possible right now that it's not even worth thinking about.

Well, Raspi is fairly weak to be honest and that actually DOES matter when you're trying to get closer and closer to 1:1 between your input and what the Pi is putting out on your TV. Then you can use that Pi on some other project, and at the same time we only have so many HDMI ports on our TVs...