The recent developments with the Wii U being “hacked” has got me thinking about the time lines in a consoles life when it was hacked. I think it would be interesting to put together a simple chart for history’s sake. In order to do this there would need to be some guidelines established.
First, I am qualifying “hacked” as loading backups. I realize that launching homebrew is truly what opens up “hacking” on a console (the natural progression is homebrew opens the door for launching backups). However launching homebrew was not possible until the sixth generation of consoles (and really it was only the Xbox as the PS2 could only load backups). If we go back in time to older generations of consoles the word “hack” really just meant you could load up a copy of a game, be it on the device directly or from a foreign device.
Second would be to determine what the first solution for this was, whether it be software or hardware and which hardware solution if that be the case. And more importantly when this solution was available for consumer consumption. In the case of the Wii U, while it has {apparently} been hacked, it’s not available to the masses, so in my opinion it is nothing more than proof of concept at this point.
Using the Wii as an example. It was released in Nov. 2006. I THINK the first mod chip for the Wii (WiiKey?) was released somewhere in 2007; this is the information I would be looking for.
Racking my brain on early consoles it’s hard to get timelines right. Anyone remember when the Game Doctor was release for the SNES J
Anyways, just something I was thinking about putting together as I think it would be interesting to see the history.
Cheers
GC
First, I am qualifying “hacked” as loading backups. I realize that launching homebrew is truly what opens up “hacking” on a console (the natural progression is homebrew opens the door for launching backups). However launching homebrew was not possible until the sixth generation of consoles (and really it was only the Xbox as the PS2 could only load backups). If we go back in time to older generations of consoles the word “hack” really just meant you could load up a copy of a game, be it on the device directly or from a foreign device.
Second would be to determine what the first solution for this was, whether it be software or hardware and which hardware solution if that be the case. And more importantly when this solution was available for consumer consumption. In the case of the Wii U, while it has {apparently} been hacked, it’s not available to the masses, so in my opinion it is nothing more than proof of concept at this point.
Using the Wii as an example. It was released in Nov. 2006. I THINK the first mod chip for the Wii (WiiKey?) was released somewhere in 2007; this is the information I would be looking for.
Racking my brain on early consoles it’s hard to get timelines right. Anyone remember when the Game Doctor was release for the SNES J
Anyways, just something I was thinking about putting together as I think it would be interesting to see the history.
Cheers
GC
