Hacking ESRB ratings in Wii Wads

[Chaorain]

I want to lock out homebrew on my Wii but not uninstall the HBC. The reason is I want to do this is to be able to use homebrew but not let any one else, who I invite over. I realized that the Wii's ESRB rating system would work perfectly for this. I have looked for the ESRB rating in the wad but I can't find it. Please help me find this. If it helps my Wii is NTSC-U 3.2 no chip, just the HBC and a few Custom VCs. Thanks in advance

 

[samsam12]

HBC is not rated by the ESRB, are you retarded.

 

[Chaorain]

I know its not rated but you should be able to tell the Wii that the HBC is rated. That is what I want o know how to do.

 

[samsam12]

no, you cant. the wii's firmware only detects the channels that are official, so the parental controls wont do anything. your options are hiding the channel on the last page or backing it up to a sd card and then delete it, then restore it later.

 

[King Zargo]

HBC is not rated by the ESRB, are you retarded.

You win the friendly temper of the month award.

 

[arctic_flame]

HBC is not rated by the ESRB, are you retarded.

You win the friendly temper of the month award.

He also wins the "most misinformed" post of the day, only 40 minutes after midnight!

 

[Chaorain]

Ok that's weird. I just remembered that I injected my VC games into two different wads. I thought I injected them both into the same wad so that is why I thought it was in the wad. But even so there should be a way to trick the Wii into thinking it was injected into a different rated wad. Is there an official VC or WW that is rated M?

 

[SenorClean]

Why don't you just drag the HBC over a few pages to the right.... I doubt your friends would look over there.

Or remove the SD card.

 

[Chaorain]

I like the removing the SD card idea. I honestly did not think of that. That will solve HBC but I sill wold like to use the ESRB for the VC games.

 

[Midna]

What's the matter with your friends using homebrew?

 

[caitsith2]

Its more of a covering his ass thing. Actually, Parental Control set to "Mature" should allow Mature rated games to be played, but not anything above it. Nintendo chose to say Any, instead of "Adult Only" for the highest level, because nintendo does not intend on having "Adult only" rated games on its system, but its there just in case.

If the HBC could be installed as "Adult Only", and the parental control rating set as "Mature", then almost any game can be played, while HBC would still be blocked. This info is likely stored in either the ticket or tmd file somewhere. Might also be stored in the channel banner data. It is true that the HBC is not rated by the ESRB, but there has to be a value stored somewhere, that lets the Wii know which ESRB rating to apply to the channel, in deciding to block access to it or not.

 

[Knocks]

I'm sure that ESRB ratings are marked by a simple flag within a dol, which would make it pretty easy to modify or set ratings for the programs you want. So the OP had the right idea, but unfortunately we don't know how to hack the ratings yet.

 

[.TakaM]

what homebrew are you trying to hide buddy?

 

[Chaorain]

What's the matter with your friends using homebrew?

The main reason is it could be really easy to brick a Wii with homebrew even if you think you know what you are doing (and I didn't think about removing the SD card). And I thought that why not learn how to do this for other channels as well.

To .TakaM
just the HBC and two VC Channels. Nothing inappropriate at all. And I'm trying to lock them not hide them.

EDIT: The ESRB rating must be in one of the files other than 00000000.app because that file gets replaced when making a new banner and my two custom VC channels are rated differently.
EDIT2: I think I know how to find the flag for the rating. Is there a game which has been released on the Wii that has had its rating changed? If not please help me find the flag. For fun if nothing else.

 

[Tichinde925]

The only way something homebrew can brick a wii is if:

a) It deals with Installing / Uninstalling

b) Updating / Downgrading / Changing Regions

c) Badly made banners installed from wads (Banner Brick, but this would go under the "a" category)

and

d) Messing around with the NAND / File System

Other than that, nothing serious will happen from running already installed applications (on the Wii or SD Card) that deal with none of the categories above. (Unless the application was badly coded / designed, which could result in a simple crash that a simple reboot will fix)

 

[datahoarder]

I'm wondering why so many of you are debating the reason why the guy wants to do this.
To me, and this is just my opinion, some of you guys are trying to convince him that it's not worth it, or that there is no reason to.. but why?

I mean, some good will come out of this knowledge, and I'm sure just because some people won't use it, doesn't mean that everyone won't. I personally, would love to find a way to lock some of my apps, regardless of the application that I want to be blocked/restricted/hidden.

I'm not trying to negate anyone, just confused why it seems like people are trying to keep him from finding the answer just because you don't find it 'useful'. You don't have to use it yourself...

 

[Tichinde925]

I just stated the causes of bricking.

The misuse of apps doesnt necessarily cause bricks.

I'm up for a way to lock homebrew stuff though. I like being able to keep my current settings locked and saved away.

 

[Chaorain]

Those are some good points. But for a reason just think if this could be useful for future homebrew.

 

[Richy Freeway]

I brought this issue up once before and got pretty much the same reaction.

I ended up going with the SD card removal method.

Now I don't worry about it at all. The kids never bother scrolling far enough right to see the HBC.

 

[samsam12]

kinda off topic, but i almost bricked my wii last night cause when i was installing a wad, the power went out! i thought i bricked but i was fine