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Wii Hacked for Better Homebrew Games

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Mon Dec 31, 2007 02:17 PM
from the playing-with-your-own-toys dept.
Wii (Games) Hardware Hacking
arbourp writes to mention that hackers Michael Steil and Felix Domke have demonstrated a way to hack the Wii that makes running homebrew code much easier. "The hack advances the possibility of running homebrew code with access to full system resources on the device, not just programs that Nintendo has sanctioned. Such games might be developed to run from a DVD drive, at least in theory. No such games are available as yet and Nintendo may respond by attempting to revoke compromised encryption keys. However history shows such countermeasures are likely to ultimately prove futile."
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story

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Submission: Wii Finally Cracked by Anonymous Coward
[+] Wii Homebrew Takes Several Leaps Forward 275 comments
Croakyvoice writes "Fans of Homebrew on the Nintendo Wii can celebrate with an explosion of releases today, in just a few hours there has been a release of a proof of concept version of Linux for the Wii, an MP3 Player, the Super Nintendo emulator Snes9X has been ported and a converter that converts Gamecube Dol files into Elf for usage on the Wii (Which opens up a multitude of emulators and homebrew games and applications). A tutorial on how to get homebrew working with the Twilight Hack will help those interested."
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  • Star wars entry point (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LiquidCoooled (634315) on Monday December 31 2007, @02:19PM (#21868740) Homepage Journal
    Just to point out they use Star wars as an entry point, however on its own the game is wicked and you can use your wii-mote as god intended :)

  • hint hint (Score:5, Funny)

    by User 956 (568564) on Monday December 31 2007, @02:19PM (#21868750) Homepage
    Wii Hacked for Better Homebrew Games

    And the majority of these homebrew games look like retail games, except they're free.

    • Re:hint hint (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tetsujin (103070) on Monday December 31 2007, @02:26PM (#21868832) Homepage Journal

      Wii Hacked for Better Homebrew Games

      And the majority of these homebrew games look like retail games, except they're free.
      It's true that homebrew stuff invariably winds up getting used for software piracy... Even when it's not native software for the console, a popular use of a cracked console is for emulation - that is, playing games Nintendo would rather you buy through the Shop Channel instead of playing via the ROMs we've all had on our computers for the last ten years...

      Still, some people really are interested in real homebrew... Either learning to write it, or just using it...

      • Re:hint hint (Score:5, Interesting)

        by CastrTroy (595695) on Monday December 31 2007, @02:31PM (#21868888) Homepage
        I would love to be able to use my Wii as a media server. If they would just add support to the photo channel to play H.264 videos, and support a usb hard drive or smb share, then I would be set. I don't really need a fancy interface. I just want to be able to play videos on my wii. Even without a hard disc, I would accept only using SD cards for watching videos from, if only I could play h.264 encoded videos.

        • Re:hint hint (Score:5, Informative)

          by hansamurai (907719) <hansamurai@gmail.com> on Monday December 31 2007, @02:49PM (#21869072) Homepage Journal
          I'm sure you're aware but I would recommend buying an Xbox and install Xbox Media Center on it. It can do everything you want plus more (hard drive built in opens many opportunities), and they're really cheap right now. I run an Xbox at home and use it as my media center, great stuff.

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBMC [wikipedia.org]
          http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/ [xboxmediacenter.com]

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by Joe Tie. (567096)
            I love the XBMC, but for H.264 I really wouldn't recommend it. It can play it in theory, but in practice most encodes are going to give pretty choppy, or totally lagged, playback.
            • Yeah, I would agree with you on that. But that really makes me wonder if the Wii could handle h.264 if the original Xbox can not reliably? Don't want to start any kind of console war with this question, more just curious. I guess time will tell.
              • If my iPod Nano can handle h.264, then why not the Wii? I don't see why the XBox would have a problem with either for that matter.

                • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

                  by MBCook (132727)

                  The Nano has a chip that accelerates (or, more probably, completely does) decoding of H.264. I don't know if the Wii has a chip to do that or not. If the Wii has the requisite chip, then as long as you stay within the chip's specs it would have no problem. If it doesn't or your video doesn't fit the specs (bitrate too high, for example) it's be on the CPU. My guess is that the CPU couldn't play full screen video (My PowerBook G4 1.67 had trouble playing back anything above 640x480 H.264, so I wouldn't think

                    • Re:hint hint (Score:4, Informative)

                      by gEvil (beta) (945888) on Monday December 31 2007, @04:34PM (#21870090)
                      I've got a P4 2.6ghz/533fsb w/1gig of RAM and it chokes on 720p h.264 :(

                      Try digging up a copy of the CoreAVC codec (assuming you're running Windows). My 2GHz AthlonXP went from stuttering on 720p H.264 files to playing them perfectly smoothly (~80-85% proc) with CoreAVC.
            • The Wii wouldn't do much if any better. If you want to play HD H.264 on a console, get a 360. Or I think the PS3 should work as well.

            • Re:hint hint (Score:4, Interesting)

              by Calmiche (531074) on Monday December 31 2007, @03:55PM (#21869698)
              Which is why the XBMC Team is porting the software to Linux. It's actually quite a good ways along now. It doesn't have a final release scheduled for anytime in the near future, but the beta versions are VERY impressive. I know several people who are using it as a stable home media server and are using 1080p videos (Albeit with multi-core Intel systems with hardcore hardware.)

              It's being designed with Ubuntu in mind and already has very good hardware support.

              They are working on a direct port right now and as soon as they have that stable, they are going to start adding features like time shifting, video recording, etc...

                  • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

                    by Calmiche (531074)
                    Sorry. I think I mixed up some words there. Maybe it would help if I described what I'm using.

                    What I have right now are a couple of low end server machines running Linux Ubuntu, with RAID 1 redundancy. (I'm up to 4+ terabytes.) They each have a gigabit Ethernet card, running through my network router. I've got a wireless router, but it isn't really fast enough for multiple media players, so I have wired connections to three media PC's. The first is a Xbox with XBMC. The second is an XBMC Linux Machin
        • I'd like it if you could play streaming audio on the Wii.

          It would be great to pull up sky.fm or di.fm and listen to that on your home stereo.
          • I was working on Wii Media Server of sorts that would use the browser and flash plugin to let you play mp3 files hosted from an apache server on your Wii. I was originally working on it for the purpose of streaming video to the Wii, but it also supported Audio. It ended up working quite well from what I remember. The reason I stopped working on it was because the video quality was quite terrible.
            • Yeah, thanks, AC. I've got many of those - and I've been using them since Test Drive 3. (The first game I played with a sound card.) You couldn't always buy those ubiquitous self-powered speakers.

              I have a Wii next to my stereo, already hooked up to the stereo. It would be nice if the web browser I have on that Wii would work like the one I have downstairs with the computers. I don't want to run wire all over the house.

              • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

                by Shemmie (909181)
                Just a thought - no idea if it works... but I believe Orb can work with the Wii - could you not set up an Orb channel and play your music through that on the Wii?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by pilot1 (610480)

      And the majority of these homebrew games look like retail games, except they're free.

      Actually, the Wii has been hacked to allow pirated games for about a year (it was presented at the previous CCC). This new hack will eventually allow people to run unsigned code, whereas the previous hack did not. Basically all the old hack did was provide a way to trick the Wii into thinking that burned DVDs were originals (current modchips sit between the DVD drive and the motherboard to intercept the "is this DVD real?" signal), but the content on the DVD still needed to be digitally signed by Nintendo.

  • Considering how many of the games on this console are minigames, there is the very real possibility that some of the homebrew stuff could end up being as good as the regular games. Bad news for Nintendo, good news for Wii gamers.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Maybe not bad news for Nintendo.

      Game consoles have never interested me, but I'd get one if it was hackable enough to run my own programs with full access to all the interesting bits of the hardware.

      I suppose once I owned a game console, then I'd probably end up with a game or two. So maybe not bad news for Nintendo.

      • Then get yourself a Nintendo DS (140) and R4DS(50). That how God's intended portable gaming should be: you can download and play rips of official games - including ones not released in your region; you can download and play homebrew games; you can play MP3s and DPGs (DS's version of MPEG1 video).

        More games, cheaper than Wii, easy to buy (compared to Wii in US) and best of all - it's portable ^_^

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by CastrTroy (595695)
      I don't really think it's that bad for Nintendo. Since they actually make money from the console, and this would just add an extra selling point, it would just mean more profit for Nintendo.
      • That's a good point. Sony and Microsoft lose money on consoles that are never used to play purchased games.
      • Yeah, but they would also stand to lose a helluva lot in game licensing too. Selling a few more consoles at this point really doesn't mean much to them (since they're already selling them as fast as they can make them). But having small developers suddenly able to bypass their licensing fees could cost them real $.
    • how exactly is this bad news for Nintendo?

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by acidrain69 (632468)
      I don't really see it as bad for Nintendo. The PS1 was easily hackable, and it did extremely well. The PS2, not quite as hackable early on, but with the release of HDAdvance and the Mr Brown code exploit, it became easier to hack than the PS1. Don't forget about swap magic. The PS2 has done so well that Sony is continuing to sell and support them. The XBox was another relatively easily hacked machines, with early plugin chips, later solder chips and soft-modding. It also has done extremely well (although Mi

  • Smart Thinking (Score:5, Informative)

    by MBCook (132727) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Monday December 31 2007, @02:25PM (#21868816) Homepage

    I love the way they did, it shows good ingenuity. If you watch the video, they explain that they can get into GameCube compatibility mode (what is used for GC style home brew) but that the ATI chip acts as a gateway to the extended RAM and other new neat stuff (SD card slot, BlueTooth, etc.).

    By physically tying address lines on the memory chips, they could circumvent the address lock and read areas of memory they shouldn't be able to. Through this, they dumped the RAM though the controller ports (using them as serial ports) and were able to pick through it and start decoding it to find things like the signature that let them break out.

    Very neat. I love reading about this kind of stuff.

    It will be very interesting to see what people do with this. I never really heard about any interesting XBox homebrew, just running Linux and XBMC type stuff. Ditto with the 'cube. But the Wii should prove interesting.

    • Emulators remain very popular Xbox homebrew applications. It is usually nicer than playing on a PC since the game is shown on a television and controlled with a real controller. Even though the Xbox controller isn't identical to whatever system you're trying to emulate, it beats the pants off using a PC keyboard.

        • Re:Smart Thinking (Score:5, Interesting)

          by edwdig (47888) on Monday December 31 2007, @04:51PM (#21870218) Homepage
          Nintendo hasn't done much to stop DS stuff. The first hack of the DS worked by putting a pass through device into the DS slot. You'd then insert a regular game into that pass through. It would let the regular game card start the boot process and load the main executable, then when the DS asked the card what memory address execution should start at, the pass through device would intercept it and specify an address in the GBA slot memory space. You'd write your homebrew to run off GBA flash carts.

          One DS firmware update modified the boot code to reject startup memory addresses that weren't in main memory.

          The only other change Nintendo did with an affect on homebrew was to make it so the firmware could only be modified if you shorted a jumper. But that wasn't an attempt to prevent homebrew, that was just preventing bad code from bricking the DS.
  • Doesn't this mean someone can produce a pressed disk that the Wii thinks is the real deal and all the disk does is unlock the system so we can "possibly" run software off memory sticks, external disk, or swap the disk itself?

    I understand they can revoke the encryption key with an update but if certain games only had one key, wouldn't revoking the key break the older games? And couldn't they just dump the memory again to find the new key?

    From what Ive read so far on this hack. It seems it can be as eas

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Sangui (1128165)
      They can't revoke the encryption key because it's a hardware thing. And no, you still need a Drive chip like a Wiikey or a D2Ckey before you can run this, unless they end up doing something like Swap Magic. The Dreamcast was pretty much shipped with Debug mode on, which is why you could just burn a cd and it would run. If you chip your Wii, which you'll need to do anyway, you can just use the one for the GC. It's got every game for the SNES, NES, and a few other old systems. Gotta use the GC controller t

  • USB. (Score:5, Funny)

    by headkase (533448) <pickett.bill@gmail.com> on Monday December 31 2007, @02:33PM (#21868908)
    The most useful thing that could be done with this is to allow emulation of discs from a USB harddrive. That way I could put my originals away for protection. Yeah, that's it.
      • HDAdvance, most likely...I have the same thing with a 160 gig in my PS2. Fantastic investment.

        • Re:USB. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by rkanodia (211354) on Monday December 31 2007, @03:28PM (#21869456)
          Metroid just tricks you into thinking there are no load times. Ever wonder why sometimes a door opens instantly, and sometimes it takes 15 seconds?
  • Ah, so you'll be able to run unsigned code on your Wii, which is connected to the internet 24 hours a day.

    I can't wait for my Wii to get compromised. Awesome.

    (Yes, I have a firewall, which - statistically speaking - is better than yours.)
  • All I want is a wired LAN adapter that works. I accidentally bought one of the third-party adapters (curse you Best Buy- stocking a knockoff clone in trademark-infringing packaging immediately adjacent to the real Nintendo gear), which worked pretty well for the ten minutes it took to download the update that killed my online access. :-(

  • Not Steil and Domke (Score:4, Informative)

    by kju (327) on Monday December 31 2007, @03:06PM (#21869226)
    The hack was NOT presented by Steil and Domke. It was only presented at the end of their talk about xbox360 security at the CCC Congress. But the actual hack was presented by another person which name i don't know.
    • It can already be done with Guitar Hero 2 on the PS2. My brother has an entire ISO of GH2 filled with custom songs. It's really kinda neat.
    • Technically you can do ANYTHING with your pc - if anything is what you want to do.

      I can't use a Wii controller on my PC.

      Well at least without a soldering iron.

    • Re:Why a console? Why not your own breed? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Yosho (135835) on Monday December 31 2007, @03:05PM (#21869214) Homepage
      That post really needed some more to be organized into coherent paragraphs, but I'll answer anyway...

      is it because of the "scene" or is it because you "can"?

      Yes, it's because they can. They enjoy the challenge.

      When you have broken the system security to release your own homebrew - then what? Challenge over?

      Yep, and then you move on to a new challenge. In reality, though, breaking the system security is just one of the first steps to making homebrew software; there are still many challenges left.

      Now realize this my friend - why not create your OWN hardware with your OWN challenges?

      Because that's a different kind of challenge, and not as fun to some people. Why don't you forge your own plate armor? Or learn a new language? Or study Tai Chi? Those are all challenges, but they're different and appeal to different types of people. Some people -- the people who are working on this kind of project, in fact -- think that breaking a system's security and making homebrew software is much more fun than making their own hardware.

      Point is - whatever you end up doing - make sure you use that time you got - wisely - otherwise you're technically just wasting your time doing it!

      If you spent your time having fun, is it really wasted?

      • I've fiddled with the GBA and I'm looking into the DS. I haven't done any of the home consoles. I've done stuff on my Mac and on PCs for years and years and years, from native to Java. I've even fiddled with TI calculators.

        It's just a different experience. There is no challenge in making a Mario style game on the PC. On a system that is more constrained (like a handheld) there is challenge. There are other attributes as well. I can take a game I make for the DS with me easily, where my Mac is a little heav

    • Many times I've been thinking - why is it so important to break the latest console to work with your "insert-homebrew-here"? Is it because it's some hardware that most have been importing in to your homes? is it because of the "scene" or is it because you "can"?.

      I don't know. Did Edmund Hillary climb Everest because he thought there was prime real estate up there?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Ben174 (853174)
      One of the things that make consoles so attractive is that they are standardized hardware that so many people have in their homes. Development can be targeted for this specific hardware - to take advantages of its unique features.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by snowraver1 (1052510)
      No they told you exatly how they did it.

      The keys are stored in protected memory. This memory is not accessable under normal conditions, as the gatekeeper chip disallows access to this. When the Wii is used in GC mode, this chip is disabled, but so is addressing to the upper regions of memory, so you still can't address it properly. BUT if you use a small peice of metal and join some of the address bus lines, in order to address higher addresses, these keys can be recovered.

      Watch the video, very int

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