Nintendo's Homebrew-Blocking Update Hacked 157
ElementC writes "Team Twiizers, the group behind almost all of the Wii Homebrew scene, has released an update to the Homebrew Channel (and installer) that allows for installation on a Wii with the most recent update installed. While the team still recommends against installing the Nintendo update, those who accidentally updated or purchase games that require the update are no longer left out to dry. This update to the Homebrew Channel also adds SDHC support, a feature Nintendo has not implemented in vanilla Wiis. The community has also created an app that updates just the Wii Shop Channel — allowing users to purchase Wiiware and Virtual Console games without losing their homebrew. It took the team only two days to get the fix out."
Is this one of those "secret support" things? (Score:5, Interesting)
Like when Nintendo doesn't condone it, but leave little bits of stuff "open" for someone to find and break to keep a scene healthy?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
no, it's one of these "stupid security holes in all their software" thing where just glancing in the general direction of a function reveals 20 exploits :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Anatomii of a Hack [thedailywtf.com] - The Daily WTF.
Short explanation on how one of the first hacks worked. Lazy coding.
Re: (Score:2)
Now the remaining things that need to be done:
- Upgrading the installer channel to let other software bits be installed
- Updating the firmware downgrader (SOMETHING Nintendo did causes their 3.3 firmware not to like my Cisco wi-fi router under any security option other than "none", but the previous versions ran just fine with WPA-PSK).
Here's hoping the homebrew community manages to get those done soon.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Is this one of those "secret support" things? (Score:4, Interesting)
No. They're writing DRM. You don't have to try to make DRM breakable. They all come that way.
Re:When will they learn??? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
DRM does not work.
Mathematically speaking.
Door locks do not work. Because it is always somehow possible to bypass them - be it by picking, drilling, bashing the door down or smashing a window.
They do, however, keep honest men from temptation.
Re:When will they learn??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Honest men aren't tempted by an unlocked door. Door locks are designed to convince the casual thief to rob your neighbour.
Re: (Score:2)
Door locks are designed to convince the casual thief to rob your neighbour.
I'm pretty sure this is, in fact, NOT what they're designed for.
Re: (Score:2)
You can only hope that it eats up enough of a thief's time, and/or makes it obvious to onlookers what is going on.
I don't know how this observation relates to DRM though.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
once one copyright infringer copies your movie, the whole internet has access to it via BT. :-)
Not on a closed platform such as a games console they don't.
Re:When will they learn??? (Score:5, Insightful)
It encrypts the content with a key (sometimes unique to an instance of the media, sometimes it is shared among a whole release) and then that key is sent to the consumer via a different channel. For example on DVD players (of both new and old) the key is embedded in the DVD player on a chip (or, so much less securely, inside a sotware player).
This is DRM's only trick, hide the key a little bit!
In the end in order for the user view the content it has to be decrypted. Since the user has the key (in some form) to view the content then they can use that key to remove the DRM form that content.
I hope that you can see the DRM is not a locked door, it is more like a locked door with the key under the doormat!
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, using your example of the DVD player, wouldn't it be more like a locked door with somebody on the inside holding a key and unlocking the door everytime somebody (trusted) knocks?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
DRM is like going to the pub and forgetting your key and ringing up your girlfriend (stay with me, guys) and telling her you forgot your keys and her saying that she'll put the key outside for you to find, but not in the usual place (under the plant pot by the back door) but somewhere less obvious so that a thief won't find it, and then your phone runs out of credit and you never get to hear where she put it.
And then you getting home later that night and facing two choices: stumble around your back yard, dr
Re: (Score:2)
There's no way to keep someone out if you have to give them both the key and the lock?
The point is that it's not like a locked door because you can't keep the key secret. By definition you HAVE to give out the key.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, no you don't. The best DRM is when the key is not handed out, and thus no content can be played!
Re: (Score:2)
"They do, however, keep honest men from temptation."
But it's my house!
Re: (Score:2)
DRM does not work.
Mathematically speaking.
Door locks do not work. Because it is always somehow possible to bypass them - be it by picking, drilling, bashing the door down or smashing a window.
The difference is, if you break into my house, you're in my house. If you break DRM, anyone who's even a little interested in bypassing it can just take a copy of yours.
It's the exact same thing as with digital media. Not everyone is interested in ripping CDs and DVDs, but this hasn't stopped them from proliferating across the internet.
Re: (Score:2)
DRM is even worse. It is an attempt to lock the door such that I can give someone the key so they can enter and watch TV, but somehow magically keep them from giving that key to a friend or walking out with the TV when they're done.
We don't even attempt that with doors and keys because it's just too obviously doomed to failure.
Analog signal cannot represent interactivity (Score:3, Insightful)
Even when they secure the path all the way from the UV-ray disc to each dot in the LCD/plasma/OLED display in 2038, all one needs to get the color of each pixel with greater than 99.999% accuracy is half a dozen US$ 100 cheap cameras
True, analog reconversion defeats digital restrictions management on non-interactive works. But Nintendo publishes video games, which are interactive works.
Re: (Score:3)
You can't hack your way around this: if you want to get online, you have to play by the network's rules. Of course you could always make your own network, possibly with blackjack and hookers, but if the usefulness of a network is O(n^2) in the number of users...
If it is possible for you to pass your own information across this network, then it's possible to send information across this network anonymously. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darknet_(file_sharing) [wikipedia.org]
And while a darknet is necessarily more limited than an open system of sharing, you'd be surprised at how effective one can be, even with a small population. All it takes is one person on the darknet to obtain a copy of the material and put it up for everybody to get it. Private sharing networks are not uncommon
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Otto, above, made most of my arguments for me.
With encryption, no one can know what I am passing in the network.
Hell, one can even encrypt and embed (steganographically) others' copyrighted works _inside_ one's copyrighted works (I can make a video with six hours of me sitting on a chair picking my nose and steganographically embed on that video the whole "SpiderMan 2040" feature) Not to mention that false identities will _ever_ exist, and one can distribute (and download!) the works under a false or stolen
Re: (Score:2)
In the future, the company who made the camera will own the "copyright" to your nose-picking video, and only people who can afford to spend lots of money on expensive software will be allowed to edit videos. I'm afraid your stenography software (or anything you or your friends program) won't be allowed by your OS, only what the vendor signs. You will also be required to pay if you want copies of your nose-picking masterpiece.
This is the real problem with "DRM"--it is really a variety of controls to keep s
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvdhd.html [slysoft.com]
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You tell me
http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvdhd.html [slysoft.com]
Even if that does work for movies, this article is about games. Video games have a distinct advantage over movies in the DRM department [slashdot.org].
Re: (Score:2)
Using a hypervisor will always introduce a performance hit... Making the hardware more expensive to produce and ultimately slower.
The idea of a games console was that the hardware was static, thus you could program it directly without being hindered by any layers of abstraction.... For the best example of how the overhead of abstraction hurts performance, take some games written for the first xbox, and compare them with the corresponding windows versions running on equivalent hardware (700mhz celeron i beli
Cool. (Score:2, Insightful)
Insert obligatory "the more you tighten your grip....etc.
Hooray... (Score:5, Funny)
Both Wii homebrew users are reported to be delighted.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
And, what, the homebrew magically adds a SNES port to your Wii? Or are you just downloading a ROM and playing the game in an emulator, in which case why the heck do you need to go to such lengths when you can jus
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You do need to consider that almost all of the Xbox homebrew (minus linux) was illegal to distribute in binary form due to the use of the official SDK. If we had the latest version of the Ninty SDK, I'm sure we could produce higher quality illegal homebrew in a shorter amount of time. Instead we're "stuck" with an entirely legal homebrew SDK that happens not to be as good as Nintendo's.
Then there's also the thing where the Xbox was an entirely familiar platform. x86, DirectX, etc. Porting stuff to it was pr
Re: (Score:2)
First off, existing GameCube libraries were expanded to support the Wii's few extra features. Secondly, the entire power of the hardware (full 3D and everything) is available to homebrew, but it just so happens that Joe Hacker in his basement doesn't usually come up with the same high-quality games you expect from the store.
Re: (Score:2)
Personally I think the real benefit of the homebrew is to unleash the full potential of your hardware, if the Wii can be used as a lan video player, alarm clock, net jukebox, or just a simple file manager then you should be able to make it do so.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So the point of homebrew is to constantly emulate the same games you've played for years
Actually, the things that interest me the most about the Wii homebrew scene are:
1) The ability to back-up certain savegames that Nintendo and the game developers think shouldn't be backed up, despite the Wii having a facility for backing up savegames.
2) The fact that it supports SDHC, which is an embarrassing slap-in-the-face at Nintendo and maybe will shame them into providing a real update of their own to support it.
So how do those fit into your narrow-minded version of how you see the world?
SDHC support? (Score:5, Interesting)
The biggest news out of the whole thing for me is that they have added SDHC support through a _channel_ in the Wii dashboard. People have been speculating why the Wii would not support SDHC and if it was some hardware limitation...well, it seems like it isn't. Which really makes me wonder why Nintendo has not added it, yet...in this day and age it's almost getting hard to find a non-SDHC card...
Seriously...WTF. This isn't the first time some 3rd party tool squeezes more functionality out of hardware. But this should really be a no-brainer to implement for the big N.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This doesn't affect the Wii itself in anyway, so you won't be able to use it to copy save files to etc.
Re: (Score:2)
I never said I could. But if it can be done with the Home Brew Channel, it could also be done with the vanilla Wii itself. Missing SDHC support is not a hardware limitation (as we can see now), it's merely the unwillingness of Nintendo.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Given that the Wii has an SD slot, wouldn't they already have the SD consortium patent licenses needed for SDHC?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
According to the blog, SDHC support can be done entirely in software [hackmii.com]. So it's just a matter of coding it in, both for homebrew creators (there will probably be a lib for it, if not one already) and for Nintendo.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
What's SDHC?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The most recent revision to the SD flash card specification (SD High Capacity), it allows SD cards to break the size barriers that existed for the old standard.
Re: (Score:2)
So it's not a physical limitation of the Wii to support them?
Re: (Score:2)
Nope, which is why the 'hack' that was just released included the code allowing programs written to use it to access and use SDHC cards.
Not a surprise, really (Score:5, Interesting)
Check this article [thedailywtf.com] to find out why this is not really surprising.
Yup, that is indeed Nintendo featuring on TheDailyWTF.
This is good to hear (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything that opens up the Wii platform is good news, so a hearty cheer from me.
If Nintendo created a proper home-brew platform, making it easier and cheaper to make small games and apps, the Wii could become a killer home entertainment platform (especially if they add DVD and local storage support). Something along the lines of the iPhone/Android apps store, where you can sell cheap games and they take a small cut. Currently the selection on WiiWare is pretty limited unless you want old NES games.
If they did that, I'd become a Wii developer overnight.
Re: (Score:2)
If Nintendo created a proper home-brew platform, making it easier and cheaper to make small games and apps
According to WiiWare proponents, it already is. They say a Wii developer needs three things to get a license:
But have you considered developing for a slim PC instead? I've seen PCs from the major national OEMs that aren't much bigger than an Xbox 360, with two front panel USB ports for gamepads, ready to con
Re: (Score:2)
its just not homebrew is it?
PS3 has an open sandbox, limited to the Cell CPU and half the RAM. Xbox 360 has an iPhone-style paid sandbox, limited to programs written in C# plus HLSL. Wii officially has only old versions of JavaScript and SWF, and it's not very efficient at those. Nintendo's failure to provide or even tolerate more than a token sandbox is why I might not be buying Nintendo's next console in its first year.
something closer to your slim PC idea (oblig. does it run linux?) - but then you don't get the advantage of millions of identical machines to target.
How important is it for the machines to be equal in capability, as opposed to greater than or equal? For instance,
Re: (Score:2)
Currently the selection on WiiWare is pretty limited unless you want old NES games.
First, WiiWare is all new games (that may look strikingly similar to various DS games). What you're talking about is the Virtual Console.
Second, it's not just old NES games, or even just old Nintendo games. It's all kinds of old games from a variety of consoles.
Now why aren't you excited about this ?!?!
P.S. Honestly, not even half serious.
Team TWiizers rocks! (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps this is blindingly obvious (Score:2)
But why doesn't Nintendo just license the ScummVM and drop it as a small $ purchase on their online store?
That way anyone who has an old scumm game can play it for free (by copying it to the SD card), and anyone else
can buy a copy via the store. Seems like win/win for everyone. I know there are hacks to enable mplayer, and DVD playback
and those are separate issues, probably more due to licensing the underlying patents for various compression technologies
than anything.
Re:Don't encourage the crackers... (Score:5, Insightful)
I feel sorry for Nintendo on this one.
That's nice. I'm sure profitable corporations need your sympathy.
The console is about as cheap as they get, and Nintendo put an incredible amount of research and effort into making the best games in the world. When do you folk feel a bit ethically obliged to let the company just make some money out of the good work they've done.
Nintendo sell the console at a profit. They make money off anyone who buys one, including the homebrewers. Anyway, Nintendo don't lease you a wii under a signed contract, they sell you one in a shop. Therefore, aren't they ethically obliged (not to mention legally) to let you do with it what you wish?
Secondly, the because its there argument. I cracked games in the past, way back in the days of C-64, All those Block executes on track 5 sector 5 etc. But I didn't distribute - I cracked it cause it was fun to do and for my own benefit - I didn't want to get in trouble, or ruin those software companies.
My goodness, not only did you not read the article, or summary, you also failed to even read the article title. NB: Home-brew.
Re:Don't encourage the crackers... (Score:5, Insightful)
They sell their product for profit?!!! The scoundrels!
I disagree with you on this. They are well within their rights to sell the wii at a profit.
Because, you know, most successful companies just give their stuff away.
I believe you are mistaken.
No, not when what you're doing with it is illegal.
Since when is homebrew illegal?
They are ethically obliged to do as much as possible to ensure you can't run illegal, unlicensed software on it.
What about legal software, legally licensed from homebrewers? Or legal software which you legally wrote yourself? How are they ethically obliged to stop you running legal, licensed software?
Just from a glance at the wiki, some of the games being made available are clones of Nintendo's own games!
And none of Nintendo's games are clones of what has gone on before, and may well be available for free? People have been cloning ideas in computer games for years. That has nothing to do with homebrew.
If you're going to defend homebrew do not take the stance that Nintendo should be happy and endorse it.
If you're going to attack homebrew, don't just invent stuff about it being illegal and unethical.
Balloon Fight is a Joust clone (Score:3, Informative)
They are ethically obliged to do as much as possible to ensure you can't run illegal, unlicensed software on it.
Illegal under what law, and unlicensed under what exclusive right? Please name a few "illegal, unlicensed" titles you're looking at, so that other people following this discussion can understand what you are talking about.
Just from a glance at the wiki, some of the games being made available are clones of Nintendo's own games!
So bleeping what? Game play is not copyrightable [copyright.gov]. In fact, Nintendo's own Balloon Fight, available in the North American versions of Animal Crossing (for GameCube) and Wii Shop Channel, is a clone of Midway's Joust.
Re: (Score:2)
http://wiibrew.org/wiki/List_of_homebrew_applications_(games) [wiibrew.org]
From another quick glance at the list,
Asteroids
Duck Hunt
Missile Command
Tetris
Don't suppose any of those sound familiar?
Think all of those games are in the public domain?
Just because they're old does not mean they're fair game.
The point being, go ahead, have a blast modding your Wii to do whatever it is you please but asking Nintendo to endorse software that could potentially allow people to run software (h
Re: (Score:2)
From another quick glance at the list,
Asteroids
Duck Hunt
Missile Command
Tetris
Without being able to see screenshots of all these programs, I can't see evidence of anything more than trademark violation, which is easy to fix by editing strings and recompiling.
You're doing something with their console that they didn't intend
Then which maker of consoles, computers, or comparable devices does intend for amateurs to 1. write their own programs for the device and 2. connect it to a standard-definition TV? We haven't really had a home computer designed to display on a TV since the 8-bit micros of the 80s.
Re: (Score:2)
No, you can't tell without a screenshot and even then you can't tell because the underlying code may still be infringing. That's the problem with Nintendo allowing homebrew or even looking the other way while it's going on. They have no control over the code so for them to allow it to run on their console is leaving them open to lawsuits.
Re:Don't encourage the crackers... (Score:4, Funny)
No, not when what you're doing with it is illegal. They are ethically obliged to do as much as possible to ensure you can't run illegal, unlicensed software on it.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Re: (Score:2)
Inconceivable!
Re: (Score:2)
>>>When do you folk feel a bit ethically obliged to let the company just make some money out of the good work they've done.
When they produce good work. That's when I hand-over the cash. Not before. I owned a Gamecube, spent a lot of money on their games, and was very disappointed with the results. I didn't think the quality of the games were as good as what I played on the previous N64 console, or Super Nintendo console.
At this point, if anybody owes anything, it's Nintendo who owes ME for suck
Re:Don't encourage the crackers... (Score:5, Interesting)
The console is about as cheap as they get, and Nintendo put an incredible amount of research and effort into making the best games in the world. When do you folk feel a bit ethically obliged to let the company just make some money out of the good work they've done.
Nintendo makes about $50 on each Wii, compare that to MS and Sony who lose money whenever a 360 or PS3 is bought. Plus, most homebrewers are exactly that, homebrewers, this isn't a 1337 W@r3z h@ck either, its simply homebrew.
Thirdly Nintendo may not have deliberately broken the previous hacks anyway. All they did was release a new binary and the compiled code moved a bit in memory. I think a little too much credit may be being given here.
Ah, yes, because there was so much else in that update. Oh and never mind the fact that it searched for modified saves and deleted them, that's certainly not intentional.
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft reported they were breaking even on the 360s, I think sometime near the end of last year. They might even be profitable now. Not sure about the PS3, but it has been shockingly expensive here in Scandinavia for a long time.
Of course, that probably means Nintendo are closer to $100 profit per console by now :)=
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Don't encourage the crackers... (Score:4, Interesting)
Who said anything about cracked or pirate games? This is about installing homebrew and open source software on a hardware platform which has been paid for by the consumer who bought it - and Nintendo are not selling Wii's at a loss like Sony's PS3.
Re: (Score:2)
Part of the appeal of console systems is that, generally, a console owned by person A is the same as the console owned by person B. Consoles provide a uniform environment. Both for game development and game playing. If you're playing SSBB online, you don't have to worry about someone running cheats or maphacks.
Is it that difficult of a concept to grasp, that console makers like having a nice uniform hardware (per console) environment?
Don't like big bad Nintendo patching out all your mods? DON'T GET THE NINT
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, cheat codes exist and work very well with the Wii. It's just not very common yet until Datel allows Idiot Cheater to do it by inserting a $50 disc.
Re:Don't encourage the crackers... (Score:5, Informative)
The console is about as cheap as they get, and Nintendo put an incredible amount of research and effort into making the best games in the world. When do you folk feel a bit ethically obliged to let the company just make some money out of the good work they've done.
Err, I really like Nintendo, I really like the Wii, and I'd really like some of what you were smoking.
1) The console price hasn't gone down AT ALL since it was released almost two years ago. Compare that to the prices of the PS3 or Xbox360 during the same timeframe. Also compare it to the fact that the Xbox360 is now way cheaper than the Wii while being much, much faster.
2) The last few months there were nothing but half-assed games coming out for the Wii, especially from Nintendo. I don't see "the best games in the world" anymore, anywhere. Think back to the last Nintendo press conference and tell me you were really positively surprised with what they came up with.
3) The Homebrew Channel can do a lot, but what it can't do is play Wii games off of burned discs. You still need a modchip for that. You can play copied WiiWare games, but team Twiizers officially denounces warez. They're doing it to open up the platform itself, not to open it up for the warez kids.
Re: (Score:2)
3) The Homebrew Channel can do a lot, but what it can't do is play Wii games off of burned discs. You still need a modchip for that. You can play copied WiiWare games, but team Twiizers officially denounces warez. They're doing it to open up the platform itself, not to open it up for the warez kids.
So you can install this homebrew channel sans mod-chip?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, you can. You will need to make use of the Twilight Hack, so you definitely need Twilight Princess if you don't own a modchip. It's ok if you borrow it for an hour or so, you just need it to get your foot in the door.
Check out everything you need to know here: http://hbc.hackmii.com/ [hackmii.com]
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, but you need an original copy of "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess" for that. Then you just copy a save game onto a SD card. Google "wii homebrew channel", it is as easy as it gets.
But it is wrong to say that this does not allow playing "backup" games from regular burned discs. It is still early, but there already tools (that can be run from the Homebrew Channel) that allow you to play burned games without a modchip, and the compatibility list is increasing by the day. I heard you don't even need
Re: (Score:2)
Not all that interested in burned games. I bought all the wii games I want (and likely will ever want, with the crap they're churning out now. :( ) including the aforementioned Twilight princess. ;)
Thanks for the hint.
Re: (Score:2)
The stupid thing is still selling like hotcakes, why bother dropping the price? Supply and demand my friend. While any geek worth their salt may be able to realize that a PS3 or a 360 is 'more value' than a Wii, dollar for dollar in hardware, the Wii has specific games and playability that appeals to people willing to pay for it.
When people stop buying them at full bang, I'm sure they'll drop the price $50 to increase sales.
Re: (Score:2)
That might all be well and true, but if you read the post I was replying to again you will see that all I did was counter the OP's "The console is about as cheap as they get" argument.
I know there is no reason for Nintendo to dop the price, as it would undermine the "exclusiveness" of the Wii.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The word 'plays' can be interpreted in a few ways here. 'It plays' can be considered that it simply runs the games, and the game (eventually) loads and runs. But if it causes the DVD to read @ 1x or 2x, causing 4-5x longer loading screens, would you call that playing? I've even tried Mario Kart online, and keep getting disconnected because it simply takes too long to load.
They're working on version 0.2, which apparently brings up the read speed to 3x which should help considerably. However, it's still not n
Re:Don't encourage the crackers... (Score:4, Insightful)
People don't buy $250 systems just to play homebrew. Conversely, people that already have the system will dabble in homebrew to increase the value of their hardware, and allow it to do things it couldn't otherwise (like play Monkey Island, or watch DVDs).
If Nintendo is smart, they will put of a token fight - mainly to stay within contractual obligations with their game developing partners and keep them happy - while leaving plenty of loopholes for homebrew to exist. Best of both worlds for all involved.
Pandora? PCs? (Score:3, Interesting)
People don't buy $250 systems just to play homebrew.
No, but they do buy $330 systems just to play homebrew [slashdot.org]. Heck, if you define "homebrew" to mean "software released without a negotiated licensing agreement between the developer and the computer's manufacturer", people buy $300 to $2,000 devices for homebrew, called "personal computers".
Re:Don't encourage the crackers... (Score:5, Informative)
Uhm, for the hardware you get, it's actually rather overpriced (Nintendo makes a nice profit from each console sold). Also, the topic is about running homebrew software, not necessarily about running pirated games. (Yes, I know a lot of people will use it to do just that).
This is decidedly not true; they add code [thedailywtf.com] that specifically fixes the symptoms (current exploits against known holes), but not the real cause (horribly broken usage and implementations of crypto/hashing/signing algorithms, among others). This is why new cracks typically appear within a day or two. Putting in such code, however, can hardly be designated "accidental". Please do a little fact-checking next time.
Re: (Score:2)
>>>Nintendo makes a nice profit from each console sold
How much?
The reason I ask is because it's unusual. Normal operating procedure is to lose $10-20 per unit sold, with money earned off the backend (game sales). So what is the cost of Wii manufacture (per unit)?
Re: (Score:2)
As others have posted, about $50, see source [gamedaily.com]. This was in september 2007, and I can hardly imagine that production costs would have increased since then (to the contrary..) The price of the Wii is however still $/EUR 250 worldwide.
It is. Good job for them, especially as compared to Microsoft where the total losses in the X-box division likely run into the 11-digit range by now; see here [blogspot.com] and here [blogspot.com], and note that this is even before the infamous $2B "red ring o
Re: (Score:2)
Normal operating procedure for everyone but Nintendo. As I understand it, Nintendo has almost always sold their consoles at a profit, being less driven to have the latest and greatest but rather the best licensing arrangements for games instead.
Ironically the two times I remember Nintendo bragging about having better hardware than the 'other guys' were the N64 and the Gamecube, arguably both miserable failures compared to other console systems at the time.
They still made a profit off each unit sold, IIRC t
Re: (Score:2)
>>>always being less driven to have the latest and greatest
That's their current philosophy, but it wasn't "always" like that. The NES/Super NES were not the best, but they were no slouches next to other 8 and 16 consoles. The N64 was the most-advanced technology of the 1994-96 console releases. Ditto the Gamecube (I consider it equal in power to the Xbox). It was only with the most-recent generation that Nintendo decided to settle for third (in terms of tech).
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
You should do research before opening your mouth, the October 23 system update did infact *deliberately* break existing homebrew for the simple fact that ~90% of it was patches for a bug in the Wii's IOS modules (firmware of sorts) that most homebrew application exploit in order to install content to the Wii's NAND (filesystem). Additionally the update blocks direct access to the Wii's NAND for most IOS modules, an attempt to stop people dumping the contents of their Wii's.
Most of the update (as with the pr
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nintendo put an incredible amount of research and effort into making the best games in the world. When do you folk feel a bit ethically obliged to let the company just make some money out of the good work they've done.
How does allowing me to run my own software on hardware I have purchased prevent Nintendo from making money? In fact, it makes me more likely to buy the console. At the moment I don't have a Wii - if it were possible to run Linux on it I would buy one and it would become my MythTV frontend. So they would make more money since they would have another customer. At the same time, because I would then have a Wii, I would buy games for it, so they would make more money. By preventing me using the hardware h
Re:Don't encourage the crackers... (Score:4, Informative)
I had no interest in hacking my wii until I heard they had blocked it. That got me looking into homebrew and then I found mplayer for wii. That night I went out and bought a sdcard reader for my computer and installed the homebrew channel on my wii.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
SFA was developed by Rare, not Nintendo. It also came out 5 years ago for the Gamecube. Would you care to try again, or is that really the best excuse you can come up with?
Re: (Score:2)
Or piracy... Download, play, realise its crap, delete, unless your network connection is especially poor you wasted less time and money than renting.
Re: (Score:2)
Correct. Also downloading saves the earth by not burning gasoline in a car driving to Blockbuster rental.
Re: (Score:2)
why support these companies that support DRM??
Because there isn't a computer maker that supports SDTV output and doesn't support DRM. If we all had HDTVs, we'd probably be playing homebrew on a slim PC through a VGA or HDMI cable, with game controllers connected through a USB hub and/or a Bluetooth receiver. But there's a huge installed base of SDTVs out there.