Nintendo reportedly planning another Modchip-busting revision

Even though there's no love lost between Sony and Nintendo fanboys, the two ancient rivals may soon have one thing in common: an ongoing battle with their respective deities over modding their precious consoles for homebrew. PSP owners are well aware of the epic back-and-forth struggle between hackers like Fanjita and Dark_Alex and the obviously-frustrated firmware programmers over at Sony, and now DigiTimes (they of the rather dubious Apple rumor track record, mind you) is reporting that Wii lovers may soon be faced with yet another round of modchip-nullifying hardware revisions from Nintendo. The good news is that -- as usual -- the altered circuit layout shouldn't thwart modders for more than a few weeks at most, even if Nintendo decides to move over to so-called ball grid array IC packaging according to "providers of Wii modification services in Taiwan." Still, if these rumors turn out to be true, it would seem that Nintendo is pretty committed to tripping up the Wiinjas and TeamCyclopses of the world, and making your choice of their wares just a little more difficult.

[Jason @ Mar 27th 2007 4:00PM]

ruh roh... BGAs and blind/buried vias would definitely up the challenge level on mods.

[AceMilo @ Mar 27th 2007 4:12PM]

Supposedly its already been broken, it only took a couple hours to find the moved points. Nintendo didn't remove the data points, just moved the positions.

[michael @ Mar 27th 2007 5:09PM]

"Even though there's no love lost between Sony and Nintendo fanboys..."

- What about Xbox 360 fanboys? Don't we account for at least something?

[stirlo @ Mar 27th 2007 6:45PM]

....... nO! :-P

[some person @ Mar 27th 2007 5:11PM]

If hackers want to hack a PSP without having Sony notice, they should like start a secret group or something to keep the firmware hacking news down (hackers may try to stop you guys from spreading the news :V).

[grable @ Mar 27th 2007 5:22PM]

Whats the use? They know its gonna be "fixed" sooner or later, why not let people develop for it?
Release a free SDK, and rather take money when people want to sell their creations.

Microsft's solution was a step in the right direction (too bad its .NET based and so limited, and you STILL have to fork over some dough)

[AndrewNeo @ Mar 27th 2007 5:30PM]

Well, if they're changing hardware revisions because of it that means they can't catch it in the software..

[Evan @ Mar 27th 2007 5:46PM]

"The good news is that -- as usual -- the altered circuit layout shouldn't thwart modders for more than a few weeks at most"

So, it's good news that Nintendo can't protect developers against pirated games? Engadget must really be pro-piracy.

[hydrosan @ Mar 27th 2007 6:38PM]

oh wow, now i have to use WIRES instead of quicksolder. An extra 30 seconds out of my dear life?! Whatever will i do ;P. the just removed one of hte solder pads, but you can jsut solder that point to the leg of the panasonic chip, and you're still good

[Naris @ Mar 27th 2007 7:18PM]

Companies are going to have to learn that whenever you build a better mousetrap, a smarter mouse always comes along to thwart it.

[prouted @ Mar 27th 2007 11:19PM]

Just for information, the Wii is not yet available in Taiwan. The sale will start in May. Also, the Wii so forbidden for importation in Taiwan until now as the bluetooth chip was not following the country's health regulations. So how could the mod come from Taiwan ?