Nintendo Wii fully hacked for native homebrew

The homebrew scene hasn't gotten a whole lot accomplished with this latest round of home consoles -- which isn't surprising given the difficulty of the task and lack of incentives to succeed. Especially with the PS3 shipping with Linux compatibility, the Wii boasting VLC, and the 360 being such a chore to hack and keep hacked, there's really not much of a point. The Wii was compromised pretty early on to be able to play burned discs and GameCube homebrew such as Linux, but until now Nintendo has managed to isolate Wii hardware such as the extra horsepower of the console and wireless connectivity from hackers. But the walls are coming down. Some hackers from Germany have just showed off their fully hacked Wii at the 24th Annual Chaos Communication Congress. Nothing fancy is running yet, all they've achieved so far is a proof of concept that they've bypassed the Wii's protection with some encryption codes they swiped from the Wii's memory. Apparently a bootable Linux DVD is on the way, and we can't wait to see what homebrew coders manage to pull off with that Wiimote pointed where it belongs.

[Via WiiNintendo]

[2Shea @ Dec 28th 2007 5:15PM]

And then the next Wii update makes all of their hard work worth nothing? Or is this beyond something a firmware update can block?

[N30 G30 @ Dec 30th 2007 10:47AM]

But Nintendo offers firmware downgrades. That means they have to stop those.

[dudeInAmerica @ Dec 28th 2007 5:22PM]

Let the Cat and mouse game begin.

[Samphex @ Dec 29th 2007 12:04AM]

Ahhh... the classic game that has been battled in many areas ranging from sony to apple

[Matt @ Dec 28th 2007 5:50PM]

Anyone have the complete video? They have 360 stuff as well, right?
And do they have a site?

[Erick @ Dec 28th 2007 5:51PM]

I dont get the fascination with homebrew consoles and I dont get the problem with people hacking their Wii. Unless there maybe is some security problems i dont know about.

[Jamar @ Dec 30th 2007 11:54AM]

Hacking the Wii allows you to do things that you normally couldn't do with it- like play DVDs.

[ouj @ Dec 28th 2007 5:57PM]

"until now Nintendo has managed to isolate Wii hardware such as the extra horsepower of the console"

What extra horsepower?

[thethirdmoose @ Dec 28th 2007 7:02PM]

The gamecube that the first one is taped to

[Scooby @ Dec 28th 2007 8:08PM]

Yea i mean this is no PS3.

[linkman2004 @ Dec 28th 2007 9:30PM]

Play Mario Galaxy and you'll see what extra horse-power.

[coolbho3000 @ Dec 28th 2007 9:36PM]

This comment is fail. You need to learn your fourth grade math again.

Gamecube: 486Mhz
Wii: 729Mhz

Now kids, which one is greater?

[NovaLand @ Dec 29th 2007 3:16AM]

Fourth? I remember learning that kind of math in first grade.

[Zach @ Dec 31st 2007 1:45PM]

@coolbho3000:

Uh...Christopher Columbus!!1!

[2shae @ Dec 28th 2007 6:06PM]

the wii has VLC!!! WTF I WANT TO KNOW HOWTO USE IT

[Ian @ Dec 28th 2007 6:06PM]

If Nintendo is smart, the will not counter this. Any enhancement to the Wii's capabilities should be welcomed by Nintendo.

The fact that Microsoft is talking to Nintendo's partner for motion-control means that the Wii - with its inexplicably deficient processing power (and no hard disk) means that the Wii's days are numbered. And I'm a "hard core" (if that term can be applied in any way to the Wii) Wii fan.

[Arthur Nonamiss @ Dec 28th 2007 8:38PM]

I couldn't agree less. Nintendo has shown that they're willing to go to court to protect their innovative concept, and Microsoft stands little chance of copying the idea. The Wii proved is that the the majority of gamers are desperate for something innovative. We're tired of seeing a shooter that's exactly like the last one, except with slightly better fog effects, and bump-mapping. We're even willing to, in record numbers, flock to machine which is inferior in almost every respect, just because it is REALLY different than the other stuff that's out there. Now, what Microsoft (and Sony) are probably doing in talking to Nintendo's partners is trying to come up with another innovative concept that isn't the Wiimote, but is a radical change from the status quo. I won't pretend to have any idea what that change is, because if I did, I'd be patenting it right now.

[Luis @ Dec 28th 2007 6:27PM]

How do you acquire VLC for the Wii? Must know!

[Emil @ Dec 28th 2007 6:34PM]

I have no idea if that post is ironic or not - so maybe I make a fool out of myself. Anyway, I think they mean the Virtual Console since emulators for older consoles are very common on hacked consoles.

[RefriedBeaner @ Dec 28th 2007 7:12PM]

Way to go, I knew you guys could do it! Its been an honor .......

[RefriedBeaner @ Dec 28th 2007 7:12PM]

Way to go, I knew you guys could do it! Its been an honor .......

[Hailfire753 @ Dec 28th 2007 11:58PM]

THIS is what modders have been waiting for. The next gen of modchips = no modchip. With unencripted data, the release should be a simple burn-iso-to-dvd-and-insert-in-wii operation.

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Dec 29th 2007 8:11AM]

Question: does the hack require modded console?

As homebrew goes, I'd say, Wii at moment is pretty OK - http://www.infendo.com/wii/top-16-sites-to-browse-on-the-nintendo-wii-internet-channel/ - thanks to Internet Channel and unofficial Flash SDK.

I also see little gain of running Linux on Wii: w/o HD support, being confined to 480p, making something better than Wii's own firmware would be very hard. I'm also not thrilled about running VLC on it - VLC is pretty crappy as video playback goes. Mplayer isn't much better. And I hardly see anything else interesting what one can run on hacked Wii.

As for pirated games, this is last of concerns: Wii doesn't have at moment extensive library of games as PS2 or DS do. It is easier to buy the games (except of course you - as I - do live in PAL region where some games are not release at all or cost 3-4 times more than in Asia/US).

[cokebottle tuque @ Dec 29th 2007 7:03PM]

now you have me wondering if you have ever bothered to use VLC. It is without question the best video player out there.

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Dec 29th 2007 7:28PM]

VLC? VideoLAN Client?

I have been using it on Windows, Linux and Mac OS for last 3+ years.

They still can't fix audio/video sync jitter issues. Pause button has awful latency of something like 1 second. Pausing causes snaps/cracks in audio (which VLC tries unsuccessfully to workaround by muting audio for first second or so after unpausing). Support for subtitles is literally non-existent compared to Windows counterparts (e.g. Media Player Classic + Haali Media Splitter + VobSub). And heck, it is still crashing now and then.

[Mplayer has no jitter/pausing problems, but has the same problems with subtitles and added problem of constantly missing A/V sync if there is any other CPU intensive application running on system.]

VLC is to me reflection of multi-media on Linux: if it works - then it works. Otherwise, sorry - everybody has different priorities.

[admin @ Jan 1st 2008 5:01PM]

Thats just rubbish VLC is a fantastic player, i've been running it for at least 8 years now and it runs flawlessly on my computer. Its snappy, very fast responding, supports almost eveyr piece of media under the sun, subtitles, tv tuner cards etc etc.

[Mr. Picklesworth @ Dec 29th 2007 12:25PM]

WiiLinux and Folding @ Home on the Wii would be quite wonderful things. With this thing being an always-on computer that's good at sitting, quietly thinking away while consuming very little power, I can imagine it serving people very well...
Would definitely replace my current behemoth of a web server, and Wii-powered folding could beat the PS3's contributions by stamina alone.

[Miles @ Dec 29th 2007 1:46PM]

Damn hackers need to go to jail.

[Magallanes @ Jan 2nd 2008 4:23PM]

There are several kind of hackers, formerly known as white hat (good guys), grey hat (mostly good but bad from times to times) and black hat (bad guys, virus creator, spammers, credit cart theft and such), so its unfair to put everyone on the same level.

[ffnc @ Feb 13th 2008 4:51PM]

You, sir, are a colossal idiot. Hacking is not illegal unless you are hacking something you do not own. You can't go to jail for doing something legal.

Using the same logic, I could say you should go to jail for being stupid -- because being stupid is, unfortunately, not a crime.

What we are discussing here is a technique for hacking a special-purpose computer to function as a general-purpose computer, not hacking bank software to email someone your account number.

f*cking moron.

[Brakken @ Dec 31st 2007 2:58AM]

I've managed to interview the presenter of this exploit ->

http://www.tehskeen.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5996

[Steven @ Dec 31st 2007 6:33PM]

HARD to download wii games? I've been...I mean...my friend has been getting wii isos off of newsgroups for months...1 to 3 a day...at 6 mbit...and burning them as quickly as they download. Modding your wii with a CycloWiz and then downloading games is super simple as long as you have a first or second revision wii and a friend with a soldering iron.

[Mark @ Jan 1st 2008 2:22PM]

finally, i hope this hack actually goes somewhere.

[Absynth @ Jan 2nd 2008 5:31AM]

You really need to see this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw
:)