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[skaldicpoet9]

So apparently a group of guys have already made the first steps to enable homebrew on the Wii. I am not a very hardware savvy person but it says that they were able to find the decryption/encryption keys and I guess that is a good thing and for whatever reason opens the door to homebrew being able to be created for the Wii (actually, could someone please explain how this is possible?). Needless to say that I think that homebrew for the Wii is a very exciting possibility. Imagine a homebrew browser that could actually display all flash content on the internet or imagine people like Johnny Chung Lee brewing their own Wii titles with homebrew peripherals (imagine a homebrew game with

). There are is a also a group of people trying to develop a Linux OS for the Wii. I am not a very familiar with hardware so I may not see all of the possibilities here so what other potential do you guys see in this?

[Hideous]

This is great news! I already have a WiiKey modchip, so hopefully I'll be able to use that.

[skaldicpoet9]

Yeah, it will definitely be interesting to see what comes out of this. I would love to start toying around with developing homebrew for the Wii when I actually know what I am doing, someday...

Inadvertently I stumbled upon another homebrew related site through WiiLi called DSLinux. Some folks have already made a version of Linux for the DS. It's pretty sweet actually, I was watching this video of some guy browsing the internet, using messenger and playing video and MP3s. I am looking forward to see what other homebrew apps come out of this scene.

[Hideous]

I saw DSLinux about a year ago, while looking for homebrew for my then spanking-new R4DS. I think I might download it today actually.

[skaldicpoet9]

I saw DSLinux about a year ago, while looking for homebrew for my then spanking-new R4DS. I think I might download it today actually.

I am thinking about buying the M3 DS Simply card. Is there a big difference between the two? Reading up on DS Linux it also says that you should have a separate Ram cart in Slot-2, is there a particular one you would recommend?

[Hideous]

The Slot-2 thing is not really necessary if you don't need multitasking in DSLinux, and it won't be useful for much else if you have a slot-1 device. If you really want one, get the EZ-flash.


As for the M3 DS Simply, there is absolutely no difference between that and the R4DS, except that is is a wee bit more expensive, and that the firmware updates usually happen a day later or so. Get yourself an R4DS.

[skaldicpoet9]

Right on, looks like I am getting an R4DS then.

What Homebrew do you recommend for the DS?

[ravuya]

for whatever reason opens the door to homebrew being able to be created for the Wii (actually, could someone please explain how this is possible?).

Presumably, the Wii is like other modern game consoles in that the game executables it runs are cryptographically "signed" with Nintendo's private key.

When you try to run a Wii program, the console takes the public key out and checks the program to make sure the signature matches (if you modify the program, you can no longer match the signature -- public key "signatures" are used for email as well).

Basically, what it seems they've done is retrieved the private key somehow -- it seems that someone left it hanging around in memory for some reason (maybe they were signing code on the fly and then loading it into the Wii?). So now you can write a Wii binary and sign it with the cracked private key, and the Wii will accept the program as signed and launch it without further question.

If that bit didn't make sense to you, I can follow it up with a brief explanation of how public key cryptography and code signing works.

Presumably Nintendo will break this by releasing a service pack update; I could easily see them invalidating that private key and then falling back on some sort of internal list of disc hashes of already-released games, and then signing games released after that with a new private key.

But that's conjecture on my part, and the logistics of doing that might prove to be difficult, especially since signed programs can modify the firmware of the Wii -- for instance, installing cracked firmware (such as on the PSP) that doesn't check code for cryptographic integrity.

[Hideous]

Right on, looks like I am getting an R4DS then.

What Homebrew do you recommend for the DS?

Nitrotracker, DSMidiWifi, DSDoom, DSQuake, etc.


Lots of great stuff. But now, let's get back on topic.

[shinygerbil]

On a vaguely related note, did anyone notice that system update a week or so ago which removed mp3 playback from the Picture channel?

[Hideous]

Yeah, I got a message from nintendo saying all that.

[Al King]

On a vaguely related note, did anyone notice that system update a week or so ago which removed mp3 playback from the Picture channel?

Why the fucoid would they remove features? Some kind of security issue?

[shinygerbil]

Well, I can see two possibilities:

a) The license for the mp3 codec is technically not free. (As a side note, many Ubuntu users find this out the hard way, when they install ubuntu and find that they can't play mp3s without enabling certain 'non-free' software.) Maybe Nintendo decided that it would be better to stick with a completely free codec.

b) Maybe there's an 'mp3 channel' in the works! *hopes feverishly*

(If there was an mp3 channel, it'd be no use without proper support for USB storage devices also.)

[Musenik]

More about the Wii hack. So far, it does require a mod-chip, to read standard DVD content. However, it may be possible to run games or homebrew from an SD card. Given SD cards are in the multi-GByte sizes, huge games could be made.

It's exciting times!

[Hideous]

Well, I can see two possibilities:

a) The license for the mp3 codec is technically not free. (As a side note, many Ubuntu users find this out the hard way, when they install ubuntu and find that they can't play mp3s without enabling certain 'non-free' software.) Maybe Nintendo decided that it would be better to stick with a completely free codec.

b) Maybe there's an 'mp3 channel' in the works! *hopes feverishly*

(If there was an mp3 channel, it'd be no use without proper support for USB storage devices also.)

Also AAC takes less space.

[skaldicpoet9]

More about the Wii hack. So far, it does require a mod-chip, to read standard DVD content. However, it may be possible to run games or homebrew from an SD card. Given SD cards are in the multi-GByte sizes, huge games could be made.

It's exciting times!

Yes, indeed. I can't wait to see the "Linux Channel" lol.

I would love to be able to do all of the things that I can't do one the internet channel (read pdf, watch anything other then youtube, download small freeware games). I will definitely be keeping a close eye on the Wii homebrew scene for sure.

Also AAC takes less space.

"The problem is that most of the AAC files on anyone's computer are songs downloaded from the iTunes Music Store. These songs are protected by DRM and, thus, won't work if they are moved to a system that is not authorized by iTunes. Since there's no iTunes client for the Wii (only programs that let you stream iTunes-controlled music), the files just won't do a thing."

Hmm, this seems really stupid to me. Why in the sam hill would they go do a thing like this? Not that I was using the photo channel for anything