Wii U has been hacked

http://www.wiikey.com/news/

by ssclafani • 13 years ago

59 49 13 years ago

wiikey.com

knocknock• 13 years ago

Mirror?

Osiris• 13 years ago

Wiikey seems to be down. HEre's a article about it:

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/22846-wii-u-hack-unlocks-conso...

jonny_eh• 13 years ago

This is rather surprising, the 3DS has been out a lot longer, and as far as I know remains unhacked.

ryusage• 13 years ago

You sure? I could swear a friend of mine had something at least a year ago that allowed him to play just about anything he wanted on it. Maybe that was the older DS?

jerf• 13 years ago

The DS stuff still works in DS mode, though they periodically make firmware releases that try to lock them out. Nothing executes in 3DS mode, though.

leehro• 13 years ago

http://gbatemp.net/threads/nothing-plays-3ds-roms-3ds-still-...

DanBC2• 13 years ago

There are a range of carts.

These carts play DS games, they do not play 3DS games.

Each time the console gets an upgrade (DS to DSi; DSxl; 3DS; etc) some of the carts stop working, and manufacturers use it as a marketing opportunity.

Cards usually tack '3ds' on the name. EG: "R4i3DS". But these just play DS games on the 3DS. (Some of them include GBA emulation functionality; nothing could play GBA games on the NDS cart slot until recently.)

Groxx• 13 years ago

If by "hacked" you accept "flash carts", then it appears to be hacked: http://www.r43ds.com/ (and a few other brands)

edit: ah, nevermind, see other comments.

superkamiguru• 13 years ago

there are sd carts that allow you to play ds games on 3ds, that is as far as they have gone

daeken2• 13 years ago

The truly sad thing about the state of console security for the past few generations is that as they lock them down more, it becomes significantly easier to play pirated games than to use homebrew content. With both the Xbox 360 and the Wii, it took (very) simple drive authentication hacks to get pirated content to run, but many manhours (probably in the high single-digit manyears, honestly) to get homebrew on either of them.

At the end of the day, it's infinitely easier to make a drive say "oh, yes, that disc is clearly on original materials" than to subvert, say, signature checks for code authentication, as required for homebrew code. The console manufacturers really screwed themselves here.

moloch• 13 years ago

Very true, for those interested -

Xbox: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fOjGLCctEY&hd=1

Xbox 360: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxjpmc8ZIxM&hd=1

PS3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4loZGYqaZ7I&hd=1

Wii: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z81BCko-UY&hd=1

mikec3k• 13 years ago

This is why I like an open console like the OUYA (which I should be receiving any day now).

Narishma• 13 years ago

I would like it more if it was a true console with no yearly refreshes.

mtgx• 13 years ago

If wonder if with the rumored always-on Internet requirement for the next Xbox, it will spur the creation of a ton of private servers for Xbox games, with most next-gen Xbox players playing pirated games on those private servers, instead of the expensive always-on DRM'ed games from the Xbox store. I figure this should be that much easier with the next Xbox using PC hardware.

It would be quite ironic if by forcing always-on DRM on users, the next Xbox becomes the most hacked/with most pirated games console ever.

daeken2• 13 years ago

Given that the Xbox 360 was damn near bulletproof (there have been very few attacks against it, even still), I expect that the next generation is going to be an even bigger step up, not a step backwards. If you can't compromise code running on the device, then you're not going to be able to inject new cert chains and be able to MITM connections or use private servers, as I strongly doubt that they'll mess up those handshakes.

This won't kill homebrew nor piracy, but it's going to put a massive dent in both. Nothing is unbreakable in theory, but when the cost of a break raises to a certain point, it's effectively unbreakable in practice; they're rapidly approaching that point, if they haven't hit it already.

All of this makes me pretty sad, really. I'm no supporter of piracy, and I don't generally use homebrew software, but I'm going to miss the challenge of breaking consoles. I remember sitting in my apartment in San Diego back in early 2006, with bunnie and a couple other guys, modifying shaders on the King Kong demo from the kiosk disc in an attempt to read out memory from the 360 and display it. I didn't have much interaction with the 360 scene after that stuff, but sitting around and coming up with angles of attack with the best and brightest in the console community was just amazingly fun.

mynameisvlad• 13 years ago

That rumour has been debunked several times by journalists. To be fair, their debunking is also a rumour, but it's still good to keep that in mind.

format• 13 years ago

"Under Microsoft's current guidelines, which may still be changed, the decision of whether a game will require an internet connection to work and if that is a one-time authentication or a constant connection, will be left up to individual publishers."

source: http://www.polygon.com/2013/4/26/4268782/next-xbox-drm-achie...

forrestthewoods3• 13 years ago

"The console manufacturers really screwed themselves here."

In what way exactly? Would enabling homebrew in some way subert piracy? You can make games for 360 if you want through their indie games platform for a mere $100.

You could argue that enabling homebrew would sell more hardware and/or software I suppose. Is that your argument? That 360 would have been more successful for Microsoft if it allowed homebrew?

throwaway20482• 13 years ago

the PlayStation 3 remained unhacked until Sony retroactively removed home brew functionality, and created a lot of interest in doing so.

nthitz3• 13 years ago

Too bad there aren't really any good Wii U games. That system has been a real disappointment. I hope Nintendo releases those updates soon. And a decent library.

minimaxir3• 13 years ago

The top-tier first-party games (Super Smash Bros, Wind Waker HD) are expected to be announced/demoed in a few weeks at E3, but by the time they hit the shelves, it may be too late.

chimeracoder• 13 years ago

This seems to be a theme with Nintendo, and it's rather unfortunate. When I first got the Wii, I was blown away by the console itself, but I was rather underwhelmed with most of the games available (Super Mario Galaxy was the only one at the time that both used the Wiimote extensively and was fun to play).

Nintendo has a pattern of overdelivering with the consoles, and then underdelivering with the games available for said console (at least at first).

EDIT: I should add that this is a relatively recent pattern; the N64 and the Game Boy Color are definitely stronger as platforms (with all their available games) than as consoles. Somewhere between the Game Boy Advance -> 3DS (which has terrible game availability for an awesome console) and the GameCube -> Wii, the pattern reversed itself.

gcb02• 13 years ago

all nintendo consoles since the snes are like that.

they keep regurgitating the same franchises.

they almost did something new with n64/gamecube, but just because the 3d shift forced them to. (e.g. pikmin)

the DS almost pushed the envelope again, but they quickly settled to just regurgitating old franchises again with an extra map screen or something else that is irrelevant.

kbenson• 13 years ago

That's because those franchises are what Nintendo has control of, and in their limited dev time/budget for studios, they are going to focus on putting out the next franchise title, because that's what fans want of Nintendo.

I think the problem is that the Nintendo platform differentiates itself on actually being different, and in this day that isn't exactly a selling point for game publishers, even if it is for the consumers.

Would you as a game designer/publisher rather build new game customized to the experience possible with the Wii or Wii-U, with their limited audience, or would you program to the lowest common denominator so you can ship on all consoles (keeping in mind that the more you customize for one, the harder it is to maintain the integrity of the experience of the game)?

CrazedGeek2• 13 years ago

ZombiU, New Super Mario Bros. U, and Nintendo Land are all great, and there are some pretty good multiplatform games too.

The Wii U has been out for about half a year. Has ANY console actually had even a decent library at this point in their lifespan? Basically every console starts with a couple mediocre exclusives, one or two good exclusives, and a ton of ports. (And god forbid if they're bad ports.) It's usually only the fall following a console's launch that good games start coming in any appreciable number.

nthitz3• 13 years ago

ZombiU? Great? I dunno about that. The others I have and are good but my WiiU mostly collects dust.

nthitz3• 13 years ago

Ah and just arrived in my inbox: a notification of a new system update for the Wii U!

comex3• 13 years ago

I'm quite curious how far they've gotten and how they did it. For the record, the security of the Wii U software was pretty thoroughly broken by the group fail0verflow and friends, including me, as of last Christmas, with the goal of running homebrew, but a lot of work still needed to be done - both reverse engineering, to find additional vulnerabilities, integrate with the OS, and use nonstandard hardware like the GamePad, and the regular kind, in order to do things like run Linux - and interest and time spent petered out around then, without anything being released. I'm bummed out about it, but I'm spending my time posting on Hacker News rather than doing anything to help. ;p

parktheredcar• 13 years ago

Is there any central repo of progress this far?

comex3• 13 years ago

It has been kept secret, partly to prevent Nintendo from patching vulnerabilities, partly, I think, to prevent it from being used for dubious purposes before a proper homebrew stack could be released. Certainly this style of development did not impress me back when I was an outsider, but, well...

new299• 13 years ago

Interesting, I guess the thing about the WiiU is you've almost got two devices in one, does the game pad need jail breaking independently? Or is it just a display as far as the console is concerned?

comex3• 13 years ago

I haven't been involved with GamePad hacking, but from what I understand, the GamePad firmware is upgradable but does not have any security, so it needs to be reverse engineered, but not hacked as such.

solistice• 13 years ago

I don't quite see how this is a new thing though, as there was a hack of the Wii U literally on launch day. http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/threads/511978-WiiU-Running...! So the title should be "Wii U has been hacked again, better".

Wii U has been hacked

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