Fist full of Wii

So I have been doing a bunch of Wii Homebrew lately. Im fond of the Gamecube, but the bitchy disc compatibility makes loading small chunks of code a pain in the ass. The Wii has built in backwards compatibility with the Cube, however it has a full 4.5GB DVD Disc system, instead of the 1.4GB 8cm Disc. The disc compatibility of the Wii is admirable. It was able to load pretty much anything I could throw at it, granted the data layout was correct. (You cant just throw files on a disc and expect it to load). Wii discs have a type of XOR encryption that no PC or Mac can read or burn. There is also a specific way the consoles will authenticate the disc session and even let you load code.

One way to make the DVD drive to authenticate the disc session is by adding a 'ModChip' to the drive controller integrated circuit. This chip will talk to the drive controller and say "Hey, this is a valid disc, now load it before I puke in your boots". Weather or not the use of this modification is legal is moot. I dont care. Yes, you can use it to backup your own games. Yes, you can use it to make copies of rented games. Yes, you can use it to play games you have downloaded off the internet. BUT! It also lets you load your own code, which is why these mods are originally created, it just doesnt take too much time for the bootleggers to follow in the wake of progress.

Some of the bootleggers are legit companies, like CodeJunikes, creators of Code Breakers and Action replay, they have been ripping off a lot of the homebrew code for many of todays current consoles, and repacking a shit quality revision for profit. Lets see some examples! I wont get into too much detail, i want to get to my point soon...

Max Media Dock = M3 Movie Player

Datel Drive Doctor (Wii) = WiiFrii / Chiip / Viper GC Extreme

MaxDrive PS3 = Standard USB HDD

MaxDrive X360 = Standard USB HDD

Action Replay DS = Dipstar / NitroHax freeware cheat system

Games & Music DS = Moonshell & Many Slot-1 loader cards

Mii Manager = Google Mii Hacking, there are TONS of freeware Mii transfer tools!

SD Launcher = SDLoad with Action Replay Exploit

All of the things i mention on the left are code junkies products, on the right is the homebrew solution that was released well before code junkies sank their claws into it. This pisses me off... The one thing that puts my nards in a vice is the whole Action Replay story...

Back in the day and still usable today, there was a way to load code from an SD card on a GC (also works in GC mode on a Wii). This worked by loading a lengthy code via Action Replay which in turn boots a loader from a SD card adapted to fit in Memory Card Slot A. Making the adapter isnt very hard, if you cant, you can buy official GC SD Card Adapters (SD Gecko). So what code junkies did was make their OWN SD card adapter, then removed the 'Add Code" function from Action Replay, and create their OWN version of Action Replay that will only have that ONE code. Now thats all fine and dandy. Rebuilding their own product is fine, but none of this is viable without the work of the developers of SDLoad. Without that, there is no way to load the code off the SD card. This was stolen by Code Junkies ad repacked for their SD Launcher. Not only that, but they are packaging open-source hardware, the GC SD Card Adapter... This violates me in ways i cant explain. They are pretty much raping peoples work, then pimping out their broken spirits.

Ok, to my point. Ever wonder why the Wii doesnt have a DVD Player? It turns out they would have to had paid royalties to whomever owns the CSS Encryption Scheme, and Macromedia. It would have added an extra $75+ to the console. Not really worth it, a DVD player costs as much.

There was a homebrew DVD player for the gamecube, which was recently reworked to work with the full size DVD drive of the Wii. Nintendo recently rolled out a system update for the Wii that removed the El Torrito Disc format, which is commonly used by the homebrew scene. At first I thought Nintendo rolled this update out to kill DVD Playback support. They have been doing really well dealing with piracy and unauthorized stuff, but nobody wants to deal with the movie industry. Big-N is usually really nice to us homebrew people, but when a chunk of homebrew pops up that could cause potential legal problems for them, they have to do something. Now I was doing some experiments and came to the realization that this Wii v3.0 system update also kills the Action Replay, and probably SD Launcher... Could this be Nintendo's strike at homebrew... or at Code Junkies? We already have a way to boot homebrew code without using the El Torrito Disc format... But Code Junkies is FUCKED.

At first I was a little pissed and a wee bit dismayed that all my homebrew wouldnt work, but after some testing, all the stuff I made worked just fine, except some of the early stuff. It seems that Code Junkies and the Mod Chip makers are using the older disc formats of yesteryear. So this update kills all the Code Junkies GC products, and Mod Chip setup discs.

Yay for Nintendo for fisting Code Junkies in the ass using salted lube! The jerkoffs deserve worse...