As you’ve probably seen over the past few months, the Wii homebrew scene has been growing like crazy due to the developments with the Twilight Princess hack. With a “soft mod” type hack available for the Wii, all it takes to run your own homebrew applications are a SD card, the internet, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and a little work. After getting all your stuff set up and loaded onto the SD card, you can load up some emulators that have been created so far, as well as unique homebrew applications.
So far, a small handful of applications have been ported over to the Wii, ranging from the expected (like the Tetris hack), to the archaic (look at Pong!). One of the more recent releases from the Wii Scene is this barebones Chess game, ported from a simple C++ chess program written way back in 1997. While they may not be the most exciting of games at the moment, the Wii homebrew scene is just starting up and showing mounds of potential.
Check out these games already ported over to the Wii!
A demo of the first Wii ELF loader is now available for download, thanks to a collaborative effort of several people. It takes advantage of the Twilight Princess savegame overflow from a few weeks ago, but now there’s something more substantial for people to try out on their own hardware.
I had thought about doing this with my Wii, but I decided against it. There is no point in me doing other than being able to say that I did. I will wait until it is fully capable of running homebrew code.
You can track the latest Wii homebrew progress at the WiiBrew Wiki. From the looks of the video, these guys are probably very close to a bootstrap file that will load in an arbitrary homebrew application. At least, we hope that they are.
Wii Twilight Hack - Link
WiiBrew Wiki - Link
Wii Linux Wiki - Link
If you’re anything like me, you’d probably give Wii homebrew a shot if it didn’t involve cracking its pretty little case open and testing your mad soldiering skills. To those of us who still like to keep our system’s warranties mildly intact (and free of burn holes), hackers over at TehSkeen have apparently been successful in running four whole lines of code without touching it’s valuable innards. According to the hackers in question, the process was achieved by altering a saved game for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess in order to make it crash the system and subsequently load the four lines of homebrew code.
Only four lines of code, you say? As Brakken noted on the initial post, it’s only in a days work. They’ve apparently already doubled that amount within a few days and status updates are expected anytime soon. With a little luck and time, hackers should be able to get real working Wii homebrew to load on the console, enabling new games and possibilities for the tens of millions of Wii owners worldwide. Let’s hope that these guys can get something working soon, because as anyone who played a soft-modded Xbox knows, a solderless homebrew alternative to modchips is always a welcome one.
With the Wii sneaking into households all over the world, more and more people are tying to shake things up a little bit by modding the outside appearance of their Wii. Ranging from simple glorified vinyl stickers known as “skins,” to full blown case replacements, the Wii case mod scene is growing bigger by the day. Let’s take a look at a small sample of what’s out there for your Wii, and find out what mod might be right for you!
For The…
Halo Enthusiast:
As every person who likes to shoot things has found out, the Wii hasn’t had the strongest showing of FPSs thus far in its lifespan. For those who secretly wish that their Wii was some sort of unlockable achievement for the most frags in Halo, this sweet case mod from Xbox-Modchips should fit in rather nicely next to your collectible Master Chief helmet.
Stubborn Retro Gamer:
Do you feel like there hasn’t been a worthwhile game released since 1996? Have you spent more money on Virtual Console games than actual games for your Wii? Was NHL ‘93 the pinnacle of your hockey career? If you answered yes to any of these questions, these sweet skins from DecalGirl and PimpMyWii just might be perfect for your Wii. As an added bonus, you can camouflage the fact that you’ve entered the next generation!
Person in need of a “Sleek and Sexy” Wii:
Sometimes people feel a little ashamed spending their hard earned cash on videogame systems, while other times people may just feel a little shy buying a Wii. If you’re looking to either make your Wii disappear into a cloud of mirrors, or simply look a bit more sleeker and sexier, take a gander at these XCM-ii cases which can be found at various places on the internets (like DecalGirl and Xbox- Modchips).
Person in search of their own, Custom Wii:
For those with fat wallets and good ideas, the Wii has become a new canvas to express your love for your favorite videogames, movies, and more. Many of us have seen these superb Wii mods on various sites, but seeing the level of dedication and creativity put into these things never gets too old. Take a peek at some of the finest game, movie, and “other” inspired Wii mods that the internet has to offer. Most of these were created by Ramon Stokes of Morpheon Mods, while the wonderful airbrush Wii was recently auctioned off on eBay for rather cheap. Take a peek!
And finally, if you can’t get enough LED lights or crazy case cutouts, then these two riciculous(ly amazing) Wii case mods just might be for you!
The Wii sure has inspired a lot of awesome mods that caught many of us off guard. While the 360 and PC world have generally been the two forerunners in case modding, the popularity of the Wii has apparently landed it in new territories. While I can’t knock the LED filled Wii’s, I’m a bit partial to that sexy black case myself. So, fellow Wii gamer, what’s your favorite?
According to those who attended the 24th Annual Chaos Communication Congress (24C3), it would appear that a fully hacked Wii capable of running native homebrew with full hardware access has been presented. This is great news for a lot of people who are interested in modding their Wii. Wii modchips have been around since the start of the year in various forms, but nothing that gave anyone full hardware access. The sky is now the limit for homebrew Wii developers.
It’s not known when this will become publicly available, but we will keep you up to date. Although I wouldn’t expect anything in the super near future, I am predicting that Wii will see boot disks available soon. They may not be the first type of hack to come out, but they will happen.
I’m not one to condone piracy, but modchips, hacks, cracks, bootdisks, and homebrew technology has always piqued my interest. This is something that I will definitely be keeping my eyes on. In an age when more and more hardware manufactures restrict what the user can do with the items that they paid their hard earned money for, it’s hard not to cheer for the underdog every now and again.
Ilchymis | March 28, 2008
