Well, it may be a little early for anyone to actually produce a homebrew Wii game, but news just in from the 24th Annual Chaos Communication Congress (24C3) is suggesting that some dedicated hackers have managed to find the encryption and decryption keys for the Wii via full memory dumps, allowing homebrewed code to be run with full access to the Wii hardware (not just Gamecube mode) for the first time. Here’s the video to prove it:
These guys are professionals, with their reputations on the line … they don’t fake stuff, so I’d say it’s all true.
This is great news … it means that in the future developers will be able to release innovative software for the Wii without requiring the direct blessing of Nintendo, and we as players will have a wider choice of independently developed games and applications.
It is a very Merry Christmas for Wii owners after all !
Whoops … I suspect I missed this Christmas Day VC release … Nintendo broke schedule and I was away from Internet access. This week we got the Super Nintendo version of Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble!
Looks like nothing extra was released on the usual Virtual Console Friday though, which is a little disappointing.
If you’ve played any of the Donkey Kong Country trilogy, you know the routine. If you’ve never played any of the Donkey Kong Country trilogy, and you like platformers, don’t try this one immediately… start with the original Donkey Kong Country first (then quit and start on DKC3 once you get up to those damn mine carts … ).
A medicore week for Virtual Console releases. Do I say this too often ? Not my fault, there’s lots of retro-gaming goodness out there, we just only get a small sample of it on the Wii.
This week, we got Blades of Steel from the NES (not to be confused with Blades of Glory, which is an altogether different travesty), the 80’s flashback Skate or Die also from the NES and Monster Lair (aka Wonderboy III) from the Turbografx-16.
Skate or Die (NES) - I remember being excited about the PC version of this, back in the day, but nothing compels me to go back to it today.
Without wanting to sound too much like the Nintendo PR Department .. It’s great to see people having fun with the Wii. It’s been a year now, and yet the consumer demand and the general buzz is still alive and well … multiple family members have been requesting that I bring my Wii when I visit them over the Christmas period already … so much so I almost feel I could just lend them the Wii and not turn up, and they’d be happy .
A quick search on Flickr for ‘wii’ pulls up lots of smiling faces and flailing arms, reminding me of our last family gathering with the Wii. Here’s a few of my favorites (sorry, can’t embed Flickr photos here .. you’ll have to follow the links):
… Age is no barrier … now we’ve just gotta get these guys into some ‘hardcore’ games and encourage third-party developers to release some titles to capture the ‘grey dollar’.
There’s tons like this, and more at the Wii Motion Flickr pool … dedicated to photos of people having fun with their Wii. It’s like a peek into the living rooms of those lucky few who will unwrap a Wii come Christmas morning.
“Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles is, in my opinion, the best original third-party game developed for release on Wii this year.”
“… Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles co-op, with two Zappers, is close to the most perfect amount of fun two people can have with their clothes on.”
I’d say the House of Dead Wii releases in the pipeline are going to have a hard time competing with RE:UC, and the classic RE4. Check out the full review for the lowdown.
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