After a long wait, the Wii Homebrew Channel has been released. For anyone who's not sure what this is all about, here's a brief from the official site:

The Homebrew Channel is a channel for launching Wii homebrew applications without the need to run the Twilight Hack first. It will list apps stored and organised on an SD card in a nice little GUI, which you can very easily customise with descriptions and shiny little .png icons all by yourself if you want. You can also launch homebrew apps via TCP (with a correctly configured PC) or USB Gecko. Both of those built in options make it extremely convenient for testing out new code, as well as a general purpose homebrew launcher.

A video of the channel in action below:



It all looks very professional, and all you need to perform this softmod is a copy of Twilight Princess and an SD card. I'll be trying this as soon as I get home. It can be downloaded from the official site.

I accidentally blew away everyone's comments to this thread. Sorry.

The really funny part was I tested what I was doing really carefully to make sure it wouldn't do anything like that, and the test worked perfectly BUT it did the exact same thing, I just didn't realise. HAH!

Haha, what the hell were you trying to do?

I was doing a mass update of all the comments in this particular thread, and I accidentally overwrote them all with your post (so basically every comment was just a dupe of your post). Pretty spectactular fail.

Ill restart the debate then.

Wii is better than xbox and it will have a media centre just as good as xbmc

Discuss.

Ok since Trog nuked all the posts, I thought it might be OK to post in this thread. I've installed the Homebrew Channel and it works nicely. I think I remember reading in this thread about streaming media over the wifidanglethingy, what applications are needed for this. Wiimedia is still under testing, is there another app?

Nah, I haven't really looked into it much, so I don't know.

I guess it's worth mentioning, though, that I got my import copy of Super Smash Bros. Brawl yesterday, and I've been booting it with the homebrew region-free loader. Makes me all happy inside.

But will it work with the upcoming patch?

why would nintendo try to stop people who aren't illegally pirating software ? its not like it allows "backups" to be played.

^ companies generally like to have total control, so that you only use a device for the uses that they originally thought up and 'authorise'. Whether or not it allows piracy is irrelevant, it probably still scares them.

I don't know know about Nintendo in particular, but just generalising.

I think it's more a case of companies worried that such homebrew might lead to piracy. At the moment the guys that are making and releasing these hacks do not want to support piracy but rather homebrew.

Also what upcoming patch? The one that blocks the freeloader (and other similarly signed disks) or the current Wiiware one or are you just saying in general?

forget that, when is the porn channel being released?

But will it work with the upcoming patch?

Nobody is quite sure at the moment. The creators of the channel think that it should still work fine if it's already installed, but you may not be able to install it if you haven't already. Or, in a worse case, the channel wont work anymore. I'm not sure why, but they don't believe bricking is a likely threat.

But even so, the safest thing to do would be to not immediately update whenever each new update comes out. Rather, head over to Wiibrew.org and see what they've got to say about it. If it's safe, they'll say so, if it's not, then you can either delete the channel and update, or just not update for the time being and wait until a fix is issued.

forget that, when is the porn channel being released?

It's been out for ages, it's called The Internet Channel.

I have to say, Homebrew channel + Wii + Scumm = THE MOTHERf***ING WIN. Been playing DOTT, good times.

so in other words it's great?

might fire up tentacle now actually. good times

I just bought a Wii and have played my first few games of Mario Kart online.
I only have the "Nintendo shopping channel" and "Mario Kart" channel, plus the weather and news.

How can I get other channels and which ones are worth getting?

I just had a look at the Wikipedia on Wii and saw that the internet channel costs 500 wii points. How do I get wii points?

I am not really that keen to get my wii modded at the moment due to the questions surrounding updates causing issues and/or bricking the console altogether. So what legal upgrades or add-ons are available?

You get points by converting credit card numbers into wii points online, then enter a code you get into the wii shopping channel and you download it that way.

The mod I've used is a soft mod and needs an SD card + Zelda Twilight Princess and a hacked savegame. You copy the save game to SD then to your wii, run Zelda load the saved game and it borks itself and runs a file called boot.elf on your SD card that boots whatever you have set it up as. In my case it was the Homebrew channel. Now I can use the channel to load any homebrew and don't have to use the twilight princess hack.

You can delete the homebrew channel and it is asif your wii was never modded.
You can't play backup DVD's or anything with this kind of mod.

IncrEdible_vEgetable, there are a couple of free channels you can download from the Nintendo shopping channel.

The Internet Channel isn't really worth it, there are a lot of things that don't load on it but I think that stems from adobe not letting Opera use newer versions of flash (or something equally retarded).

I suggest getting the homebrew channel as it's completely a soft mod and not illegal in any way or shape. All you need is a copy of twilight princes (one time only use) and an SD card.

Here is a list of applications for the channel. I haven't tried any of them (apart from the ones that come in the HBC package) but some of the emulators require a SDGecko. No idea what that is.

so this is unlikely to brick a wii or get it banned from updates or such?

There is a 99.9% you wont brick your wii. Wii updates are an optional choice that you have to actively get. To be absolutely sure, just wait a few days after a new update is released and check the homebrew site mentioned above and they will let everyone know, quickly, if it is safe. The upcoming patch has been tested as best they could and it works fine with it. No banning. I'm very sure Nintendo will issue warnings of banning before they release something like that.

The only thing that may stop working is the region freeloader that comes with Homebrew channel.


The internet chennel can be used to stream simple media to your Wii, such as music and pictures and dodgy quality flash movies.

The emulators that I had a go of, scumm, snes9x and genplus did not require the SDGeko, just a normal SD card. They all use the Wii remote.

Wii is better than xbox

Poor bait.
I agree wii is "better"
I don't agree that wii is more powerful. It is at best "as powerful", and from what I have read ther experts all seem to say less powerful.

As for media center... 5.1 sound (yeah I know you don't have it... I laugh at your s*** av setup, go get a haircut and job)

I suggest getting the homebrew channel as it's completely a soft mod and not illegal in any way or shape

nfi, not a lawyer and nor are you...

And given that you are probably using it to play illegal content, its a mute point.

At anyrate nintendo reserve the right to do everything from disable your wii to disable your internet. (But I doubt they will)

so this is unlikely to brick a wii or get it banned from updates or such?

It is a channel. Much like all the VC rips. It is believed to be super trivial for nintendo to detect with a future patch or possibly via the shop. Whether or not they do is a totally different question.

And seriously if you want a media player. Go get popcorn hour or and old xbox something. Save your wii for gaming... and where's my cricket

I am not really that keen to get my wii modded at the moment due to the questions surrounding updates causing issues and/or bricking the console altogether

there are issues?

I suggest getting the homebrew channel as it's completely a soft mod and not illegal in any way or shape


nfi, not a lawyer and nor are you...

I'm sure that modding consoles was found to be legal in Australia by the courts, regardless of what the console manufactures say.

What you do on a modded console, however, is something else.

And given that you are probably using it to play illegal content, its a mute point.

A soft mod in particular doesn't give you access to the DVD drive and you cant run burnt/backup games with it. Sure you can do dodgy things with VC games, most Wii Homebrew developers avoid developing things that could facilitate piracy.

Pretty much what Tollaz0r! is saying but also adding the fact that I never said it was legal, just not illegal.

And given that you are probably using it to play illegal content, its a mute point.

I haven't even used the emulators to play some nes games, so this is completely untrue. I just muted your mute point.

I'm sure that modding consoles was found to be legal in Australia by the courts, regardless of what the console manufactures say.

Modding for the purpose of removing regionalisation. Any other purpose is illegal.

Pretty much what Tollaz0r! is saying but also adding the fact that I never said it was legal, just not illegal.

If it isn't illegal it is legal. There is no inbetween, il means not ie.illegal means not legal ... its a binary state.

I haven't even used the emulators to play some nes games, so this is completely untrue. I just muted your mute point.

So what did you use it for ? .. playing a tv shop you downloaded illegally ? ...
Is there even a single legal use for the wii homebrew channel ?

my first impressions of the wii (i got lego indiana yesterday on a price match at EB for the target special $71.95) is that it is cool and all but it ain't no PC.

so it's back to Company of Heroes i go. the tennis is awesome fun though.

Is there even a single legal use for the wii homebrew channel ?

Some SCUMM games are free to play, that is one use.

Homebrew'ed games and apps.

The Homebrew channel isn't some magical gateway into the high seas of pirating like you seem to think it is.

It is a channel. Much like all the VC rips.

No, I'm pretty sure the homebrew channels are different to that. They're using an exploit to sign the code so that the Wii will accept them, whereas the VC rips are signed officially, you just use an external application to install them.

its a mute point.

You sure it's not a moot one?

Is there even a single legal use for the wii homebrew channel ?

As far as I know, all of its uses are legal. There's no law against playing imported games, running linux, or having emulators. Sure, emulators CAN be used for illegal activities, but they're usable without the Homebrew Channel anyway. Obes, why do you hate homebrew so much?

Oh Mr Obes how angry you seem to be.

Modding for the purpose of removing regionalisation. Any other purpose is illegal.

What about running your own programmed games or other peoples freely available games? What about the host of awesome applications like Wii Miidia (which is in development)?

I know what you're trying to say Obes, but not all of us want to pirate games and do bad things because we are naughty.

By the way, the law isn't black and white there are gray areas.

I'm not angry, I think that there is alot of poor advice going on here. Even the people who wrote this stuff say it would be easy for Nintendo to detect. Never mind failure to do things properly can brick or semi brick a console. There are forums devoted to these scenes and if people can't find them and aware of the issues I don't think this is a good place to be selling the virtues at a best "gray" activity.

Pretty sure the failure by home brew devs to pay licencing fees means that its not legal. Plus you aren't allowed to reverse engineer anything (specially anything encrypted gg. US terror laws) so how'd they work it all out ?

If running your own code was nice and dandy .. why do all the software houses pay massive big licencing costs to nintendo ?

And greazy there isn't very much gray law. It is black and white, the "gray" stuff is black or white it's just yet to be looked at. "but I didn't know" and "but greazy said" are not valid defences.

To advise people to mod and not make them aware of the possible consequences is lame. Always warn people.

Obes, why do you hate homebrew so much?

I don't. I don't think here is the place to be talking about it.

It has been implied that there is a small chance of bricking, anyone modding their hardware should be aware there is the minimal risk of bricking and the chance that Nintendo will block your Wii.

If you don't know this, you soon will when you go about gathering the required bits for doing a soft/hard mod.

If running your own code was nice and dandy .. why do all the software houses pay massive big licencing costs to nintendo ?

Because all the software houses get monies from selling their game.

Because all the software houses get monies from selling their game.

No ... if you wanted to give software away you'd still have to pay the licence fee.

This all sounds very unstable/unsafe.

OK Obes, you win.

I'll enjoy my homebrew still, until my Wii gets horribly bricked or something like that.

If running your own code was nice and dandy .. why do all the software houses pay massive big licencing costs to nintendo ?

Wouldn't it be because they get access to the official SDK, removing the need for reverse engineering?

And I'd like to see something stating that reverse engineering is illegal. A quick check on Wikipedia says the following:

In the United States and many other countries, even if an artifact or process is protected by trade secrets, reverse-engineering the artifact or process is often lawful as long as it is obtained legitimately.

I know it's only Wikipedia, but statements like "you aren't allowed to reverse engineer anything" sound mighty strange to me. The creators of the homebrew channel made sure to mention that 100% of the code used was their own, with none of it being taken from the official Wii SDK.

last edited by Midda at 13:51:11 10/Jun/08

The terms of use of the hardware specifically states reverse engineering, I think it says in reference to accessories and hardware (or possibly network, but then application is a layer of OSI model), but a good lawyer will be able to twist that to mean anything. If you don't like it you shouldn't have agreed and returned it. ie. its a licensing provision. So while not a criminal act, it is however something they can probably chase you for legally. But its wording is moderately vague and legalistic.

Also reverse engineering for a wii or 360 won't be legal in the US due to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Can't even blame Bush for that law. But its nasty, it would actually make Ausgamers infringing. Why ? because it is disseminating information that could be used for the cicumvention of DRM (there is no requirement of proof that DRM is being circumvented just that it could be used to).
ie. did you talk about it here ? yes
can it be used to circumvent DRM ? yes
thats enough

Thankfully they have no equivilent here ... yet (I am sure boba could ring someone and organise it)

Basically for it to be legal it has to pass 2 or 3 layers
1. End user agreement/contract. Its pre-emptive to everything. Until they write a law that says end user agreements are not binding ... s*** happens
2. Local laws eg. DMCA
3. IP laws/Berne convention.

AFAIK Only the last has reverse engineering been given the ok, and then only when using knowledge gained to incorporate into future technology/products. (I am not sure "so you can reuse the hardware to play pirated movies" counts).

If you are using it purely for non copywrited material and activities, then you might only have to worry about nintendo saying its against the AUP/TOS whatever.

I vaguely remember around 99 it was actually quite a big issue because people were having to reverse engineer software for y2k. Probably a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo from then somewhere.

ps. keep it in the scenes

Latest news from Wiibrew.org reports that the most recent Wii System Update (June 16) has started to make running homebrew difficult. Here's the latest:

The latest Wii System Menu update appears to remove copies of the Twilight Hack and may fix the trucha signing bug. Updating is not recommended.

Q & A

it says the UPDATE removes any edited save files... can you just recopy the twilight princess hack again?

Nope, you can't, it won't let you copy any edited file.

will it delete Homebrew Channel?

No, it won't delete it.

is Homebrew Channel still working?

Some people say yes.

So, it looks as though while updating wont harm your system or disable the Homebrew Channel, you may not be able to install or use the Twilight Hack.

An additional note, anyone who uses the Datel Freeloader will also want to refrain from updating, as it uses the same exploit as the Trucha signer. If this update does patch the exploit, your Freeloader will probably stop working.