'Chip it and you brick it' warn Nintendo following Wii bust

[HEXUS]

Following a raid in Leicestershire,in which ELSPA investigators uncovered 2000 counterfeit chips, Nintendo has issued a warning to members of the public who may be thinking about picking up a dodgy Wii console.

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[finlay666]

How naive of nintendo

Buy chipped console, buy proper game for online.... should still work as some of the chips you can turn off too

[Jay]

The problem is that I know loads of people who have a Wii but none of the play online.

[Steven W]

It's a big thing for me, especially with MArio Kart. I want to play it online, it's the only reason I bought it. I wouldn't want to have a console where I couldn't use the online capability.

[SmileyUK]

sounds like scare tactics to me though.

although im guessing we will find out soon enough

[Spud1]

It is scare tactics.

I havn't chipped my wii or used anything "dodgy"on it, and every game on my wii I have bought (including the awesome mario kart). I've not chipped a console since the PSX, and even then that was only so I could play the NTSC games I brought back from holiday (&#163;5 chip < Freeloader).

I'm still interested in knowing whats going on in the homebrew/hacking scene for it though, as well i'm still a geek and being able to write my own software for the wii that actually uses the wii hardware (as opposed to just the GCN chip) intrieges me.

Many wii chips exist and the most popular ones are all updateable by methods as simple as putting in a CDr and running an update executeable. All of the popular chips allow you to run MKWii and play online or offline without troubles - as long as you update the firmware on the chip first. Of course you can easily brick your wii, but as I understand it this really only happens when idiots try to use (for example) a PAL wii update on an NTSC wii, or vice-versa..that can brick you wii. However even that is only temporary, as there are apparently ways to unbrick your wii pretty easily (although you might have to wait a week or so).

Nintendo could of course start banning wiis that they detect as using a drivechip, however i've not heard of this happening to anyone in the world as yet. In any case it will be irrelavent soon as things like the "twilight hack" have opened up the wii hardware without having to use a drivechip...still in very early days at the moment but a wii version of PSOLoad is in development (allowing for things like a wii version of gcos to be developed), and i'm pretty sure its only going to be a few months before someone finally finds a method of direct booting dvdr's without a chip.

Possibilities for piracy aside (which, contry to popular belief is NOT the main purpose of these hacks and drivechips), it does look like we'll have homebrew with access to wii hardware soon I'm looking forward to a proper wii video player myself, possibly with streaming capability so my wii could act as a media center (for things other than iplayer =) )


edit: re-read the quotes from the article - they don't make any sense, and seem to say that a chipped console won't work online or will cause you endless problems...clearly whoever released those statements has never bothered to do even the tiniest bit of research...

[Sinizter]

I dont have any chipped consoles, but one thing really annoys me.

I bought the console with my money, I will do with it as I please. Who the bloody **** are they to tell me what I can and cant do with it ?

[kopite]

A Wii with a wiikey in works fine with mario kart on line....

[Lee H]

Who the bloody **** are they to tell me what I can and cant do with it ?

I expect things like this are generally covered in the EULA than is about 12 pages long, in size 4 font which nobody reads as they tend to be full of legal gobbledegook which confuses the average user.

[kalniel]

I dont have any chipped consoles, but one thing really annoys me.

I bought the console with my money, I will do with it as I please. Who the bloody **** are they to tell me what I can and cant do with it ?

Who are you to break a license that you've bought and agreed to? If you don't like the license conditions then don't buy it.

[Sinizter]

Who are you to break a license that you've bought and agreed to? If you don't like the license conditions then don't buy it.

They sold me a product. It is now mine. BMW dont sell me a car and then tell me that I can only drive it for 5 miles a day at 20mph and it has to be on M1.

Fair enough if I chip it, the warranty is void. But they have no right to mess up the console just because it is chipped.

I dont give a crap what is written in the EULA - you need a microscope and a legal degree to go through that. And just for the record, a lot of EULA for software sold in the EU is practically illegal and wont stand in any EU court - could be a similar situation for consoles.

As for a wii, I dont have one and dont want one and certainly wont be shelling out money for it. My rant is for the whole console market. I bought it and its mine to do with as I please.

[Spud1]

I dont have any chipped consoles, but one thing really annoys me.

I bought the console with my money, I will do with it as I please. Who the bloody **** are they to tell me what I can and cant do with it ?

This is exactly the same thing as with the iPhone flashing..

You have bought the hardware, the equipment, however in order for that equipment to run you are using Nintendo's software - and you DO NOT own this. You own a licence to use the software in the manner specified by the licence.

So, if you modify this software (which is what a chip effectivly does, it replaces some of the boot code) you are breaking the terms of the agreement, and therefore void your right to use any of the nintendo software on the wii.

If you were to re-write every bit of software included on the wii, and didn't use any of the nintendo licenced code (which would mean you could not logon to the online services, or play any wii games etc..but you could use the wii equipment to run a very underpowered pc or something) then that would be fine - thats not against the licence and as you own the hardware, you are correct you can do what you like with it. If you start messing around with Nintendo owned code however then your breaking the licence, pure and simple.

Edit: Same as you don't own any PC game you have bought, you own the media and a licence to use the software. Also with your car analogy, you own the actual car but not any of the computer software in there, which is why doing something like chipping your car will also void your warranty and BMW will accept no liability for what happens if you do..situation is the same.

[Sinizter]

I give up .... I just wanted to vent.

And I WILL flash/jailbreak/unlock and iphone if I ever get one. I have absolutely no intention of getting an O2 contract for 18 months on top of shelling out &#163;300 and change for a phone.

[Mousemat]

So, if you modify this software (which is what a chip effectivly does, it replaces some of the boot code) you are breaking the terms of the agreement, and therefore void your right to use any of the nintendo software on the wii.

As far as I'm aware, a console chip doesn't really overwrite code as such, it just bypasses it and uses the alternative code on the new chip. The original Nintendo code still exits in its unaltered form on the original hardware.

Wouldn't their argument be similar to saying that by using an alternative BIOS, or replacing the Windows bootloader when dual-booting with Linux you have hacked Windows?

[Spud1]

It injects code into the process afaik, bypassing certain key parts of the boot process - so that is really modifying the code at runtime.

Alternative BIOS's are not usually supported by the manufacturers are they? It varies considerably on the manufacturer w/r to bios, but those that allow it will have a different EULA saying so

Dual booting is unrelated in this case as that is done by modifying the boot/partition data on the hard disk and you never touch the windows bootloader or windows itself, and nothing is done to 'trick' or 'inject' code into it. Also it's different as Microsoft provide their own multi-OS bootloader if you do things in the reccomended way, and i'm pretty sure they wouldn't provide support if things go wrong when your installing grub or lilo...which is the same as what Nintendo do (ie if it all goes wrong, they wont offer support).

[Mousemat]

Oh, I know there's a million and one reasons for it, I was just saying that I'm not convinced by them. And I'm fairly sure I'm not alone in that.

It injects code into the process afaik, bypassing certain key parts of the boot process - so that is really modifying the code at runtime.

Like I said, the code it still there, you're just using your own in place of it (to skip sections). In essence you've created your own mini-bootloader, your software, to call intact code elsewhere on the system. It's not really the same as coping sections of Nintendo source code and claiming it as your own. Although I'm well aware that the lawyers would take a totally different stance.

Alternative BIOS's are not usually supported by the manufacturers are they? It varies considerably on the manufacturer w/r to bios, but those that allow it will have a different EULA saying so

Dual booting is unrelated in this case as that is done by modifying the boot/partition data on the hard disk and you never touch the windows bootloader or windows itself, and nothing is done to 'trick' or 'inject' code into it.

All I was really trying to say here was that the OS itself wasn't being hacked by using an alternative boot-loader.

... if it all goes wrong, they wont offer support

I agree that having changed the bootloader, you really can't expect them to fix your problems for you.