WiiWare - Legal Homebrew Coming to Nintendo Wii

[wraggster]

Nintendo are soon to unleash WiiWare which will give amateur and hobbyist coders the chance to program and even sell games on the Virtual Console. Legal Homebrew on the Wii Arrives.

More Details at Wii News (http://wii-news.dcemu.co.uk/nintendo-announces-wiiware-legal-homebrew-on-the-wii--67105.html)

DIGG THIS (http://digg.com/nintendo_wii/WiiWare_Legal_Homebrew_On_the_Wii)

http://digg.com/nintendo_wii/WiiWare_Legal_Homebrew_On_the_Wii

[parkermauney]

Who dugg it? It's already been dugg to like 1,200+.

It's a phail'd dupe.


Great news though! Will they be distributing an sdk maybe?

[SSaxdude]

Awesome! I bet the Wii will become THE homebrew console now, such in the likes of the great Dreamcast.

[ficksucker]

Sounds interesting and good for homebrew. I wonder if people will be forced to pay to download homebrew games then, and how that could affect homebrew.

Also, is it just me, or is that damn Chinese video on the main page that automatically plays itself whenever I visit incredibly annoying?

[Cokemusic]

A few reasons why Wii will struggle to beat PSP for the title of homebrew king

1.PSP homebrew is not condoned by Sony ( Maybe Nintendo's move may influence sony's perspective) So the homebrew community can be seen as an underground rebelling. Dark Alex, Fanjita , Team Noobz would be kinda useless in terms of customer firmwares and downgraders if Sony actually allowed homebrew on their device.

2. The PSP already has a reputation for homebr3w and may have already lost the battle before begining , keep in mind the PSP homebr3w scene has been around for a couple of years now and could easily squash Wii's competition in it's begining stages.

3. For some reason console homebrew is not as popular as portable homebrew , You can't uses your Wii for GPS,Calculator(LOL),WiFi Remote,Mobile Instant messenger or many other functions portable devices are capable of.

4.Nintendo's efforts reduce the desire of coders to exploit the device , since nintendo's allowing homebrew what's the point of exploiting the Wii ? it's like escaping outa the steel window in your prison cell when the cell door is open.

[Veskgar]

Awesome! I bet the Wii will become THE homebrew console now, such in the likes of the great Dreamcast.

Sure it will be cool to tinker with programming on the Wii but I doubt anything will become better than the PSP in terms of homebrew. I'm astonished that the Nintendo DS homebrew scene is not nearly as fast moving as the PSP scene is. With the touch screen, you would think there that just might actually be more homebrew potential on a DS Lite. But then again, the DS Lite can't run homebrew right out of the box now like the PSP. Thanks to the new downgrader, every single PSP in existence can now be downgraded if their owners desire.

Also, what's up with the mention of Dreamcast homebrew so often? I don't mean to diss it or minimize it, its just that I found my old Dreamcast and realized it was one of the older units able to run homebrew and I tried burning some emulator CD's and all of the emulators seem to run terrible on the Dreamcast. Aside from the Nester NES emulator for Dreamcast, all others like SNES, Turbo Grafx 16, etc. seem to run slow. Frameskip makes playability really choppy and unnatural.

Maybe I'm using the wrong emulators but I believe I was using the latest versions. Basically, aside from playing self-boot backups of Dreamcast games, is Dreamcast homebrew really as good as it is hyped to be?

Back on topic, I don't think offical supported homebrew kits will ever be as popular as underground scenes like the PSP homebrew scene. There is definitely a sort of rebellious feel to PSP homebrew, maybe even a feeling of elitism. If SONY were to say, fine, you win, do whatever you want and we won't restrict you anymore, it will lose some of its magic.

I don't think it is possible for the PSP homebrew scene to die off at this point. With all of the 20 million or so PSP units manufactured to date able to be downgraded thanks to Noobz and others involved, I think this definitely seals the deal that SONY will just bring out another hardware version of the PSP and that will likely be harder (though I dare not say impossible) to hack.

Its also possible that the homebrew scne thinks its bigger than it really is. I think SONY considers us just a small niche and wants it to stay that way. They don't think parents are going to go out to buy their kids PSP's to downgrade. Although that is exactly what is happening more than you'd think. Kids seem to have more fun playing GBA & SNES on the PSP than they do commercial PSP games.

Anyway, I like Nintendo, I like the Wii, and I think this is just one more example of Nintendo trying to put the consumer first. I get a feeling that Nintendo really genuinely cares about the consumers that purchase their products. Most people definitely don't feel that way about SONY.

I don't want to see SONY fail by no means. I am extremely thankful to SONY for giving us the PSP. I just disagree with a lot of decisions they have made in the PSP's 2 1/2 years of life so far.

Basically, you can admire Nintendo's decision but you can't compare it to an underground scene.

[h4s30]

nintendo is kickin ass thats all i have to say

[ryan2006]

hmmm i doubt nintendo will let you harness all the wiis power most likely thell release a program on pc's that you can just makes some basics games nothings too fancy that you can put on an sd and load it from a the browser and once your happy you can upload it on the vc

[Nicko01]

Though i do think that PSP homebrew will be better, I am very excited for the release of WiiWare, which will bring much more fun to the Wii, and also make it easier to get new games.

[mcdougall57]

i just hope that many coders will not charge bor their games on the vc

[felonyr301]

This is awesome great for nintendo to do this.

Yes that chinese video playing automatically is really ANNOYING!!!

[alfatreze]

You need to see this from the right point of view, the people being aimed by these efforts are small studios and independent developers, that cannot afford the development and publishing costs required for a commercial game production. Not really the renegade developer that wants to dabble into homebrew, sure he can do it, but the level is more professional than regular homebrewing. You can creative innovative things with low budgets (not free), and have at your disposal a worldwide distribution service.
The homebrew scene will not die, and exploits will continue to be searched. Since there are many types of development that nintendo would never allow to bo distrubuted thru their channels, either because of quality, morals, or legal issues.
So stop daydreaming and get cracking on either wii games, or wii exploits ideas :D

??? why were people even bringing up the notion that this impacts PSP homebrew in any way ???

[englishrick]

Will still be crappy graphics involved though.....Next gen machine with sub standard graphics

[Demonic_Cr0w]

Bah! I can't wait =3 I've never had enough money or experience to try homebrewing so it looks like this is the way for me ^^

[Nicko01]

Will still be crappy graphics involved though.....Next gen machine with sub standard graphics

This is what i hate about people's thoughts on the wii.
The graphics are BETTER THAN PS2!
That is NOT "sub standard" graphics!
The Wii is more powerful than the PS2... Everyone who has one knows this.
You probably only watch low-quality youtube video's of the wii and think that's as good as the graphics are.

PLEASE stop saying the Wii has bad graphics people!

[mavsman4457]

I agree with what people have said about it not being as good because they are giving it to us. Also doesn't anyone else find it tired that Nintendo wants to include tha name wii in everything or they want to spell every accessory, game, and program with ii? Thats just ticking me off.


Also, is it just me, or is that damn Chinese video on the main page that automatically plays itself whenever I visit incredibly annoying?

I agree so much. Especially now that it is at the bottom and I have to scroll all the way down just to shut it off.


Edit: And one more thing. The Wii's graphics suck so Wiiware will suck as well.

[felonyr301]

Lets see gamecube was better hardware wise than the ps2 and the wii is a turbocharged version of it which means the wii doesn't have awful graphics. It could be that alot of people have LCD TV's but only perform at it's best when iin 720P but the wii only does 480p unlike the 360 or ps3 so it's going to look awful at those tv's.

Seen it on a CRT HDTV which CRT's don't have to worry about native resolution so it does look pretty good.
Then again it was only Zelda Twilight Princess that I've seen.

[maxipower90]

its good news but i love my pimped psp more than anything, well until someone released something i like on the Wii of course

[Shadowblind]

Wait.....so that means....Nintendo is actually MAKING AN APP for homebrew?!

[Hiei311]

ummm isnt sony gonna start letting people do mods on the pc to the ps3? i saw this on game soumthin it was on cheapassgamers.com but yea in the interview a sony rep said that they will be letting users to make modes for ps3, when ut3 comes out

[VampDude]

Nintendo are one step ahead of the homebrew coders, because when titles start appearing Nintendo will make a small profit from the sales and Nintendo will also be monitoring what applications will be released into the general public so the only homebrew titles will most probably be games - Nintendo probably won't allow homebrew applications for emulators as they will lose money from the Virtual Console not selling games. Nintendo have a plan!

[Sousanator]

If the homebrew devkit is free, I will for sure be making some games,

I also hope, that in the event that you need VC points to buy these games, that the dev gets the VC points, or atleast a high percentage of it

[ish420ism]

Maybe it will turn into something like the steam servers. If a team of developers want to charge for their work. Then they will. Freeware and shareware also available.
In addition, about the graphics, what is the difference if it's for the ps3 or the wii. All these complainers must think it's a piece of cake coming up with a game from thought to finish. Maybe you have someone wipe your asses for you.
To come up with a beautiful looking 3d game, that's fun to interact with, thousands of man hours are involved. Great mods take that long, even while having the game engine.
Anyway, We'll have to wait and see.

[x999x]

A few reasons why Wii will struggle to beat PSP for the title of homebrew king

1.PSP homebrew is not condoned by Sony ( Maybe Nintendo's move may influence sony's perspective) So the homebrew community can be seen as an underground rebelling. Dark Alex, Fanjita , Team Noobz would be kinda useless in terms of customer firmwares and downgraders if Sony actually allowed homebrew on their device.

2. The PSP already has a reputation for homebr3w and may have already lost the battle before begining , keep in mind the PSP homebr3w scene has been around for a couple of years now and could easily squash Wii's competition in it's begining stages.

3. For some reason console homebrew is not as popular as portable homebrew , You can't uses your Wii for GPS,Calculator(LOL),WiFi Remote,Mobile Instant messenger or many other functions portable devices are capable of.

4.Nintendo's efforts reduce the desire of coders to exploit the device , since nintendo's allowing homebrew what's the point of exploiting the Wii ? it's like escaping outa the steel window in your prison cell when the cell door is open.

1. You are forgetting about the people who look at homebrew as piracy and therefore don't code for the scene even though they would love to. Now they can and not have learn how to hack their firmware or buy shoddy hardware from hong kong. They can code legally and with real tools.

2. This is moot, but how many people own PSPs compared to Wiis now? So yeah, you see my point, your point has no point... :P

3. Console homebrew is popular, ever heard of the Dreamcast? It kinda help jump start this scene, and that's where the "DC" in DCEmu comes from. Oh yeah, the DC is a console.

4. Again, this ties in to point 1. Why code for the Wii now that Nintendo allows it? How about real libraries and toolsets to use on your game or application for starters? How about the drive to reverse engineer their boot sequence and create a backdoor for other possibilities outside the boundaries that define WiiWare?

---

I'm personally tired of using GC homebrew on my Wii, and hope that this news puts more on the table.

[Joe88]

pay for homebrew???


hahahahahahaha..............

:rofl:

[Spotfist]

I am honestly surprised SONY havent thought about this, for the money hungry business they seem to be I would have thought a UMD that allows homebrew play would have been created ages ago!

Surely they see how many people use homebrew at the moment and could make a bit of cash on the idea as Nintendo are doing! I think alot of people out there don't even know that homebrew on the PSP exists let alone how big it is!

If anything I would have thought it would increase the amount of homebrew developers due to advertising, perhaps a few SONY sponsered compotitions... To be honest I think it's what the PSP needs, as many people coming up with ideas for games that are different.

[emuking]

Will still be crappy graphics involved though.....Next gen machine with sub standard graphics

wii graphics are better than ps2 and xbox and gamecube, enough said

[emuking]

I agree with what people have said about it not being as good because they are giving it to us. Also doesn't anyone else find it tired that Nintendo wants to include tha name wii in everything or they want to spell every accessory, game, and program with ii? Thats just ticking me off.



I agree so much. Especially now that it is at the bottom and I have to scroll all the way down just to shut it off.


Edit: And one more thing. The Wii's graphics suck so Wiiware will suck as well.

what kind of graphic whore opinion is that you dont even own a wii, the graphics are better than ps2 and even xbox

[Accordion]

i really dont think this is a home-brew solution, its aimed at small developer units with low budgets. not lone coders who make games for fun, this is a job.

[yaustar]

You still need to be a registered developer with Nintendo and have a NDEV kit. I repeat, this is not for homebrew (at least not yet).

http://www.n-sider.com/newsview.php?type=story&storyid=2893

This is more aimed at the Indie market (e.g. Introversion like companies) that produce games for the XBLA.

[sappo]

Another good owning technique by Nintendo.

It will be like X360 Marketplace.

Good Work, N!

[Category]

Man, are you guys a bit dense? This has NOTHING to do with homebrew. If you read the press release, you would see that the SDK is NOT being given away for free, Nintendo will be charging for all independent games being released throught the WiiWare portal (and Nintendo controls the cost, not the developers), and EVERY SINGLE TITLE will need an ESRB rating to be made available - and it costs money to get rated.

I very much doubt anyone in the homebrew scene will get the chance to put out a game via WiiWare - unless they are very rich little kids. This is more aimed at smaller independent studios with the financial backing to cover these costs.

Homebrew on the Wii will not happen because of this - think of it more like the XBox Live Marketplace - we will have somewhere to PAY for new downloadable games - not make them in your bedroom and sell them on the Wii.

[Demolition49]

stop hating on nintendo, they are again stepping in to areas to try and expand gaming, in the end all companys follow nintendo, so you should be greatful and stop saying wii has crap graphics after you play 2D homebrew on a psp, which is way more under powered than a wii.

[XDelusion]

I hope you can make games or software free too! It would be nice to see open source projects such as GzDOOM make there way to the Wii!

http://grafzahl.drdteam.org/

[Shadowblind]

Nintendo are one step ahead of the homebrew coders, because when titles start appearing Nintendo will make a small profit from the sales and Nintendo will also be monitoring what applications will be released into the general public so the only homebrew titles will most probably be games - Nintendo probably won't allow homebrew applications for emulators as they will lose money from the Virtual Console not selling games. Nintendo have a plan!

Dont worry about that--there would be no way to stop the mods in time...

[ish420ism]

stop hating on nintendo, they are again stepping in to areas to try and expand gaming, in the end all companys follow nintendo, so you should be greatful and stop saying wii has crap graphics after you play 2D homebrew on a psp, which way more under powered than a wii.

I agree that while idiots are bashing the wii graphics, the same idiots praise crappier, 2d graphics, on the psp.
Get a clue guys.
...and that's from the heart

[Cokemusic]

This is what i hate about people's thoughts on the wii.
The graphics are BETTER THAN PS2!
That is NOT "sub standard" graphics!
The Wii is more powerful than the PS2... Everyone who has one knows this.
You probably only watch low-quality youtube video's of the wii and think that's as good as the graphics are.

PLEASE stop saying the Wii has bad graphics people!

LMAO @ Comparing Wii to the PS2 , it was created like what ? 5 + years ago ? The Wii is not far better than the PS2 in terms of performance and that's shocking./

I admit the Wii is a very innovative piece of technology however it's serverly lacking in comparison to the PS3 and Xbox 360 it's.

PS3 VS Wii=FERRAI VS SKODA

Yeah more skodas are sold but they still suck , like Wii


I agree that while idiots are bashing the wii graphics, the same idiots praise crappier, 2d graphics, on the psp.
Get a clue guys.
...and that's from the heart

2D games are only a small % of the homebrew on offer , i'm not even gonna goin into it . If you look @ homebrew communities you'll find that it is very diverse , search for an hour and your only scratching the surface of it.

[Homerun]

Another reason why The Big N PWNS

[TeenDev]

Hey Nintendo! How does it feel to have your first good idea?

BTW, Homebrew has always been legal

[-=me=-]

Even if this was free homebrew, keep in mind Nintendo would crush all emulators or flashing/modding apps. It could not possibly be as useful as the PSP

[Christuserloeser]

Also, what's up with the mention of Dreamcast homebrew so often? I don't mean to diss it or minimize it, its just that I found my old Dreamcast and realized it was one of the older units able to run homebrew

Most Dreamcast's can run homebrew. The ones that can't are VERY rare.



I tried burning some emulator CD's and all of the emulators seem to run terrible on the Dreamcast. Aside from the Nester NES emulator for Dreamcast, all others like SNES, Turbo Grafx 16, etc. seem to run slow. Frameskip makes playability really choppy and unnatural.

With SNES and TG16 you actually weren't very lucky in your choice of emulators: The existing ones for both systems never really took off. The best we have for those systems would be DreamSNES and PCECast.

What makes the Dreamcast so special is that it's been the first console to have a decent library of homebrew software, long before Xbox and PSP.

Other than those systems, the Dreamcast has it's own legal SDK. Because of that it's the only system out there where you can legally publish your games for. See Last Hope, Feet of Fury, Cool Herders, etc. :)

In terms of emulation, the 4All series and GenesisPlusDC are pretty impressive. Thanks to its age, Dreamcast also has the biggest library of emulators for old 8bit and 16bit home computers out there. Of course you can emulate about any 8bit console there ever was too.

There also is a load of original freeware games, most of which are of a fine quality. You can use LUA or FENIX to write your games without using C. There are many ports of classic FPS like Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein 3d. It's an excellent Beats of Rage and SCUMMVM player. :)

Stuff like we do at DCEvolution.net (http://www.dcevolution.net) wouldn't be possible for other systems.

Don't forget that the Dreamcast had quite an impact on the homebrew scene, which was rather small back then.

Heck, it even was the reason for this site to be founded, hence the name DCEmu. ;)

[-Xandu-]

Dreamcast is dead now that's for sure..

[VampDude]

Dont worry about that--there would be no way to stop the mods in time...

If so, I would love to see some Emu's running on the Wii! :D

[Christuserloeser]

Dreamcast is dead now that's for sure..

Hm, somewhere I've read that before...

[VampDude]

Dreamcast is dead now that's for sure..

Are you 100% positively sure? Because the Dreamcast will never die, and that's a known fact!

[Cokemusic]

Are you 100% positively sure? Because the Dreamcast will never die, and that's a known fact!

That's opinion , trust me it's pretty much in the decomposition stages.

[quzar]

That's opinion , trust me it's pretty much in the decomposition stages.

Oh, well if YOU say so, then it must be true. What were we all thinking. Alright boys, lets delete all these WIP things we have going, cause Cokemusic said the DC was dead and decomposing.

Good thing we have you to keep us in line.

Anyways, I think it was irresponsible for whoever first said this would be homebrew (especially "legal" homebrew) for the wii, since it's not by any means. Shame.