Wiikey Modders Claim Wii U Hack

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Wiikey Modders Claim Wii U Hack


The group of modders responsible for the WiiKey say they've now got their hands on everything they need to create a similar hack for the Wii U.

If you're into the homebrew scene on the Nintendo Wii (or, you know, that other scene) then you're probably familiar with WiiKey, a series of products that allows Wii owners to bypass Nintendo's copy protection schemes and run whatever they want. Some homebrew stuff is apparently quite good but of course in Nintendo's eyes it's piracy all the way down, and so the whole thing, as you might expect, ends up a running battle between the company and the modders.

The latest round, if the announcement from the Wiikey folks is to be believed, is going to go to the modders. The group has added something called the WiikeÜ (and that's the last time we'll be using the umlaut, by the way) to its products page and awful name notwithstanding, it promises to bust open the gates and lay down a rubber road right to freedom! Or, to be a tad more precise about it, to let you play Wii and Wii U games from any USB media.

"Yes, its real - we have now completely reversed the WiiU drive authentification, disk encryption, file system, and everything else needed for this next generation K3y. Stay tuned for updates!" the group announced [http://www.wiikey.com/news/]. It is (or will be) solder-free, user-friendly, stylish and constructed from only the highest-quality materials.

None of that is likely to matter in the slightest to Nintendo - but the fact that the system has been cracked is another matter entirely, and a very big deal if true. Nintendo says that it's seen no evidence verifying the Wiikey claims, however. "Nintendo is aware that a hacking group claims to have compromised Wii U security. However, we have no reports of illegal Wii U games nor unauthorized applications playable on the system while in Wii U mode," a rep told Eurogamer. "Nintendo continuously monitors all threats to its products' security and will use technology and will take the necessary legal steps to prevent the facilitation of piracy."

Sources: Eurogamer [http://www.wiikey.com/product/]


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Atmos Duality

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Mar 3, 2010
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Well, I'm sure this breach of security is just the thing needed to bring more titles to the WiiU(in the last way Nintendo wants)...

...and a fine way of scaring away even more prospective 3rd party developers.

*shrugs* Nintendo just can't catch a break it seems.
 

Roxas1359

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Aug 8, 2009
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All I really ever do whenever I modify a console is just to get rid of the region lock that is there. I mean I've imported many games and it'd be a lot easier if Nintendo would stop region locking their consoles. Or at least localize more games. Heck I'd be fine if you just translate the text to English. I mean it takes some time, but if I can translate all the text for Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days HD in just a month then it shouldn't be too bad, especially since I'm doing it all by myself and the game scripts aren't 100% accurate anymore so translations take a long time. B(

What was I on about, oh yeah the hack. Well if this hack is legit and it'll allow me to bypass the region locking that Nintendo holds so dear to then I may get a Wii U sooner than expected. Mainly because I wanna play some of my other Wii games that my soft mod on my Wii won't let me play...T^T

But region locking aside, security breaches are never a good thing to have as they unfortunately do get the actual pirates to start to pirate the games and to scare away 3rd party developers.
 

xPixelatedx

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I got no problem with people running home brew on their consoles, and even emulators since Nintendo can't be bothered to ever add games to their virtual console stores. The whole region lock thing is also BS (especially with Nintendo's poor import record) and basically BEGS people to break into this thing.

I do however think it is an enormous 'dick move' to pirate current games. I wouldn't worry too much though, people pirate games for EVERY console. And they will be doing it for the new Xbox and PS4 also, soon enough anyway.
 

Roxas1359

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xPixelatedx said:
I got no problem with people running home brew on their consoles, and even emulators since Nintendo can't be bothered to ever add games to their virtual console stores. The whole religion lock thing is also BS (especially with Nintendo's poor import record) and basically BEGS people to break into this thing.

I do however think it is an enormous 'dick move' to pirate current games. I wouldn't worry too much though, people pirate games for EVERY console. And they will be doing it for the new Xbox and PS4 also, soon enough anyway.
Hopefully Sony stays with the wise decision to not make their consoles region locked when it comes to the PS4. I'm glad that the PSP and my PS3 aren't region coded as I import quite a bit, but I do wish Nintendo would stop with the region locking crap.
 

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

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Sep 8, 2011
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Makes me wonder. Since PS4 will be pretty much like a PC in regards to the architecture, will it be easy to hack it?
 

MiskWisk

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DVS BSTrD said:
So you're saying there's been a Wiikey leak?
How do you come up with these?

OT: As much as I am against pirating, this again proves to me companies current methods of handling it are complete failures. If you're going to make some sort of protection, copy the Game Dev tycoon makers and troll the lot of them.
 

EstrogenicMuscle

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Adam Jensen said:
Makes me wonder. Since PS4 will be pretty much like a PC in regards to the architecture, will it be easy to hack it?
I'm going to guess that Sony will invest a lot in making it next to impossible after what happened with the PlayStation Network.

Either that or consoles have become so much like PCs anymore that Sony just doesn't care. That would be interesting.
 

wintercoat

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Nov 26, 2011
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MiskWisk said:
DVS BSTrD said:
So you're saying there's been a Wiikey leak?
How do you come up with these?

OT: As much as I am against pirating, this again proves to me companies current methods of handling it are complete failures. If you're going to make some sort of protection, copy the Game Dev tycoon makers and troll the lot of them.
He sacrifices a goat to Satan. It's why all of his puns are soul destroying. He gets tailor-made puns, Satan gets more broken souls. Win/win. Or lose, in our case.

OT: What's that make, five months? That sounds about right for breaking a console open. No doubt Nintendo will continue to go rabid on modders. I've got my comfy seat and bag of popcorn ready for the Benny Hill chase scene.

Captcha: love me? I-I'm sorry Captcha. It just won't work. I'm a human, you're a barely sentient computer program. We just live in different worlds.
 

PoolCleaningRobot

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Adam Jensen said:
Makes me wonder. Since PS4 will be pretty much like a PC in regards to the architecture, will it be easy to hack it?
I was thinking about that too. Another thing I'm wondering is whether or not people will be able to emulate it. I'm pretty sure the reason the ps3 can't be emulated (right now anyway) is because of its cell processor is too different from a normal computer.

Region locking is also a dick move so I'm all for the modders. And I'm not too concerned about the impact of piracy on the system. I don't think someone looking to pirate would have bought a Wii U in the first place, unless they knew they could pirate for it