Homebrew on the Wii on the Way?

November 18th, 2006, 21:27 Posted By: gunntims0103

news via 4 color rebellion

There is always that group of people that has to tinker with every gadget they get. People have been able to hack every game system out there today. How many of you have a flashed DS or have been affected by some hacker while playing an online DS game? Anyways, it seems that the Wii homebrew scene has already been started. A Nintendo geek has started a project named Wiili for his final year in college, aimed at bringing Linux to the Wii.

He seems to be making this piece of software into a free live DVD based on Mandriva. What this means is that basically you put a DVD into your drive and it temporarily loads the OS. Once you turn the computer off, the Wii acts like it has never been touched by the disc. Well that is basically how it should work in theory(think of it like a game or the Opera DS browser). Anyways the author is unable at the time to verify that the this will actually work, but he conjectures that since it is based closely on the Gamecube hardware, it shouldn’t take too much for it to work on the Wii. It seems like a pretty nifty little thing to play with the Wii. He aims to have the following features available on Wiili.

Surf the Internet (using the control as a mouse pointer)
Wii Media Extender, Stream moves, music, etc, from a PC to a TV using WiiLi and the Nintendo Wii in the middle. Think Apple iTV for free.
Write a document with a regular USB keyboard and print it with any USB printer.
Email and chat with your friends.
Use an external USB storage device to backup and play your movies, games, mp3’s, etc…
Play old classic games using the MAME console emulator.
Develop your own programs and games.
Control WiiLi from your PC using the WiFi connection.
Use Willi and the Wii as a Network Attached Storage (NAS) by connecting it to an external USB HD.
Anything you could possibly do with a regular computer.

Wow, what a list, this sounds like more of a computer than our revolutionary game console. If this software ever gets out, this could be described as no other word other than awesome. But then again that is a big “if”. The Wii isn’t out yet and these are some pretty bold claims about what the software should be able to do. Also, how legal would this actually be? The author plans to make this Open Source, which means that anyone would have the access to the code of the software. Shouldn’t this be a property of Nintendo? Isn’t there something that would prevent this developer from releasing the code to Nintendo hardware? Right now, I’m a bit skeptical at the prospect of being able to develop and release such a piece of software. The project seems really new and not too much documentation seems to be available on the site put up. However, I am rooting for this developer, for this could change the way everyone uses the Wii. Besides, someone will probably be able to hack the Wii someday, right?

it will be interesting to see how this develops as this could mean homebrew on the wii

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