Nintendo is well-known for their extreme measures in combating piracy, and more recently homebrew – especially with the Wii. Nintendo has been quick to try and stop homebrew on the Wii; multiple times, in fact. Thankfully, the awesome guys who make homebrew play on the Wii possible have always managed to thwart the Big N.
Of course, they wouldn’t be Nintendo if they didn’t keep trying. The new Wii Menu 3.4 update will include a mandatory check for "unauthorized saved files," and delete any the glowing white box deems unfit. Thankfully the homebrew community is warned of the update’s actions (just like they were in the 3.3 update) and can avoid the download.
Unfortunately, another update in 3.4 makes it so that they may never get warned again in the future thanks to a slight change in the ToS which will give Nintendo the rights to basically do whatever they want to your Wii for any reason. (For those keeping score, that makes this the second time in a month a console ToS has been changed and snuck in with a minor update.)
Originally, Nintendo’s Network Privacy Policy had this to say about checking for "unauthorized or illegal" software:
To ensure that your Wii Console is operating properly and efficiently, we may download updates, patches, upgrades and similar software to your Wii Console. In addition, we may disable unauthorized or illegal software that has been placed on your Wii Console without notifying you where necessary, in order to comply with applicable laws, assist law enforcement, protect us and our customers, and prevent the use and distribution of software obtained through improper channels.
Now, a few choice insertions and removals have changed the same clause to this:
We may without notifying you, download updates, patches, upgrades and similar software to your Wii Console and may disable unauthorized or illegal software placed on your Wii Console to ensure that your Wii Console is operating properly and efficiently, comply with applicable laws, assist law enforcement, protect us and our customers, or prevent the use and distribution of software obtained through improper channels.
Notice the complete omission of the clause "to ensure that your Wii Console is operating properly and efficiently," and the whole "without notifying you" bit? In other words, from now on Nintendo can modify your console’s contents for any reason they please, and won’t have to tell you a thing about what they will do, or have done. According to several members of the homebrew community (who wished to remain anonymous), if update 3.4 does include an autoupdate feature in line with the ToS revisions, the Wii is perfectly capable of autoinstalling updates on its own without your help. It's unknown at this time whether or not 3.4 does sneak in such a firmware feature, so in the meantime if you want to ensure you can keep playing homebrew, just don't download the update and wait until the homebrew scene finds a way around this latest roadblock. It's not like there are any good must-buy Wii games coming out in the next six months which will require 3.4, anyway.
Nintendo is likely well aware that 3.4’s lackadaisical attempt to catch console modders in the act by checking for unauthorized save files will fail like their last tries; but thanks to the updated ToS, they no longer need to play fair.
Leave a Reply