nintendo anti-piracy measures – Fearless Gamer https://www.fearlessgamer.com Fri, 02 Oct 2009 02:47:29 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.3.8 Wii piracy update bricking legit consoles https://www.fearlessgamer.com/2009/10/01/wii-piracy-update-bricking-legit-consoles/ Fri, 02 Oct 2009 02:47:29 +0000 https://www.fearlessgamer.com/?p=541 Nintendo Wii pulled apart.The Nintendo tech forums are abuzz with reports that Wii update 4.2 is bricking consoles. The update was meant to kill homebrew applications and pirated games on modded consoles, an effort that requires changes to the Wii’s bootloader. If something goes wrong during install you get a corrupt bootloader…and a dead Wii.

The update was prefaced by the following warning:

Because unauthorized modifications to save data or program files may impair game play or the Wii console, updating to Wii Menu version 4.2 will also check for and automatically remove such save data or program files.

That’s a nice road marker for all the hackers out there, basically reminding them that to continue hacking they should avoid the update.

A Nintendo rep stopped by the forums to offer free repairs to anyone with an unmodified console that dies after the update. It’s a nice offer, but it was delivered in a way that says, “We know you modified your console. This wouldn’t be happening if you didn’t. Stop lying.” And sending your Wii away for repairs because of a software update gone wrong. Well I can’t think of much that would be worse.

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