New Wii menu update 3.3 nullifies Twilight Princess hack

by Ross Miller on Jun 16th 2008 10:50PM

We've got some good news and some bad news. Let's start with the bad news: Nintendo's latest Wii menu update (3.3) effectively plugs up the Twilight Princess hole that served to foster a homebrew community – or, perhaps more accurately, it casts the homebrew community into a realm of darkness. According to the update, "Beacuse unauthorized modifications to save files may impair game play or the Wii Console, updating to Wii Menu version 3.3 will also check for and automatically remove such save files."

As for the good news, the Wii menu update also lets you move a Mii from from the Mii Plaza to the Mii Parade, and really, isn't that awesome enough to make up for killing homebrew? The countdown has begun for someone to produce a Wii downgrader.

Update: According to various sources, the Homebrew Channel still work if it was installed before the menu update.

Source

Tags: breakingnews, firmware, homebrew, Wii, wii-menu, wii-menu-update

Reader Comments (78)

Looks like im not updating.

And waninkoko (a huge part of the wii scene) has already started a downgrader. Its somewhere on youtube.

Oh and also, since this only affects save files, this may mean the Homebrew Channel or Trucha isnt affected.

How are you going to run the Firmware downgrader if you can't run homebrew to downgrade the firmware?

People who already have the Homebrew Channel installed are not affected (except for trucha signing). People who don't have the Homebrew Channel won't be able to use the twilight hack to install it or run any other homebrew firmware downgrader.

You can't make a "Downgrader" its not a PSP, Bushing the guy who first hacked the wii and banned waninkoko from wiibrew for making trucha signer public and allowing piracy to take place...already covered that possibility and its a no go.

Yeah, this was before I knew trucha was affected. Anywho. you can install channels (like the hb channel) using a chipped wii and burning it onto a cd. But that wont work now.

There is a format option. Won't this downgrade?

Nintendo doesn't love you...they just love your money.

Um, duh. All corporations love the money. I'm not happy about this, but what company wouldn't react in such a way? Don't remember you trolling the PSP update posts half a year ago with 'Sony doesn't love you' (a statement that would have been just as dumb). Then again, your only purpose for being here seems to be the spreading of irrational hatred, especially towards Wii.

Well, it doesn't matter, I was just trying to get into their pants
Guess they were trying to get into my wallet

There is not enough stuff on the Wii I would want to merit hacking my console.

You mean the media players, emulators, whiteboard application, ect, ect is not enough to warrant the transfering of a save file and pressing the reset button?

Homebrew on the wii is probably looked at as a big threat because most of the people that hack their console do it for emulators. If you get a good emulator you never need to buy a virtual console game and nintendo loses out on that 5-10 bucks that is almost pure profit per game(especially for nintendo's first party games).

Nintendo and I have something in common.

Why Nintendo? That was just mean.

I'm not upgrading. I like my twilight hack as it is.

It will eventually be pushed onto you through retail game discs.

Skippy, the Wii Freeloader has a selective updater so we can always get around that too!

Time to delete that internet profile incase Nintendo forces this

GBATEMP people put up your avatars here!

i herd thar would b food

me 2

I said that because I saw you and recognized from the 'temp

The food is a lie.
The food is a lie.
The food is a lie.
The food is a lie.

According to people on Wii Fanboy, they say if you have the channels installed BEFORE you update, they are unaffected. Good news, I'll just never update OR delete the homebrew channel. I

Gah, I love writing wii code. Stupid heart didn't come out.

No thanks, I'll pass on the offer. Tell me when you actually update with something useful (Bluetooth voice chat, USB Hard drive compatibility, etc.)

It feels like it was just a warning from Nintendo. I mean, they even specifically said save files just so those who used the hack would know.
I think if they really wanted to, they'd just brick their systems. There's even homebrew installers to play VC and WiiWare games without paying, so Nintendo has a reason now.
Though I do feel sorry for those who used it for legit reasons.

All Nintendo can do is remove the hacks. If they intentionally and maliciously bricked consoles, they'd have a Class Action suit on their hands so big that they'd be paying to replace every Wii sold. Why would they brick them though? The PR would be so bad they'd never recover.

Unfortunately, I don't think they could get into legal trouble for bricking consoles.

I think when you purchase a console (any console), you involitarily "sign" an agreement that you will not modify the console beyond their approval. Any sort of breech of this "contact" means they aren't responsible if your console is screwed up.

uh, not only with the console itself, every time you do an update, they will have some sort of way to protect themselves on their Terms of Service, almost every company does it...

Ah, ToS. That's the term I was looking for. Thanks, Noshino. :)

Actually, no. Now we are bouncing into a legal grey area.

If the bricking happened "on accident," they can't be held responsible. If they intentionally destroyed modified hardware, they can definately be held legally responsible. IE: Sony Rootkit Fiasco.

Maliciously damaging consoles is illegal no matter what someone did to it. Most Nintendo can do is cut off access to their services. Anything beyond that is illegal.

uh, I thought that the whole rootkit fiasco was more about how the malware affected the computers in multiple ways even when using official CDs

Not only that, but the removal tools only aggravated the privacy and security concerns...

In this case, Im pretty sure they could just claim that this update is to increase the security and "performance" of their system, can't they?

@Fidilous Wong
"Maliciously damaging consoles is illegal no matter what someone did to it."

I'm not sure about that due to the excessively long terms of use agreements and legal jargon included with most products now days.

It usually has a line like 'Nintendo shall not be held liable due to [insert 100 conditions covering almost everything possible] whether direct or indirect caused by [insert product defect, whether by accident or on purpose by first party or third party, etc etc].

So... what exactly does move your Miis to Mii Parade even mean?

Its actually yiddish for Pwned

As much as I would love to rail on the Wii & Nintendo for this I know the truth of the matter is that Sony & Microsoft would do the same exact thing if their consoles were as easily breached. It seems that people are now stealing VC and WW games which will nip this in the bud rather quickly. I am going to assume you can't play games online without updating. If that were the case I would just update even though I hardly play my Wii. I hacked my iphone & PSP but just ended going back to the normal feature set after sifting through what was good and what was crap became cumbersome. I am down for some levels of piracy but after a while it just makes these manufacturers take more and more draconian methods to ensure security is not breached I.E. Apple bricking hacked iPhones.

ie Microsoft bricking modded 360's ;p
Yeah the only homebrew I know that is available for the 360 allows playing burnt games. There's been a fair amount of updates which I swear one bricked a lot of consoles at one stage.

However, I may be wrong as I'm not interested in that kind of modding.

didn't they put this thing on top of the motherboard so you couldn't solder anything to it?

I think I read it some months ago...

"updating to Wii Menu version 3.3 will also check for and automatically remove such save files."

That kind of sounds like it'll only check and remove the Twilight Hack save file when you install it. Maybe you can put it back after? xP

Probably not. They'll probably lock the save like many other save files. That would be ironic, but I'm not willing to test it right now.

Nope, it won't even let you transfer the save from an SD card to the system

There are some homwbrew channel to extract and put savefiles direct to the nand memory, i don't think they still got em

If you already have a homebrew channel installed, which you would need to launch that homebrew, then you don't need the TP hack.

Won't be updating.

Dicks. All I do with it is play Tetris.

confirmed, truncha is dead too with this update

Well I hope their ready because now the hackers will release an isoloader. Just because of this. Now one won't even need a modchip. Just like what happened with Sony.

For every action, there's a reaction of the same force on the oposite direction - Isaac Newton

there is an equal and opposite reaction...

funny, wonder why I got voted down, xD

That was actually a great comment.

"For every action is a reaction. What they did to me was monstrous..."
"And so they created a monster?" - V for Vendetta

Thank you to the guys who started braging about using it to pirate VC games.

Nintendo might have let it go if it was being used for homebrew and HOMEBREW ONLY

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New Wii menu update 3.3 nullifies Twilight Princess hack

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