Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Nintendo Wii Updates Are A Secret

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UPDATE (11/12/2007): A reader going by "mark" left a comment below providing a link to a Nintendo page that provides update information on patches: http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/systems/wii/en_na/systemMenuFeatures.jsp Thanks for the info mark!
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I love my Wii. I think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. I think it will eventually be better than sliced bread once they develop BreadSlicer for the Wii.

I have an issue though. I would like to know what the patches are modifying in the system that I bought. Since the Nintendo website is rather sparse when it comes to useful information, I filled out the request for information form on the site.

Is there a web site that I go to where I can view what each of the updates for the Wii does?
I'd like to see a specific list of features modified by each patch.

Thanks in advance


Approximately 5 days later I get the following automated response with no useful information and a reminder not to kill anybody with the wiimote.

Hello and thank you for contacting Nintendo,

Normally, we would be able to provide a specific answer for you. However, the overwhelming response to our new console has been such that doing so would mean waiting several days to hear back from us.

Having said that, I am confident that the answer to your question can be found on our Wii-dedicated website (http://wii.nintendo.com), which contains all of our official information and announcements regarding the system.

You will also find a wealth of information regarding Wii set-up, troubleshooting, and how-to's on our new Wii Support Website (http://support.nintendo.com). If you have visited both of these websites, I encourage you to keep checking back as we are regularly updating them with new information.

If you are still unable to find an answer to your question, you're welcome to reply to this message. We will try to get you a more specific response in a timely fashion although--as I alluded to above--it may take a while. If you do reply to this message, please be sure to include your original request and this response.

One more thing, please check out our important safety information for playing Wii on the following web page:

http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/wiiplay.jsp

On behalf of Nintendo, I appreciate your patience and understanding.

Thank you for your e-mail.

Nintendo of America Inc.
Nintendo Employee's Name

Nintendo's home page: http://www.nintendo.com/
Power Line (Automated Product Info): (425) 885-7529


I follow up that reply stating that the response was useless and 17 days later I get the following message:

Hello,

At this time no such list is available to the public.

Sincerely,
Nintendo of America Inc.
Another Nintendo Employee's Name

Nintendo's home page: http://www.nintendo.com/
Power Line (Automated Product Info): (425) 885-7529


I guess maybe they're right... I just don't deserve to know what they're doing to my $250 toy.

I've always been a supporter of the big N. I hope they make this information public soon.

P.S. If any Nintendo people are reading this... how about some MegaMan love for the Virtual Console.

13 comments:

Capt. Jean-Luc Pikachu said...

My guess is that such information will be sooner available from homebrew hackers and the like... Have you started looking for Wii programming sites?

Anonymous said...

Does it matter?

The last update I did got me the weather channel so going out on a limb I reckon that's what the update was for.

Anonymous said...

I hope they don't tell us what and when they do updates. As long as they don't reduce any existing functionality and continue to offer more and more goodies, I'll be thinking of it as pleasant surprises instead of sneaky manipulation. Can't we give them the benefit of the doubt for at least a little while?

Anonymous said...

I've monitored every update for my Wii with a small device I made that sniffs packets. I gave it the IP address of the Wii, and it gives me all the packets for each update. I've kept them in a pcap file, and intent to start digging through them soon.

I can also see why they keep that private, because it seems already that piracy is going to run rampant on the Wii even with the secrecy. Someone's already got the VC F-Zero on torrent, and a video of someone playing a copied game with a bootloader that appears as an image in the photo channel has already been on YouTube for a few days now.

Anonymous said...

The reason they wont tell you is they dont want to announce to the public there is a flaw to play copied games if the general public doesnt already know.

Anonymous said...

"The last update I did got me the weather channel so going out on a limb I reckon that's what the update was for."
Couldn't have said it better myself.
And let me guess the next update will be for the news channel.

Elyscape said...

Someone's already got the VC F-Zero on torrent
Yes, but it's an encrypted, Wii-specific file, so nobody else can use it. That torrent is completely useless to anybody wanting F-Zero for free.

a video of someone playing a copied game with a bootloader that appears as an image in the photo channel has already been on YouTube for a few days now
That video is actually an obvious fake. The guy used two Wiis and a AV-switcher.

Anonymous said...

If you don't like it, don't connect your $250 toy to the freakin' Internet, Einstein.

Anonymous said...

The simplest explanation is that they haven't yet set up the infrastructure to announce what changes were made.

Anonymous said...

Yes, and if you read the user agreement that they shove in your face before you can download an update, it says that they can basically do whatever they want on the updates with no notification whatsoever if they deem it to be necessary to the secure function of the Wii.

Don't get me wrong, I would like to know what the updates do. I'm one who always reads the release notes for software updates. However, most people don't. Remember this console is designed with mass market in mind and the mass market doesn't give a rats ass about updates, as long as they don't brick consoles like MS did to the 360.

Anonymous said...

Forecast Channel and parental controls.

Now STFU.

Anonymous said...

Well I did a search and this was the first site that came up, so I looked here for answers but didn't find any.
For anyone else that gets here looking to find a list of the updates, Nintendo now posts them at http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/systems/wii/en_na/systemMenuFeatures.jsp

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