Wii Patches

[Raven]

Had an interesting thought about the wii last night, and i was wondering whether this would be possible.

 

There has been talk about 'gamecube re-releases' (for those who missed out), and at E3 Perrin Kaplan told IGN that there was still another surprise for the hardcore gamers (aka. us)

 

Anyway, to my point, and the title of this thread. Would it possible for nintendo to release patches for already existing gamecube games?

I mean, in this post by Dante in regards to the Rayman game, the makers said that it would be possible to download additional minigames for Raving Rabbids.

 

It makes me wonder whether Nintendo could release a patch, for say, Metroid Prime so that the Wiimote could be used in it just like in MP3. Or maybe a patch for melee to make it possible to play it online, or maybe a patch for starfox adventures to make it last longer (sorry, had to throw in that joke!)

 

This kind of thing would look after the hardcore gamers very nicely, it is really rewarding those who looked after the gamecube!

and with the wiiconnect24 i think it would be quite possible.

nintendo would have to be careful that they dont start releasing unfinished products, as we know a lot of pc games you always have to download a couple of patches at the start to remove bugs and stuff...

 

 

i guess the purpose of this thread is to:

 

a) talk about whether it is actually possible for nintendo to actually do this

b) if it were possible, what could it be used for?

[Nick]

This is a very interesting topic, however there are limitations for such a procedure.

 

I seriously doubt GCN games can have patches applied, as they are not emulated on the console, they actually use the hardware. A GCN game will only do what it was programmed to do, and that in most cases is not to go online or use the Wii mote. Here's a reason why I very much doubt something like a patch could work on GCN games;

 

It would have been done for Twilight Princess. The game is getting no graphical overhaul or new additions for the Wii version over the GCN version other than 16:9 and the Wii function. There is otherwise no differences at all between the Wii version and the GCN version.

 

Now, if the patch theory could work, this would have been the premier title to do it with. Instead, Nintendo is going with two completely different versions, which is expensive to say the least.

 

PC games and current 360 titles that can have additional items or things like that added to them can happen because they are made to have a modular type of code that can be added to or chopped and changed. This will also be the case with future PS3 and Wii, even DS titles (Animal Crossing). Games that are not designed to do so cannot have such features added after final release.

 

That is, if they're not being emulated.

 

Emulation is completely different, because there is likely some sort of operating system that is receiving information from the rom source and plugging it into the hardware, as the emulation software is telling it to. In this case, a patch could be made for a game, and the emulator could run the patch and game simultaneously, so that calculations that would normally occur are altered by the patch, and so say for a multiplayer game, the patch hijacks the code that would normally be received and sent via a second controller port, and instead of the controller route, the code is being channeled via an ethernet connection to another Wii running the same patch and game rom, somewhere else in the world.

 

The second of the two is the greater possibility, and patents have been made by Nintendo to allow such upgrades to be used exclusively. However, as it stands, a non emulated GCN game will most likely not have the ability to be altered in such a form by a 'patch'.

[blender]

when you think about it, action replay and free loader were just patches.

the approach is to use a shell or preloader, that could patch games. (Also, think of how those GBA flash cartridges allow you to access their game change/save menus while playing a rom )

 

so definately possible for gamecube games....however, nintendo wont do this because there is no money in it. The only retrospective patch, I can think of would be to disable unofficial software like the forementioned freeloader.

 

for the wii there are lots of possibilities for patches as seen in xbox live

[Nick]

when you think about it, action replay and free loader were just patches.

the approach is to use a shell or preloader, that could patch games. (Also, think of how those GBA flash cartridges allow you to access their game change/save menus while playing a rom )

 

This only works because the code is physically still there to be manipulated. The only reason you can access unlimited ammunition or free lives or whatever is because it is physically possible.

 

In the case of GBA flash roms, which are illegal anyway, there is a program running in the background. Not one single rom played on one of these things is running 100%, even if it looks it, there will be lapses in the code, and many of these devices crash regularly.

 

so definately possible for gamecube games....however, nintendo wont do this because there is no money in it. The only retrospective patch, I can think of would be to disable unofficial software like the forementioned freeloader.

 

for the wii there are lots of possibilities for patches as seen in xbox live

 

Most likely not possible for GameCube games. GameCube games are not designed to look for the additional space that the Wii has (512MBs flash, SD cards), and in most cases except for 6 seperate games, don't even have a clue what the broadband adapter is. You can't make a game do something that lacks the code to do it. Freeloader and Action replay only work because a) Freeloader doesn't do anything to a game at all, it tricks the GCN into thinking it is a PAL or NTSC cube and b) is fiddling with code in a game that is already there.

[blender]

This is what I'm thinking.

 

Patches dont have to change what is already there. They just provide alternatives and the instructions to use these alternatives

 

Whatever resources (files, graphics, librarys) that are good stay the same. Whatever resources are redundant are substitued by the patching program. Since you cannot overwrite what is on a disc, a patching program alters the resource mangement so that the pointers are to the new files that it provides. Hence such patches could be interpreted as another program running in the background. The patching program is actually executed first and controls the whole show rather than the boot program on the gamecube disc.

 

Software is developed through versioning and building libraries. You can add to these libraries and create a program to use these alternatives.

 

I'm not a games programmer but dont see why it would be any different to other software. Maybe copy protection could bitch things up but I'm sure Nintendo would know how to hack their own software. Also, i'm not sure how deeply compiled games really are which could add further difficulties.

[Nick]

Yes, but the fact remains, you need that software running in the background. Now, if the Wii can't emulate a GCN game, then it will have extreme difficulty in running a background program AND play a game at the same time.

[Pestneb]

program code uses registers - basically were data is stored.

 

in OOP functions as an example have inputs and outputs, and further more hidden inputs and outputs.

 

Action replay and freeloader manipulate the inputs and outputs, but cannot manipulate the actual coding.

 

afaik.

 

the only possibility I can think of would be that you would have code that uses Gamecube disc as auxillary code - rather than having Gamecube code using add-ons as Auxillary code.

 

really we would need someone with experience with programming for consoles though, I personally haven't programmed properly for about 4 years now, and my memory on these matters is pretty hazy. In fact this entire post is probably incorrect. meh oh well.

[SpinesN]

As I see it they could have the system boot with an interpretation layer. Have a 3 cm shift from the wiimote equal X % shift of the control stick or somthing. That way none of the actual game data is ever affected and a single patch could be good for a multitude of games.

[Hellfire]

I would also love it if it was possible, because I don't feel like buying games I already have for Wiimote funcionality. I also have my doubts about patches working, but I'm no expert. We'll see

[DCK]

Theoretically you should be able to open patched shared libraries (code) or other rescources by manipulating the file managing system in GameCube mode - though it probably won't work in practice and it'd be way too much trouble.

[Raven]

this is my convo with my friend who is a mod crazy SOB. (i would be matthew)

 

Salby says:

there's really not that much too it

Salby says:

nintendo own all the intellectual property you'd need to do anything they want with the games

Salby says:

If they really wanted to they could give away gamecube games over the internet to wii owners

Salby says:

and given that they have all the source code and such, they can literally rebuild any of the games to add in new features or whatever, but that's a lot of work for little gain

Salby says:

what I don't think they'll do is have gamecube games doing things a gamecube couldn't (maybe a few amusing novelties here and there, but nothing major) because it would be a lot more work to make a gamecube emulator (which is how I'm guessing the wii actually runs gamecube games, although sony just crammed in half the playstation 1 hardware into the playstation 2 to pull it off there) that does extra crap, then just a basic level of compatibility

(tu) (¯`·._.·->Matthew<-·._.·´¯) ¡Buenos días muchachos! says:

so 'patching' a game is quite possible for nintendo? for example, allowing metroid prime 1 to use the wiimote (like in metroid prime 3)?

Salby says:

it depends on how they actually pull off the whole gamecube on wii thing

Salby says:

but yeah, in theory

Salby says:

they have the technology

Salby says:

everything about the game and both consoles in owned by them, there's really no restriction what they can do with it

(tu) (¯`·._.·->Matthew<-·._.·´¯) ¡Buenos días muchachos! says:

this is a comment made on the forum:

I seriously doubt GCN games can have patches applied, as they are not emulated on the console, they actually use the hardware. A GCN game will only do what it was programmed to do, and that in most cases is not to go online or use the Wii mote. Here's a reason why I very much doubt something like a patch could work on GCN games;

Salby says:

do they actually use the hardware though

Salby says:

has nintendo said that

Salby says:

or is that just speculation

(tu) (¯`·._.·->Matthew<-·._.·´¯) ¡Buenos días muchachos! says:

the wii has the same architecture as the cube (i believe)

Salby says:

the ps2 used ps1 hardware to do backwards compatibility, whereas the xbox 360 does xbox shit all with software

Salby says:

it's different enough

Salby says:

but there's very limited released details out

(tu) (¯`·._.·->Matthew<-·._.·´¯) ¡Buenos días muchachos! says:

true. exact details are still in the air. i guess all we can do is wait

(tu) (¯`·._.·->Matthew<-·._.·´¯) ¡Buenos días muchachos! says:

final question: if its entirely hardware, could the wii still be tricked (using a patch) to play the games differently?

Salby says:

tricked?

Salby says:

due to copy protection and such it would have to be nintendo sanctioned tricking basically

(tu) (¯`·._.·->Matthew<-·._.·´¯) ¡Buenos días muchachos! says:

so they COULD theoretically do it?

Salby says:

yeah, but it would have to be them

Salby says:

if you look at how microsoft did it with the 360

Salby says:

they've basically had to go through and individually patch/tweak games to work

Salby says:

and they release updates every so often, adding support for a huge chunk of games at a time

Salby says:

anyway, my theory is that if they were doing anything radically different to sony/microsoft like that, they wouldn't be keeping it a secret

so yeah. thats the general gist of the conversation. we then talked about food for a while.