Patching the Wii News Channel to serve local news (2025)
114 points by todsacerdoti 4 days ago | 26 comments
  • rucury 4 days ago |
    Author here, thanks for sharing! Happy to answer any questions or discuss it with folks.
    • sergiomattei 4 days ago |
      Dude, this is awesome. El Nuevo Dia on the Wii is peak bori brain. :)
      • rucury 4 days ago |
        Thanks, Sergio! Appreciate it. Was definitely fun getting it all working and seeing that familiar logo pop up on the Wii of all places!
  • wizzwizz4 4 days ago |
    Since it's HTTP, you shouldn't need to patch the Wii News Channel: you can do all of this in DNS.
    • czk 4 days ago |
      i thought the article was going to go there, just redirecting the host to a self-hosted ip address serving the bin, but i was pleasantly surprised it didn’t! interesting to learn about the patching process and tooling used
    • ipython 4 days ago |
      I was just about to say the same thing - why go through all the effort to patch the binaries when you can just redirect the DNS to your own server?

      Then I saw something about signing with RSA - btw OP, the link doesn't work in your blog - there's some markup issues. But there's no discussion of where the RSA key comes from (just that you create one with OpenSSL). Does the Wii just accept any "signed" content? If so, wow, 2007 was a crazy time...

      • CursedSilicon 4 days ago |
        There was notoriously a bug with the Wii's RSA implementation

        https://wiibrew.org/wiki/Signing_bug

        • hn92726819 4 days ago |
          Unrelated, but in that link:

          > Interestingly, the code continues to check the entire hash after a mismatch.

          This is a standard practice in cryptography, but maybe not at the time.

      • rucury 4 days ago |
        "btw OP, the link doesn't work in your blog - there's some markup issues"

        Whoops, thanks for catching that! Just fixed it, here is the link just in case: https://github.com/rnegron/WiiNewsPR/blob/11df0e242bb1f4134e...

        "Does the Wii just accept any "signed" content? If so, wow, 2007 was a crazy time..."

        Yup! I suppose they assumed that hard-coding the URL was enough of a safeguard!

  • dfajgljsldkjag 4 days ago |
    I used to check this occasionally back when the console was new. It is interesting to see that people are still keeping it running. I guess there is a niche for everything.
    • jonhohle 4 days ago |
      I really liked the Wii interface as a TV interface. It felt very much like a modern way to navigate a TV. Modern TVs have some of those features, but none with the whimsy and fun of the Wii.
      • mitthrowaway2 4 days ago |
        The Wii had the best and most responsive Netflix interface on any system I've used before or since. It's a shame they ended support for it, or I'd probably still be watching Netflix via Wii.
        • jedbrooke 4 days ago |
          Thanks for bringing back memories of the Netflix Wii Channel. At the beginning it was on a disk. We used the Netflix wii channel until the day they dropped support. Our Wii long outlived its life as a games console by continuing on as a netflix machine. I still miss using the actual pointer to point at things, it’s just such an intuitive interface for a TV

          EDIT: I just looked it up and apparently the wii netflix channel was supported until 2019, so my memory of using it until it went bust were incorrect. We prob used it until around 2012 or so

      • kmeisthax 4 days ago |
        Funnily enough, there was even a channel that let you control your TV with the Wii sensor bar - although they only ever released it in Japan. The Wii U had a similar feature worldwide but Nintendo actually killed it after a few years.
        • reddalo 3 days ago |
          >a channel that let you control your TV with the Wii sensor bar

          Are you sure about that? The Wii sensor bar is not a sensor at all; it's just a pair of small lights that the camera on top of the Wii Remote monitors in order to determine movement.

          • kalleboo 3 days ago |
            The lights in the sensor bar are infrared lights. If you blink them at the right rate, they can simulate an IR remote control.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_no_Tomo_Channel#TV_remote_c...

            • reddalo 3 days ago |
              Interesting. I originally assumed it was some kind of HDMI-CEC technology. It was just the sensor sending the right IR signal to the TV.
              • kalleboo 2 days ago |
                The Wii was still in the SD era and only had analog outputs, it never got HDMI. (I guess it could have done CEC over SCART in the EU, but this channel was in JP where they used D-tanshi)
                • reddalo 2 days ago |
                  >The Wii was still in the SD era and only had analog outputs, it never got HDMI.

                  Wow, that's true. It could only go up to composite output. I had forgot. Good times.

    • rucury 4 days ago |
      For me, it's just such a nostalgic and pleasant to use interface. I still keep the Wii up and running to play some retro games every now and then (it's a great emulation system as well). Being able to learn more about how these "old-school" Nintendo web apps work was something I had been curious about for awhile!
  • msephton 4 days ago |
    After playing until late into the night, I would browse the weather channel, searching for places on Earth experiencing thunderstorms. Clicking on the icon would play a short audio sample of thunder. The whole thing was overflowing with personality and charm. Wii remains my favourite video game system of all time, and I've owned them all—from nuon to gamepark and back.
    • cheschire 4 days ago |
      My wife and I spent a lot of time on the Everybody Votes channel.

      She was way more in touch with what the general populace voted on than I was and frequently picked the option that turned out to be popular in our region.

      Such a unique game console.

  • mystraline 4 days ago |
    So, would it be possible to patch Wii and NDS games as to use local servers instead of now-dead servers?

    I'm thinking something like Bnetd, but, say NinteNetd.

    • bpye 4 days ago |
      There is Wiimmfii - not local but community run.

      https://wiimmfi.de/

    • fixmycode 4 days ago |
      check out Pretendo!
  • nubskr 4 days ago |
    Seems like sometimes the best tech stack is the one that refuses to die :))