wii programming

Question

my daughter just got a wii for christmas from her parents and her father has nothing better to do than looking for ways to dive into wii programming. i already read a lot about "homebrew" and wii. but i seem to be unable to find answers for the most important questions:

• do i have to modify the firmware to get the homebrew stuff to work?
• how likely is it, that the wii get's bricked, if for example there are any nintendo firmware updates?

thanks very much!

Answer 1

As far as I know you need to meet some requirements before you can get the SDK for Wii. But if those requirements are no problem for you then you can easily make games for the Wii without modifying anything and firmware upgrades won't break anything.

However if you code with something else chances are something will break! More information about the Wii SDK can be found here: To become an Authorized Developer for Wii, WiiWare and/or Nintendo DS/DSi

As a side note I know you can hookup the sensor bar to a computer and develop games in XNA to then run them on your computer which basically has the same effect if you can hookup your computer on the TV (just for the bigger screen). Which might be the easiest thing to do!

To answer your questions however, you will have to modify your Wii and there is a chance something can break. Also if you modify your Wii you will lose all warranty which is another thing to think about when you start modifying your Wii. But if you don't care about the warranty WiiBrew should help you forward!

Answer 2

Hardware modification is required before unauthorized software can be run on a Wii. Official system updates may detect these alterations and will probably render your console unusable if applied.

Answer 3

One other option you have is that you can develop things for the browser on the Wii, as it's actually a not-that-bad-off version of Opera. ;)

I recently wrote a library that wraps all the nuisances of checking Wiimote events, it might be what you're looking for with your daughter: Wii-js