Do You Think The 3Ds Will Be Able Run Homebrew?

How long until the Nintendo 3DS is cracked?

  • Hacked closed to the time of release

    Votes: 1 2.4%
  • Hacked within the first year of release

    Votes: 22 52.4%
  • Hacked several years after release

    Votes: 12 28.6%
  • Never hacked

    Votes: 2 4.8%
  • Your poll is stupid

    Votes: 5 11.9%

  • Total voters
    42

aaronson911

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I read the following articles today:

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=255298

http://kotaku.com/5584609/nintendo-believes-the-3ds-can-stop-piracy

They were kind of light on details and what sort of protection the 3DS would deploy. Does anyone have more details or care to speculate on the hackabilty of the Nintendo 3DS? An apology if this was discussed at great length in another thread.
 
Voted for several years. Nintendo is serious about locking things down this time and we've seen that when companies get serious things can get difficult.

But it's really just a roll of the dice whether or not an exploit can be found...
 
Exophase said:
Voted for several years. Nintendo is serious about locking things down this time and we've seen that when companies get serious things can get difficult.

But it's really just a roll of the dice whether or not an exploit can be found...

Nintendo was/is realy serious about locking the wii down. Heck, their lastest firmware was just about to fix the "homebrew problem" (as the wii homebrew community offered to help fighting the real piracy problem, I guess nintendo see homebrew as a problem). But their firmware get hacked within a week at most.
Even if Miamoto don't want to see homebrew on its hardware, his techies are too lame to get security things right (see marcan blog for more info)

So I voted within a year
 
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sebt3 said:
Nintendo was/is realy serious about locking the wii down. Heck, their lastest firmware was just about to fix the "homebrew problem" (as the wii homebrew community offered to help fighting the real piracy problem, I guess nintendo see homebrew as a problem). But their firmware get hacked within a week at most.
Even if Miamoto don't want to see homebrew on its hardware, his techies are too lame to get security things right (see marcan blog for more info)

So I voted within a year

On the other hand, PS3 took years and from what I understand is still a toss-up. I don't recall Nintendo being quite as vocal on this issue when regarding the Wii, as they currently are with 3DS.

Nintendo has billions in the bank, so I don't think they'll have much problem hiring top class security experts to tackle this. But like I said, so much of this is up to chance. The best security experts in the world can still overlook something, and someone below best hacker in the world can get lucky.
 
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Nintendo wasn't all that serious with the Wii. From what I've gathered, their security system is a mess and hard to fix through software updates. Also, after more than 3 weeks now, I haven't seen a 4.3 hack, although it's certainly just around the corner. It anoys me that Nintendo won't let me buy Wiiware games if I don't update. Seriously, what is the reasoning behind forcing me to become a pirate if I want to keep my homebrew?

More recent Nintendo security can be found in the DSi which isn't yet properly cracked. Looks like they are working on it but it takes quite some time. I hope the knowledge gained will be usefull for the 3DS, else we are probably looking at more than a year for proper cracking...
 
They have been serious about it since Nes cartridges had security chips in them.

AFAIK, every one of their consoles has been broken into.
 
I'm guessing under a year. Saves are stored on the device and are manageable, that's how they did it with the Wii first go around. There is also the always on wi-fi mode and other wi-fi hacks which is how they are in the DSi. It'll take a while, maybe even some large cash bounties (worked for the DS wifi library), but yea it'll get hacked eventually. The DS and Wii scene are electric these days, and have been for years, definitely the most active hacking community.
 
I voted within one year. I bet there will be some kind of cartridge device that works in a similar way to the dsi or ds ones, but I doubt that hackers will have as much success cracking the 3ds wide open as they have had with other nintendo hardware.

I only hope that nintendo embrace digital distribution and flash storage and allow customers to purchase from their entire back catalog at resasonable prices, perhaps even giving certain old games away as a thanks for kissing our old carts goodbye (I mean, how many times do they expect people to pay for SMB3? :lol: )Also I hope they realise that no-one likes to carry loads of cartridges around.

Giving small developers and homebrew coders access to their dev kits for free or for a reasonable fee depending on whether or not they will be selling their apps and games is another idea. Perhaps a royalty instead of charging for the sdk would be a mutually beneficial arrangement? They would be helping themselves by attracting devs and increasing the amount of downloadable content while simultaneously creating a reasonable solution to the homebrew "problem".

If they get it right this time and make their customers feel genuinely happy with the device and their choice to purchase it, less people will want to hack their shit and steal from them. Plus, if people are happy, even if the device is hacked, less people would want to apply said hacks, especially at the cost of functionality.
 
I really want to be able to put my own 3D movies on there because I just know Nintendo isn't going to sell 3D porn at their official store... :p
 
OrR said:
I really want to be able to put my own 3D movies on there because I just know Nintendo isn't going to sell 3D porn at their official store... :p

Corporate porn sucks! You'll be able to see if fine if you film it yourself with the 3D cameras.
 
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LOL, you're right... Looking forward to all the homemade 3D porn pics shot with the DS. B) On the other hand, most of it will probably be under legal age so you best don't touch that shit. :blink:
 
Exophase said:
sebt3 said:
Nintendo was/is realy serious about locking the wii down. Heck, their lastest firmware was just about to fix the "homebrew problem" (as the wii homebrew community offered to help fighting the real piracy problem, I guess nintendo see homebrew as a problem). But their firmware get hacked within a week at most.
Even if Miamoto don't want to see homebrew on its hardware, his techies are too lame to get security things right (see marcan blog for more info)

So I voted within a year

On the other hand, PS3 took years and from what I understand is still a toss-up. I don't recall Nintendo being quite as vocal on this issue when regarding the Wii, as they currently are with 3DS.

Nintendo has billions in the bank, so I don't think they'll have much problem hiring top class security experts to tackle this. But like I said, so much of this is up to chance. The best security experts in the world can still overlook something, and someone below best hacker in the world can get lucky.


To my knowledge, the main reason the Wii was hacked so quickly was because of the complete, full hardware backwards compatibility with Gamecube games. Heck, they had the four Gamecube controller ports and memory card slots instead of a USB adapter of sorts which probably would have been simpler and cheaper for Nintendo. What I've read is the Wii was hacked so easily because of the almost Gamecube-within-Wii type of console hardware. They didn't do software emulation like the Xbox 360 and some of the newer PS3s, they did full hardware backwards compatibility which allowed full system hacks by going through the already hacked Gamecube hardware. That is, of course if I understand the situation correctly.

I'm not exactly sure why the Xbox 360 was hacked so quickly but I know backup games became possible because of the unencrypted nature of the DVD drive. I remember they came out with modchips within months of its release, too. I know it was a hardware hack at first, and eventually the JTAG hack, which too is hardware, but I don't know the origins or methodology behind it.

The Playstation 3 has never really been hacked because I think one of the cell's cores somehow effects system security. And, as we all know, the cell is a monster and can do a whole lot. Also, I think taking out Playstation 2 emulation as a whole prevented some sort of exploit and the same with OtherOS. I guess Sony has learned from its PSP mistakes :p

I do think the 3DS will be hacked and fairly quickly. Whether it be within a few months or a year, I don't think it will take more than a year to hack it. I think since the 3DS is 100% backwards compatible with all original DS games, there will probably be some sort of tricking the system into thinking its loading an original DS game (since I believe flash carts exist because they discovered the encryption code for DS carts which made everything easier) and then trick the OS into running 3DS hardware.

I think it might be far more difficult to hack and may never be hacked because as consoles get more powerful in the future, they will probably have very advanced encryption methods. Even with Moore's Law, I doubt computers can hack the OS or software side of systems made in 10 years.

I don't know if any of you read, but the new Motorla Droid X has some sort of new bootloader thing called eFuse, which basically renders the system useless if a non-digitally firmware or whatever is attempted to be installed. Of course, the only way to get it working again is to put an official firmware back on, which would pretty much require going to the Verizon Store, and it would most likely void your warranty which would prevent them from being required to fix your phone for free. I also feel the SD card made everything on the Wii so easy to hack and I think it will be the same for the 3DS.

If Nintendo really wanted to prevent hackability, they would have some sort of eFuse type bootloader or whatever and ditch the SD card. If people don't want to download an update via wifi then they can connect the 3DS to the computer using a USB cable and install it on their system. I'm not sure if that's the case currently with the DSi/XL, but I know it's the case for the PSP and PS3. What they could do is put like 16GB or whatever of onboard storage and connect to your computer directly to install the update. If someone tries to install a non-digitally signed firmware or whatever, the eFuse would prevent the 3DS from turning on and working, and the only way to get it working again would be to take it to a retailer like Best Buy or open up the system yourself which would void your warranty for any future issues. The thing about memory cards is that they're removable. If you were to complain to a store about your system not working, if you take out the SD card where the hacked update was installed, they wouldn't have enough reason to void your warranty or make you pay for them to fix it. Even if they used a machine or peripheral to see why the system stopped working and it showed it was because of an unsigned firmware trying to be installed, if you used an SD card to install the update, you can claim the update didn't download correctly or something of that nature. If they were to have the memory onboard, they could very well see what you were trying to do and make you pay to fix the system.

That wouldn't prevent hackability but I bet it would be extremely expensive after a while. And by the looks of things, most hackers aren't filthy rich. The rich hackers might be sued after a while for trying to modify copyrighted Nintendo code which would not be a pleasant experience. SD cards made Wii hacking so much easier and without it, I doubt it would be as easy as it is to hack the Wii. So if Nintendo intends on keeping the SD card slot on the 3DS, which it looks like they will, and if they don't put some sort of eFuse on the system, then hacking shouldn't be extremely complex.

Just my thoughts and opinions, and I apologize if any of my comments are inaccurate.
 
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An eFuse isn't some magic security mechanism. A good security design doesn't really have that much to do with SD card slots etc. If you want to know what really went wrong with the Wii, read up on hackmii.com .
 
OrR said:
An eFuse isn't some magic security mechanism. A good security design doesn't really have that much to do with SD card slots etc. If you want to know what really went wrong with the Wii, read up on hackmii.org .

http://hackmii.com the org is a parked spam site.
 
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sebt3 said:
Even if Miamoto don't want to see homebrew on its hardware, his techies are too lame to get security things right (see marcan blog for more info)

So I voted within a year

Isn't Miyamoto basically just a mascot for the company nowadays? I'm fairly sure he has very little say as to what goes on at ninty.
 
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He is producing a lot of stuff. That probably means he doesn't do much actual design but he still has his hands in everything and has a very strong position in the company...
 
OrR said:
An eFuse isn't some magic security mechanism. A good security design doesn't really have that much to do with SD card slots etc. If you want to know what really went wrong with the Wii, read up on hackmii.com .

First off, I'm not saying the SD card slot "helped" exploit the Wii any more than without one if that's what you're saying. What I'm asking is if you don't think the SD card made the hacking part (putting on custom CIOS and custom channels and such) a heck of a lot easier. How else could you transfer the files over to use on the Wii? If Nintendo hadn't put an SD card slot on their system, maybe Ninty would've enabled USB support storage at first or you could download the files off the internet, but I could safely bet they'd disable those features in newer updates. The Twilight hack was usable because you put a save game exploit on the SD card to boot the game off of. Virtually every PSP exploit was because of memory card access. Physical removable memory helps hackers a lot and if these companies really wanted hacking to be difficult to the point of almost impossible, they'd use online security methods and ditch physical removable memory.

If Nintendo were smart, they'd enhance their online service, ditch the SD card slot, and perhaps offer an online storage service to store your save game data, VC games and data, MP3s, etc. (maybe have 2GB or whatever free and charge monthly/yearly for extra storage) and have 16GB of onboard storage where you can transfer everything to and from. Xbox Live banning is a method of preventing hackers from messing around with their 360s and there have been millions banned so far and millions more new, unbanned consoles sold for Microsoft profit. I'm not telling Nintendo to necessarily "ban" people, but using the internet and internet services as a security method can help Nintendo and every other game console manufacturer a lot.

The only problem with this is not everyone has internet in their area, but I bet with new (and perhaps free) wifi hotspots coming around, it shouldn't make much of a difference for handhelds. I think it would be much easier on a home console, but what Nintendo really has to do is make the encryption keys for the new carts much more secure and prevent original DS carts from having an effect on 3DS games. I do think the 3DS will be hacked relatively quickly since the original DS cartridges have been fully hacked and they're fully backwards compatible with the new console. But these companies are smart and they've probably considered my opinions on what they should do before the console was even designed.
 
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THQ seems to be very confident about 3DS DRM:
http://gbatemp.net/t241187-thq-3ds-will-really-combat-piracy
However, you can't really take them seriously:
He argued that rampant use of copied game tech such as the notorious R4 cartridge had "made it almost impossible to shift any significant volume" of THQ games
Yeah, right. Your games are mostly absolute crap, that's why nobody buys them. :rolleyes:
 
Indeed. The sheer number of games Nintendo themselves have sold on DS is an overwhelming figure. Which kinda makes you wonder why they're getting uptight about DRM now.
 
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