thelinuxlink.net

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061009-7939.html

Saw the following up on Ars Technica. I wonder....does this mean that Nintendo is going to have DRM on the games(stupid question really)? Is the DRM in hardware or software?? If in hardware, does this mean the driver for the chip muse be open source?? I see many comments coming on this thread!

This is largely still a rumor, I think it's a mistake to draw any conclusions until you see GPLed source code on nintendo.com or nintendo.co.jp

http://wii.qj.net/Wii-Will-Use-Linux-as ... /aid/60531

There's some more info. Apparently this is just from a blog post. However this brings up a even better point.

This would not be the first time a company took the Kernel and put it in a product without anyone intending to find out about it. The Linksys WRT54G was the first device in recent memory like this. Linsys was forced to release the code once they are found out. With that said, I would definitely check this out once the Wii is released in about a month and a half. It would be pretty tough, but not impossible to find out what the Wii is running. It;s apparant, to me, the old bootloader theory isn't enough to run new generation games.

gorkon wrote:http://wii.qj.net/Wii-Will-Use-Linux-as ... /aid/60531

There's some more info. Apparently this is just from a blog post. However this brings up a even better point.

This would not be the firs time a company took the Kernel and put it in a product without anyone intending to find out about it. The Linksys WRT54G was the first device in recent memory like this. Linsys was forced to release the code once they are found out. With that said, I would definitely check this out once the Wii is released in about a month and a half. It would be pretty tough, but not impossible to find out what the Wii is running.

Yeah, this should definitely be investigated, although I still find it unlikely that Nintendo is using Linux, for a long long time they have been writing their own stuff. Chew on this thought for a moment. If you power on an Xbox (Not the 360) without a game inserted in the DVD drive, you will get to the green menu system called the Microsoft Dashboard, some people have argued that the reason the Xbox used a hard drive is because the Dashboard takes up 100 MBs. Meanwhile, if you power up a GameCube without a game you will get to a menu system that pretty much does the same as Microsoft's Dashboard, and Nintendo fit all that code in a ROM chip of 2 MBs!

gorkon wrote:It;s apparant, to me, the old bootloader theory isn't enough to run new generation games.

What do you mean?

Tsuroerusu wrote:

gorkon wrote:It;s apparant, to me, the old bootloader theory isn't enough to run new generation games.

What do you mean?

Some people are under the assumption that the ROM code doesn't do much but make it possible to run games but all of the future game systems like the 360, the Wii and the PS3 all are having some sort of online component. The Wii is going to let people create Mii's and you compete with them and some how chat as well? Maybe voice chat? I don't know, but the Wii and the 360 both have stuff that runs right off of the system that allows you to download games like Pac Man and in the Wii's case NES, SNES, and the N64 (for a charge of course). All of that requires some sort of OS....proprietary or not. Most console games now are not all that different then PC games in that they have API's and whatnot that let's you do things like system calls and other things without having to program it all from scratch like what used to be done on NES and SNES. The point is, game systems are much more modern then they used to be and any new device should be scrutinized for use of GPL code. It's really easy to grab Linux and embed it and hide it. If I was a hardware company I would surely try it like Linksys did.

gorkon wrote:

Tsuroerusu wrote:

gorkon wrote:It;s apparant, to me, the old bootloader theory isn't enough to run new generation games.

What do you mean?

Some people are under the assumption that the ROM code doesn't do much but make it possible to run games but all of the future game systems like the 360, the Wii and the PS3 all are having some sort of online component. The Wii is going to let people create Mii's and you compete with them and some how chat as well? Maybe voice chat? I don't know, but the Wii and the 360 both have stuff that runs right off of the system that allows you to download games like Pac Man and in the Wii's case NES, SNES, and the N64 (for a charge of course). All of that requires some sort of OS....proprietary or not. Most console games now are not all that different then PC games in that they have API's and whatnot that let's you do things like system calls and other things without having to program it all from scratch like what used to be done on NES and SNES. The point is, game systems are much more modern then they used to be and any new device should be scrutinized for use of GPL code. It's really easy to grab Linux and embed it and hide it. If I was a hardware company I would surely try it like Linksys did.

Interesting, but as I said, this just needs to be looked at when the Wii comes out.

Since the Wii is quite similar to the GameCube in terms of CPU architecture and stuff like that, I'd assume Nintendo would reuse some code, especially since GameCube games run natively on the Wii.

I was tempted to respond to this thread with something like "oh yea great another game system running linux that'll solve world starvatoin", but I gotta say i'm interested after thinking about the cool new user-interface possibilities the wii controller will bring,