In a surprising bit of news for fans of Nintendo’s Wii console, the legendary Homebrew Channel has ceased development, and its GitHub repository has been removed, effectively shutting down the piece of software. No one is certain when this occurred, but a user on Twitter posted a letter from the GitHub page this past weekend that alleges the entire community around the channel “was all built on top of a pile of lies and copyright infringement.”
Created by homebrew group Fail0verflow, the Homebrew Channel has been the means for users to get homebrew applications on their GameCubes and Wiis for over a decade now. Easily installed with a software exploit, the Homebrew Channel allows for the installation of emulators and other indie apps on the Wii that weren’t originally sanctioned by Nintendo. While piracy is certainly possible through these means, the Homebrew Channel itself is not dedicated to stealing games or software. Its main goal is to provide smaller developers a chance to experiment with Nintendo’s console and create software without having to go through Nintendo’s official SDK or having to acquire a development console (which isn’t even available anymore).
Recently, Fail0verflow discovered that certain parts of the Homebrew Channel’s code contained stolen lines of code directly from Nintendo’s official SDK. If you’ve been following the news surrounding Nintendo Switch emulators, you’ll know that Nintendo has successfully sued the creators of Yuzu for something similar. A significant portion of the Homebrew Channel’s code is also copied from RTEMS, which has a rather fascinating history dating back to 1993. As such, the group doesn’t feel it’s ethical to continue distributing or developing the Homebrew Channel software.
The post by the group on its GitHub page makes a call to action for the Wii homebrew community. The group writes, “Please demand that the leaders and major contributors to console or other proprietary device SDKs and toolkits that you use and work with do things legally, and do not tolerate this kind of behavior.”
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
