How to develop a Homebrew Application for Nintendo Wii

@KnightBaron

Introduction

Why developing for Nintendo Wii?

Wiimote, an interesting controller You can also use Wiimote with computer

Extending your Wii capabilities Enable you to do more things right from

your living room It’s fun!

Trivia: There’s also a Linux distro for Nintendo Wii

Ways to develop an application for Nintendo Wii

Nintendo’s SDK Web Application

Each user need to buy “Internet Channel” from Wii Shop

Can’t access low-level resource Homebrew Application

It’s Free! No support from Nintendo

Homebrew Application

Why homebrew? It’s free. You don’t need to pay royalty fee

to Nintendo. You don’t even need to buy the SDK.

It’s open source Active community

Is it legal? Yes, non of the code used in homebrew

development comes from Nintendo It shouldn’t void your Wii’s waranty.

Homebrew Application

Is it safe? It’s quite safe as long as you follow the

instruction of the program If you code it yourself. It’s safe as long

as you don’t mess with Wii’s internal NAND Flash▪ Even if you end up messed your Wii. There’re

many tools to help you revive it

How it’s works?

Code and compile an application with free-opensource libraries.

Feed custom code we compiled to Wii with Loader Twilight hack The Homebrew Channel Banner Bomb Others loader

Preparing you Wii for Homebrew

Install the Homebrew Channel (HBC) http://hbc.hackmii.com/ There’re many method to install depend

on your version of Nintendo Wii Install optional hacks (DVDX, PatchMii,

etc. ) Load an application

SD Card (SDHC is supported) TCP Loader (Mainly use for debugging /

testing)

Using the Homebrew Channel

Using the Homebrew Channel

Using the Homebrew Channel

Using the Homebrew Channel

Using the Homebrew Channel

Using the Homebrew Channel

Advices on Homebrew

It is strongly recommended that you DO NOT update your Wii through Nintendo

I recommends everyone to stay with System Menu 3.2 unless you really need those new features presented in the newer System Menu

Getting started

What do we need?

Nintendo Wii (of course!)devkitPro (

http://www.devkitpro.org/ ) devkitPPC – C, C++ compiler with

"powerpc-gekko" architecture libogc – collections of library for

Nintendo Wii ( and Gamecube ) (Optional) Programmer notepad –

Text-editor / Lightweight IDE prepared for developing Homebrew Application

What do we need?

(Recommended) Network connection for Wii (Wired / Wireless)

(Recommended) TCP Loader Wiiload Others loader

(Optional) USB Gecko – Wii ( and Gamecube ) interface for your computer http://www.usbgecko.com/ It’s not really necessary

USB Gecko

Writing your first application

(Workshop) A helloworld application (Workshop) A little example on using

the controller

I recommends going through Wii Programming Tutorial by teknecal

http://www.codemii.com/category/wii-programming-tutorials/

Distributing you application Create meta.xml and icon.png for your

application to support HBC You don’t need to do this but it’s highly

recommended Wiibrew ( http://wiibrew.org/ ) Homebrew Browser

Online directory for Homebrew Application. Accessible right from your Wii!

Request your program to be added from http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Talk:Homebrew_Browser#Wanted_Apps/

Developing tips

DO NOT mess with Wii’s internal NAND flash storage UNLESS you know what you’re going to do

Keep yourself up to date Recommended site

http://wiibrew.org/ http://hackmii.com/ http://codemii.com/ http://wiiuse.net/?nav=docs

Homebrew Applications

Media Players

Mplayer CE

Game Engines

ONScripter

Emulators

Utilities

And many more…

Any questions?

Contact me

Twitter – http://twitter.com/KnightBaron

Blog – http://knightbaron.sytes.net/ E-mail – knightbaron@gmail.com

Thank youAnd welcome to the world of homebrew development