Cyclowiz Review

Written by Brakken
February 2007

Modchips Explained If you’re not experienced in the gray market modchip scene then I’ll introduce you to it. Modchips in general work by bypassing the encryption used to verify if the program or game you’re running is an original copy. There are a few reasons why companies who make video game consoles implement such security measures. One reason is to control the market, as you must pay an outrageous fee to obtain the tools to create applications that will run on the console. Nintendo doesn’t want to let the average Joe create and sell games without them getting a cut of the money. They justify this by saying it’s for “quality control”, but we all know they are just money hungry. Not that is practically bad as a business needs to make cash to stay afloat, but how much money do they really need? Another example is to control the region the games are released in. A comparison would be the DVD industry – they don’t want European customers buying movies from the United States and then watching them before they are released there. Nintendo says they implement region protection to “protect it’s customers”, but once again it’s all about controlling the market. The last main reason for such protection is software piracy, which is where the “gray” area I mentioned before comes in. It’s actually legal in most countries to make a “backup” copy of your digital media incase of accidental damage. Say you’ve spent sixty dollars of your hard earned cash on a game and then accidentally scratch it. Unless you’ve paid some outrageous fee for a return policy you’re only option will be to buy the game again. Allowing you to make a “backup” copy of your digital media is a great way to protect your investment, but there is always a way to misuse this opportunity. What is to stop people from copying games they don’t own? Well, there is nothing really. Of course this can be compared to a butter knife – you can slice butter with it or someone’s neck. Sure, that’s a harsh comparison, but it’s the responsibility of the customer to follow the laws and by using “copy protection” Nintendo hopes to prevent people from pirating their software – which again is totally understandable. Homebrew Software Remember I mentioned you have to pay outrageous fees to obtain the tools (called Development Kits) to program your own games and applications – well, with a modchip you don’t have to shell out thousands of dollars. There is an entire “scene” devoted to programming their own software for various video game consoles and they call this software “homebrew”. Creating homebrew software is by far a challenging task to undertake, as you must create your own development kit and then use it to create games and programs for your console of choice. Unlike the XBOX scene, which their authors use a stolen Development Kit to program there software with the members of the Nintendo scene has spent much time and resources creating their own “legal” development kit. It takes a very skilled and dedicated group of people to create a development kit, but if you just use the official one without paying a license you’re nothing more then a lazy, unskilled programmer and a pirate). Currently, the encryption scheme to access the Nintendo Wii’s hardware has not been figured out, but homebrew software is still a possibility on the console. Currently, homebrew developed with DevKitPro and LibOGC (the legal and homemade development kit combination for the GameCube™) can be run on the Nintendo Wii. So if you’re familiar with the C programming language you can create your own programs that can be run on the Nintendo Wii. Doing so can be a difficult and time consuming process, but in the end you reek such awards such as a sense of accomplishment, praise from the homebrew community and sometimes even some money. So what kind of homebrew is there? There is plenty of software already created for the GameCube such as games, demos, emulators and media players. Imagine using your Nintendo Wii to watch your video collection, listening to your MP3 files, playing retro or brand new video games for free (as virtually all homebrew is free!) It’s totally possible and the Cyclowiz will enable you do to so.