They had a couple talented hackers, and they made every effort to keep their methods secret so they wouldn't have competition. If only they'd put that much effort into quality control, they would have been great...
Good security researchers can do some stuff that borders on magic. And the software engineer and those security researchers have a different sort of way of looking at things at least a couple really good ones that I have met
The dreamcast proved they had no clue when it came to making their products secure lol. (Unless we're talking about the Saturn, that thing took forever to fully crack.)
These videos about console security are some of the best I've seen on TH-cam; enough details to understand without going too in-depth and losing the bigger picture. Keep it up MVG!!
I was the person who discovered the backdoor in Phantasy Star Online. The back door was added in "Version 2" of PSO for Dreamcast, and the code remained for the GameCube release. It was added to fix exploits and detect cheating. A major problem with using the backdoor was that the network traffic was encrypted with an unknown method, and GameCube disks were unreadable at the time. But there was a solution: the Xbox version of PSO had the same encryption, and Xbox had long since been cracked. This is why the reverse-engineered source code for the encryption uses x86 register names and not PowerPC.
You used to be able to get a free subscription by buying a $20 visa giftcard and hooking it up to your profile. It would go for months before it finally cut you off.
I only had one game that used star force and I think it was i-ninja. I didn't like the fact that Windows 98 wanted to restart after installing the game. I was like it's a game it's not like I've just installed drivers or something..oh wait..
I didnt had drive broken with StarForce DRM, but had occasional boot loops. With old BIOS I could boot into security mode and uninstall the game, nowadays I would be screwed because accessing the boot menu on Windows with UEFI is almost impossible, the easiest method is to press Shift at the login screen then restart, but if you cant at least access the login screen, bad luck.
@@eindeend IF you restart your pc 3 times ( if it fails to boot 3 times in a row) it will launch into repair mode where you can do many things so restore (or clean) your drive.
Despite that, the use of these hacks is always very niche. 99% of people just buy the games rather than risk their time (and even bricking their system) in order to pirate games. It's only many years later after a system is discontinued that more people try modding and hacking it.
@@thebasketballhistorian3291very much not true. Maybe in the US (loyalty and feelings towards companies? Wtf?!), but in most of the world, PS2 modchips were standard. Basically every town had a guy that made a living off modding PS2s and copying games. And every kid had to have a PS2 with loads of burned games.
Man, it's kinda sad how I came later at the PSU era. I'm thinking of trying PSOBB Ephinea on my own this month. God bless PSP2I for the amount of PSO goodies on there though.
By far the most genius design by Nintendo. The handle on the back and the flip up LCD screen you could add... they knew exactly what people were going to be doing with their console. Smash it up.
Correction: ArtX was a separate company that was absorbed by ATi, which was merged with AMD and became its graphics division, dropping the ATi name in 2010 (currently known as Radeon Technologies Group).
Stahp, even thought AMD bought ATI, it's 2 completely different companies now. ATI is accurate because that is what Nintendo advertised they were using. There is even a sticker on the gamecube. If he said "graphics made by AMD", that would be even more inaccurate as AMD was a CPU manufacturer back then.
@@vedi0boy No, AMD and ATI are not "2 completely different companies now". And he said "[...]now know as ATI" and that is inaccurate. Why do I keep looking at these god awful YT comments.
The Wii homebrew scene was great. It really made up for the lack of good games on the system, and the amazing emulation capabilities were nice to have in the days when USB gamepads were harder to find and it was hard to hook up a PC to a big-screen TV. I can't wait for MVG to describe what happened with the Wii scene. It was a few years of everybody being totally clueless until Team Twiizers opened the floodgates and everybody was just laughing at its security.
I really love those kind of things, showing how copy protection worked/works and how it was defeated. Just sad that companies like Datel aren't saying how they managed to find an entry point or defeating the copy protection so quickly.
I do think it's unique shape is a big part why the Gamecube is so fondly remembered. There simply isn't really any major game system that look like it. The PS2 is just a rectangle. Most gaming systems have that shape.
@VideoGamePlayer ATI/AMD surely has made a lot of disappointing products, but they also have made some stand outs like the HD5870, 1950XTX, and 9700 Pro. In the last few years they have made some ok mid range cards. I remember my HD5870 ran OpenGL applications just fine and I'm sure it has only gotten better especially due to AMD's effort to make good Linux drivers.
@@Tore299 Yes, that's what MVG meant, and he is right, but as you said, ATi got swallowed up by AMD in 2006, which does mean that AMD owns ATi and its subsidiaries by proxy
People in this scene usually know who ATI is, not ArtX, so just saying ATI is enough to give us an idea. Plus, Nintendo clearly advertised the use of ATI graphics.
These are honestly my favorite episodes. I was on the scene for PSP and WII and learning how they started even deeper is awesome as well as learning how other consoles I wasn't part of the scene is so interesting. Thank you again for the wonderful content you've quickly become my favorite youtuber
-random capitalization of the letter W in "flaw" -only one space in places where there should be three when using that sort of spacing -lack of punctuation, boldness, and asterisks -"has" should not be capitalized Are you trying to say something?
@@fishactivation5087 Oh god, I've seen people making fun of someone when they try to correct a minor mistake (like spelling "your" instead of "you're") by calling them a "grammar nazi". And then you show up.
Because one day, some of your particular interests and inspirations from something you like to spend time on will add up to something that is productive for your long-term life, like a hobby or work. Maybe it isn't to do with hacking consoles, who knows but the principle I'm trying to express here is that it's important to follow your interests in something.
@@saltservice4024 Sounds about right. I went from having fun fixing PCs and finding fixes through TH-cam and Google. To being a certified I.T with a great job
When this console came out, i loved it from day one, the size, the discs, the games, the controller, even the boot up logo theme. How clear the games were compared to N64...Man it was just an amazing time just to see the progress of Nintendo.
My favorite series on youtube, it gives unique insight in to the consoles, where previously i only knew how to run the tools but not how they worked and why. Thanks.
After playing around with ACL and PSUL for a while, someone eventually made a way to read and write memory cards and I got to play around with that too (think it was CrowTRobo). This opened new and exciting possibilities so I went on Dextrose forums or the IRC channel back then to suggest that someone use an Action Replay with a custom memory card file to load home brew. This started a vigorous discussion about the patch, micro bootloader, full bootloader, etc. I’m pretty sure Anaconda had already been released (DVD loader DOL file ripped from ViperGC IPL), which made it a fully-functional alternative to a mod chip. IIRC, Samson’s AR Loader came less than a week later and was released right there on Dextrose. I have to imagine I had something to do with it but perhaps Samson simply thought of it too and actually had the know-how to do it. :)
Nah, if it's not about the Nintendo Switch, they won't really care as they washed their hands of the systems years ago. Even a hacking history video of the Original Wii, I doubt they would really care. They would rather focus on the current console and not the older ones.
@Whitebeard The Drunken Pirate Given there's been a history of bootlegging Nintendo games (the NES specifically), they've probably gone into paranoid overdrive about that sort of thing.
As usual with your always grade "A" content, the video was brilliantly simple and concise, yet very informative. No one else on TH-cam has provided this type of content, and I doubt many typical TH-cam gamer personalities would have the knowledge or experience within the homebrew scene to provide such knowledgeable content. I guess my opinion of your content is pretty clear 😉 Keep up the great work!
I love how I don't understand the majority of technical talk, but at the same time, I understand some of it. So I'm able to sort of piece together the history. Cool videos, keep it up!
You can't even add codes in their compatible with Wii AR discs. Only their old out of print AR disc let you add codes. The GC has been the hardest console for me to mess with games without having to hack the system.
Honestly they always made terrible junk, they just were a bit clever in getting around copy protections. Most of their products were extremely flimsy, super buggy, and had terrible UI. They made them dirt cheap and gave zero fucks if it actually worked. Freeloader for Wii is a perfect example. By the time the discs actually got into stores, the exploit they used had been patched. Datel didn't care and was perfectly happy to continue selling this disc that wouldn't actually work for 99% of people. (Only if you had held off updating the system it would work, but you'd be unable to play any newer games.)
Damn your videos brings back so many memories, the GC/XBOX/PS2 generation was when I really got into modding. Doing other peoples consoles, I used to always have a copy of Splinter Cell and my exploit MC with me, and softmod xboxes at parties and stuff. The scene was moving fast, and it was so much fun to be on the bleeding edge.
I absolutely love this series on how security has been defeated on these older consoles, as it offers a deep look into opportunities for developers to improve the trust chain in their systems. Once you're done with every system that Datel has ever released a version of Action Replay, Gameshark, or other hardware / software exploit for, you should do a video covering the history of Datel. Sure, some things might overlap, but since Datel has touched so many systems with their exploit products, I think it'd be a really interesting video.
Awesome video man, there is something magical about the console hacking and modding scene. Still remember playing Rogue Squadron II for the first time and remember it looking just like the movie! Oh and RE1 remake is how you do a remake!
This brings back memories, I installed the Viper mod chip and got a new case that makes the top loader a full DVD size back in the day. I still have this GC today :)
What are you talking about? Sony even advertised their direct to DVD camcorders with TV commercials showing little kids burning mini DVDs and popping them directly into the DVD player to surprise their parents on movie night. Recordable mini-DVD was common and ubiquitous. You could get them at Circuit City, Best Buy, or even Walmart and K-Mart.
I've watched this episode like 4 times now. I just have to say, ever since I've joined the retro scene, if it doesn't count that I actually grew up with all the original consoles, I haven't been afraid to tinker, mod or hack anything I get my hands on and that's mainly due to the educational videos I watched on TH-cam. And ever since I found your channel, my eyes have been opened and my skills have greatly improved and that's all thanks to you. I greatly appreciate your time and effort on everything you do. Keep up the good work, I will be watching
@@ChillstoneBlakeBlast no, the Switch security is a lot higher than the Wii U one, Nintendo learned the lesson and the Switch security would be great... if it wasn't because of Nvidia and their RCM (Recovery Mode), which had an exploit that allowed to run code before the system booted up, newer systems have the exploit patched, that's why the security can't be used Now tell me, if what you said was right (Using Wii U security), why the hell newer systems aren't be able to use the exploit? That supposition is stupid
Not just one of the best retro youtube channels on here but one of the best youtube channels full-stop. Never fails to entertain and inform. A true advert for this new media.
I was never massively into consoles and games but your videos have me hooked on learning. So much information and great production quality as well as a good quantity of content. Thank you! Keep it up, we appreciate your hard work!
I really enjoy these tales of game system hackery. I know there's a finite number of systems to cover, but please do keep going until you've done them all!
I really appreciate the retrospective with these console copy protection videos. As someone that pays attention to the "scene", its nice to see a video get made that makes that history digestible by so many. I consider myself more on the "white hat" side, and by that I mean that I am more interested in running my own code/homebrew versus running backups, which I know is hotly debated in the scene. I believe for example that Team Tweezers (the team behind the original Wii Hacking) was very unhappy when their work started to get used for "evil" (backup and piracy playback). Anyway, I hope we get to see more of these (although I suppose we are running out of consoles to talk about) and thank you for all your work!
MVG, I can ALWAYS depend that your uploads never try to follow trends that come and go each day, but posting well researched and highly interesting videos - thanks,
First of all, I must compliment with you for the high quality of your videos, they are absolutely fantastic and I appreciate the in-depth explainations you make about the more technical aspects. That being said, I'd like these explanations to be a little slower, especially when talking about the most complex arguments (e.g. how the mini-DVD copy protection works in the GameCube). I am a software engineer but I must admit that sometimes I have to watch some parts of your videos twice to fully understand them. Keep it up!
I always thought the Datel discs only worked because they are professionally produced and not burned. Does that mean if I knew the exact method Datel used, I could just burn homebrews or games on a dvd and it would boot on any gamecube without a modchip?
WuselDusel Perhaps it’s possible in principle but I don’t believe you could execute the Datel method with a typical DVD burner either. It’s not the burnable media that I see as a problem, if you had the right hardware I think a burned disk would work. However most disk burners simply don’t support the level of software control required to implement this nonstandard encoding method. When it comes to writing to the disk a typical burner works more like a “typewriter” than a “printer” the burner has a finite number of modes and knows how to write 1s & 0s in those modes, the burning software doesn’t have the level of control necessary to make the hardware do anything else.
I love videos like this. I don't even pirate games, but seeing how those bypasses work is amazing, people are so creative when it comes to cracking games.
Gamecube had some gigantic shortcomings compared to it's rivals though. The tiny discs were a joke. 1.5gb compared to 9gb DVDs on PS2 and Xbox meant that GCN games were always horribly compressed, or criminally small. So many third party games of the era were more than 5gb, and devs weren't interested in gimping the hell out of their games just for a GCN port, so Nintendo screwed themselves out of third party support for the second generation in a row. Also, the GCN was capable of drawing 12 million polygons per second, which might have looked very impressive to Nintendo while they were developing the system, considering their out-going console - the N64, was capable of just 150,000 polys/sec. But the problem was Nintendo hadn't accurately predicted how capable Sony and Microsoft's consoles would be. The PS2 was capable of 75 million polys/sec, and the OG Xbox could do a whopping 125 million. Suddenly, with their console clearly being much slower than their rivals, and their storage format being literally a 6th of the size of their competitors' format, the GCN looked very weak in comparison.
@@formulajuan5762 thankfully the gamecube had an awesome lineup of first party games. And not every single game used the full 9gb on the disc so there was a lot of decent ports on the gamecube
@@nadirjofas3140 what do you mean nah, its part of the reason it didn't do aswell, games either had to remove so much content or or cut heavily down on quality of most things. even though the gamecube was more powerful of the three, it didn't make a difference because only first titles leverage it to its full extent and any third party games were reduced visually and had missing aspects that were seen on the PS2 and XBOX versions. Nintendos piracy justifications was understandable but was defeated easily, if they had just gone with DVDs the gamecube probably would've done way better in general, due to more games better performance, but nintendo is nintendo
0:41 Art-X (mostly ex-SGI employees who worked on the N64, does anyone else remember SGI?) was bought by ATi in 2000, but *they* are now known by the name of their new owner, AMD. ArtX and ATi-West no longer exist, but the Radeon series lives on.
The single and only issue i had with this amazingly well put together video is this : You put the SD Media Launcher in Memory Card Slot A. That's just plain wrong. All of these SD card loaders came with warnings in huge letters that this is for Slot B only.
Nowadays the Picoboot is the cheapest Gamecube IPL alternative. It uses and off-the-shelf Raspberry Pi Pico as an IPL chip replacement, and can be easily customized with a PC to enable all kinds of IPL firmware patches, including customizing the Gamecube's boot animation color and text, and it can boot the system to homebrew without the need for a DVD drive and connect SD cards and USB storage devices to the Gamecube without special memory card adapters. As a modchip, it does require soldering experience though. Personally, I find modern, open source, off-the-shelf microcontroller-based modchips extremely cool. The BlueRetro, for example, takes advantage of your ESP32-based devkit of choice to grant extensive Bluetooth controller support to older, non-Bluetooth capable consoles, like the Gamecube, NES, SNES, Genesis, N64, Dreamcast, PS2, PSX, etc, and it allows those systems to interface with Wii, Switch, PS3, PS4, PS5, Xbox and even generic wireless controllers by converting the Bluetooth HID information into the controller port signals the system is expecting.
That might explain why sony didn't allow backwards compatibility with the PS4, they were probably worried their security would be infiltrated to quick.
I am loving your 'Mistakes Were Made' series, man. I'm getting into the homebrew scene myself, and enjoy hearing about the history of homebrew on older systems. Keep up the good work. Looking forward to the next video! 👍🏻 👍🏻
That moment when you realize that adding security to an entertainment system generates a community specialized in tinkering and defeating said security...
Mistakes were made indeed Central Processing Unit Processor ArtX IP was bought by ATI, but ATI wasn't what became of ArtX any more than Rare is now known as Microsoft.
I'm so old that i remember when nintendo announced they were developing the (codename) "dolphin". And there was a website that had a logo of Mario riding a dolphin and said 'coming soon', and nothing else. Exciting times 😅. Long time later they announced the name gamecube 🫤 much less cool
Once I heard the “Song For Eternal Story”, i got hyped even more from this video. Crazy to think one of my favorite games of all times played a part in such a thing 😭😭
You're kind of legend, you know? Even though half of the things that you talk about go a few feet over my head, it's really enjoyable information and content. Thank you for the videos is what I'm saying.
"...now known as ATi" It's worth mentioning ATi was bought out by AMD years ago. So saying "now known as" is technically false and a better wording would have been "which later became known as ATi before being acquired by AMD in 2006."
ATi made graphics back in the 80's. Commissioned by IBM, Commodore and later powering Amigas and some more machines. But in a sense they innovated so much in graphics it's acceptable to say every GPU, even in your TV has parts of things innovated by ATi decades ago. ArtX was essentially SGi that later bankrupted. Lot of staff from SGi moved either for AMD or nVidia or FOSS world. Because their execs were idiots who decided to give up the high end PC market for overpriced intel servers.
What I've always wondered is how on Earth did Datel keep breaking into consoles' security and how were their secrets (nearly always) kept so well?
They had a couple talented hackers, and they made every effort to keep their methods secret so they wouldn't have competition. If only they'd put that much effort into quality control, they would have been great...
@Daood Zafar I'm not sure but I think there are still new Action Replay carts being made for Saturn too.
@@renakunisaki I've seen a video about them; IIRC they have a whole laboratory for reverse engineering silicon and stuff.
Good security researchers can do some stuff that borders on magic. And the software engineer and those security researchers have a different sort of way of looking at things at least a couple really good ones that I have met
@@renakunisaki yea they had to cheap out somewhere. Hackers need paychecks too
So, basically Sega software was responsible for the circumvention of Nintendo security.
Seems appropriate lol
They got their revenge
they do what nintendon't
The long con
@@waifu_png_pl6854 omg lol
The dreamcast proved they had no clue when it came to making their products secure lol.
(Unless we're talking about the Saturn, that thing took forever to fully crack.)
I never owned anything Nintendo past the SNES but love seeing how other consoles were modded
You should do a video about gaming in India
Why are there basically no likes to this comment?
Fancy seeing you here
old man
i neve owned nintendo too.
These videos about console security are some of the best I've seen on TH-cam; enough details to understand without going too in-depth and losing the bigger picture. Keep it up MVG!!
Ah, good ole Datel. They had their hands in modding and hacking everything back in the day. Great video as always!
thank you my dude!
I was the person who discovered the backdoor in Phantasy Star Online. The back door was added in "Version 2" of PSO for Dreamcast, and the code remained for the GameCube release. It was added to fix exploits and detect cheating.
A major problem with using the backdoor was that the network traffic was encrypted with an unknown method, and GameCube disks were unreadable at the time. But there was a solution: the Xbox version of PSO had the same encryption, and Xbox had long since been cracked. This is why the reverse-engineered source code for the encryption uses x86 register names and not PowerPC.
@Aziryse they haven't proven it. Don't trust em. Unless they reply with an answer.
You used to be able to get a free subscription by buying a $20 visa giftcard and hooking it up to your profile. It would go for months before it finally cut you off.
Are you sure that you were the person to discover the backdoor in Phantasy Star Online? I see that your comment is edited. 🤔
@@thema1998 exactly
Why does it matter if they are lying? They gave good information
Have you thought of making similar videos on PC DRM? Stuff like SecuRom, LaserLok or the god awful drive-killing mess known as StarForce.
this
I only had one game that used star force and I think it was i-ninja. I didn't like the fact that Windows 98 wanted to restart after installing the game. I was like it's a game it's not like I've just installed drivers or something..oh wait..
I didnt had drive broken with StarForce DRM, but had occasional boot loops. With old BIOS I could boot into security mode and uninstall the game, nowadays I would be screwed because accessing the boot menu on Windows with UEFI is almost impossible, the easiest method is to press Shift at the login screen then restart, but if you cant at least access the login screen, bad luck.
Jeff Sousa when the boot process fails a couple of times it will give you the option to go in to the bios automatically.
@@eindeend IF you restart your pc 3 times ( if it fails to boot 3 times in a row) it will launch into repair mode where you can do many things so restore (or clean) your drive.
It always feels like a neverending fight between companies and hackers. I think its good for both sides.
yes, the hackers have fun and gain knowledge, and companies spend millions in R&D and have to deal with piracy.
Despite that, the use of these hacks is always very niche. 99% of people just buy the games rather than risk their time (and even bricking their system) in order to pirate games.
It's only many years later after a system is discontinued that more people try modding and hacking it.
@@thebasketballhistorian3291everyone i know has atleast 2 modded consoles
@@thebasketballhistorian3291very much not true. Maybe in the US (loyalty and feelings towards companies? Wtf?!), but in most of the world, PS2 modchips were standard. Basically every town had a guy that made a living off modding PS2s and copying games. And every kid had to have a PS2 with loads of burned games.
Phantasy Star Online really takes me back when i played it with my cousins, good times
Man, it's kinda sad how I came later at the PSU era. I'm thinking of trying PSOBB Ephinea on my own this month.
God bless PSP2I for the amount of PSO goodies on there though.
Ye
My cousins had an indigo one too they played monster house
Can you still play this game
Weekend sleepover with pso running the whole time. Good times man
After seeing the outro, I elect none other than YOU as the next DLC character for ARMS on Switch, wielding Gamecubes instead of boxing gloves.
The brilliance around cracking protection is simply amazing and genius regarding the engineering that takes place.
I'm always amazed when I hear how people have done it. Honestly have no idea where you would even start with doing this
By far the most genius design by Nintendo. The handle on the back and the flip up LCD screen you could add... they knew exactly what people were going to be doing with their console. Smash it up.
Correction: ArtX was a separate company that was absorbed by ATi, which was merged with AMD and became its graphics division, dropping the ATi name in 2010 (currently known as Radeon Technologies Group).
Ainsley
Stahp, even thought AMD bought ATI, it's 2 completely different companies now. ATI is accurate because that is what Nintendo advertised they were using. There is even a sticker on the gamecube. If he said "graphics made by AMD", that would be even more inaccurate as AMD was a CPU manufacturer back then.
@@vedi0boy Sure.
@@vedi0boy but AMD absorbed ATI in 2006?
@@vedi0boy No, AMD and ATI are not "2 completely different companies now". And he said "[...]now know as ATI" and that is inaccurate. Why do I keep looking at these god awful YT comments.
Huh, that was a lot longer of a timeframe than I expected! I was thinking a lot of progress was made by 2002 or so.
i loved the wii hacking scene. look forward to seeing a video on that
its still active lol its such a good emulation machine, and now everything is updatable through the wii itself lol
@@dogsbecute Yeah I'm sure it is. I've moved on now to switch now but I've got great memories of the Wii. Yet everyone I know hated it
The Wii homebrew scene was great. It really made up for the lack of good games on the system, and the amazing emulation capabilities were nice to have in the days when USB gamepads were harder to find and it was hard to hook up a PC to a big-screen TV.
I can't wait for MVG to describe what happened with the Wii scene. It was a few years of everybody being totally clueless until Team Twiizers opened the floodgates and everybody was just laughing at its security.
@XwZdrl What now? The Wii was a great succes. Can do months with batteries lol.
@XwZdrl There's no way the console failed lol. Dude it the will had over 100 million sales.
Who gave you permission to stop playing the PSO title screen music?
Song for Eternal Story.
theme song 4 life
Always loved the game, still have my original copy.
What a game it was
Seriously.
I really love those kind of things, showing how copy protection worked/works and how it was defeated. Just sad that companies like Datel aren't saying how they managed to find an entry point or defeating the copy protection so quickly.
Afraid of lawsuits from Nintendo and weakening there legal position.
Ok, here me out.
The GameCube looks like a “Game Rectangular Prism” unless you have a gameboy player.
Big brain
Its almost like a *Game* console that looks like a *Cube*
hear*
ITS RECTANGULAR
I do think it's unique shape is a big part why the Gamecube is so fondly remembered. There simply isn't really any major game system that look like it.
The PS2 is just a rectangle. Most gaming systems have that shape.
"Now known as ATi"? Is that true?
Last I heard, like, 5 years ago, they were bought and taken over by AMD...
AMD has owned ATI since 2006. They were founded in 1985. ATI did however buy ArtX in 2000 which is probably what MVG meant.
@VideoGamePlayer ATI/AMD surely has made a lot of disappointing products, but they also have made some stand outs like the HD5870, 1950XTX, and 9700 Pro. In the last few years they have made some ok mid range cards. I remember my HD5870 ran OpenGL applications just fine and I'm sure it has only gotten better especially due to AMD's effort to make good Linux drivers.
@@Tore299 Yes, that's what MVG meant, and he is right, but as you said, ATi got swallowed up by AMD in 2006, which does mean that AMD owns ATi and its subsidiaries by proxy
@@Tore299 ohh, this helped, now I see
People in this scene usually know who ATI is, not ArtX, so just saying ATI is enough to give us an idea. Plus, Nintendo clearly advertised the use of ATI graphics.
These are honestly my favorite episodes. I was on the scene for PSP and WII and learning how they started even deeper is awesome as well as learning how other consoles I wasn't part of the scene is so interesting. Thank you again for the wonderful content you've quickly become my favorite youtuber
Console: Has slight security flaW
MVG: M I S T A K E S W E R E M A D E
-random capitalization of the letter W in "flaw"
-only one space in places where there should be three when using that sort of spacing
-lack of punctuation, boldness, and asterisks
-"has" should not be capitalized
Are you trying to say something?
@@fishactivation5087 Oh god, I've seen people making fun of someone when they try to correct a minor mistake (like spelling "your" instead of "you're") by calling them a "grammar nazi".
And then you show up.
>Lack of punctuation
I see you’re new to the internet
@@MIITRIN Yeah, sure. Eleven years of experience and I'm still jokingly considered to be new to the concept.
@@fishactivation5087 you aren't better than everyone else by using grammar on a yoUtube COMMENT section
Why am i watching these videos, i don’t even understand 90% of what he’s talking about.
ASMR dude
Same, but you feel accomplished when you sort of understand things here and there.
@@Mythical444 Never heard something so accurate
Because one day, some of your particular interests and inspirations from something you like to spend time on will add up to something that is productive for your long-term life, like a hobby or work. Maybe it isn't to do with hacking consoles, who knows but the principle I'm trying to express here is that it's important to follow your interests in something.
@@saltservice4024 Sounds about right. I went from having fun fixing PCs and finding fixes through TH-cam and Google. To being a certified I.T with a great job
splinter cell 1 & agent under fire... we meet again
What was it that they put in those games that hacked all the 6th Generation consoles. You had one job lol
they're spy games, really ironic
Ah, agent under fire ps2 exploit.
GTA liberty city stories did it for the psp, twilight princess did it for the wii and smash bros brawl did it for the wii part of the wiiU.
When this console came out, i loved it from day one, the size, the discs, the games, the controller, even the boot up logo theme. How clear the games were compared to N64...Man it was just an amazing time just to see the progress of Nintendo.
My favorite series on youtube, it gives unique insight in to the consoles, where previously i only knew how to run the tools but not how they worked and why. Thanks.
All of the "Mistakes were made" videos are so well made and so interesting i can't help but watch them 3 times over
The outro had me in tears! Great job on the series, very informative and entertaining!
Wow. PSO killed the GameCube security? Sega still attacked Nintendo even after the war was over.
Sega was running Martyrdom for real
"now known as ATI....."
Well..... At one point I guess
After playing around with ACL and PSUL for a while, someone eventually made a way to read and write memory cards and I got to play around with that too (think it was CrowTRobo). This opened new and exciting possibilities so I went on Dextrose forums or the IRC channel back then to suggest that someone use an Action Replay with a custom memory card file to load home brew. This started a vigorous discussion about the patch, micro bootloader, full bootloader, etc. I’m pretty sure Anaconda had already been released (DVD loader DOL file ripped from ViperGC IPL), which made it a fully-functional alternative to a mod chip. IIRC, Samson’s AR Loader came less than a week later and was released right there on Dextrose.
I have to imagine I had something to do with it but perhaps Samson simply thought of it too and actually had the know-how to do it. :)
Copyright strike from Nintendo incoming in 3
2
1...
Nah, if it's not about the Nintendo Switch, they won't really care as they washed their hands of the systems years ago.
Even a hacking history video of the Original Wii, I doubt they would really care.
They would rather focus on the current console and not the older ones.
Definitely. That's why they closed the biggest emulation portals.
@GreyZX what, they gave that up the last time they striked this channel only a few weeks ago? somehow i doubt that
I was thinking the same thing. 😂
@Whitebeard The Drunken Pirate
Given there's been a history of bootlegging Nintendo games (the NES specifically), they've probably gone into paranoid overdrive about that sort of thing.
Please make a "How the Nintendo Wii Security was defeated" video! I remember that console to be one of the most entertaining ones to mod! ♥️
As usual with your always grade "A" content, the video was brilliantly simple and concise, yet very informative. No one else on TH-cam has provided this type of content, and I doubt many typical TH-cam gamer personalities would have the knowledge or experience within the homebrew scene to provide such knowledgeable content. I guess my opinion of your content is pretty clear 😉 Keep up the great work!
I love how I don't understand the majority of technical talk, but at the same time, I understand some of it. So I'm able to sort of piece together the history. Cool videos, keep it up!
Datel was such a cool company back in the day.
WAS.
It still is, still alive and well I ordered an AR couple weeks ago
You can't even add codes in their compatible with Wii AR discs. Only their old out of print AR disc let you add codes. The GC has been the hardest console for me to mess with games without having to hack the system.
@@AirshBornely you know what to do then
Honestly they always made terrible junk, they just were a bit clever in getting around copy protections. Most of their products were extremely flimsy, super buggy, and had terrible UI. They made them dirt cheap and gave zero fucks if it actually worked.
Freeloader for Wii is a perfect example. By the time the discs actually got into stores, the exploit they used had been patched. Datel didn't care and was perfectly happy to continue selling this disc that wouldn't actually work for 99% of people. (Only if you had held off updating the system it would work, but you'd be unable to play any newer games.)
Damn your videos brings back so many memories, the GC/XBOX/PS2 generation was when I really got into modding. Doing other peoples consoles, I used to always have a copy of Splinter Cell and my exploit MC with me, and softmod xboxes at parties and stuff. The scene was moving fast, and it was so much fun to be on the bleeding edge.
I love "Mistakes Were Made" in the thumbnail. Instaclick!
Would you say that your click.... Was baited?
I absolutely love this series on how security has been defeated on these older consoles, as it offers a deep look into opportunities for developers to improve the trust chain in their systems. Once you're done with every system that Datel has ever released a version of Action Replay, Gameshark, or other hardware / software exploit for, you should do a video covering the history of Datel. Sure, some things might overlap, but since Datel has touched so many systems with their exploit products, I think it'd be a really interesting video.
Mistakes were made has been one of my favourite series on TH-cam of late. In fact your whole content output is 👌
"Nintendo learnt a lot of lessons and they utilised some more modern techniques in the Wii"
Hackers: _Cackling with tweezers in hand._
awesome! i remember a friend of mine changing the top of the gamecube with a big sized version to be able to run backups on regular size dvds.
Awesome video man, there is something magical about the console hacking and modding scene.
Still remember playing Rogue Squadron II for the first time and remember it looking just like the movie!
Oh and RE1 remake is how you do a remake!
"Mistakes were made". I love that thumbnail. Cracks me up every time.
This brings back memories, I installed the Viper mod chip and got a new case that makes the top loader a full DVD size back in the day. I still have this GC today :)
Your channel is the only one I have notifications on for.
your channel sir is the best channel documenting the history of the consoles and its security flaws , thanks for the massive effort
Always thought their security was perfect because no one could ever get their hands on small CDs, let alone burn them
they were pretty easy to get back in the day.
What are you talking about? Sony even advertised their direct to DVD camcorders with TV commercials showing little kids burning mini DVDs and popping them directly into the DVD player to surprise their parents on movie night. Recordable mini-DVD was common and ubiquitous. You could get them at Circuit City, Best Buy, or even Walmart and K-Mart.
@@emmettturner9452 Depends on your location. I hardly saw any of those either.
Could easily buy them in bulk online back then.
I have a couple mini DVD-R blanks on my desk. Maxxell still makes them.
I've watched this episode like 4 times now. I just have to say, ever since I've joined the retro scene, if it doesn't count that I actually grew up with all the original consoles, I haven't been afraid to tinker, mod or hack anything I get my hands on and that's mainly due to the educational videos I watched on TH-cam. And ever since I found your channel, my eyes have been opened and my skills have greatly improved and that's all thanks to you. I greatly appreciate your time and effort on everything you do. Keep up the good work, I will be watching
Cool! Love it!
I wanna see how Switch or Wii or Wii U security is defeated
MVG said he's not gonna do another Switch video because of Nintendo.
The switch was defeated easily because it's software had reused the Wii U's protection and only modify it to work with the switch
The video about the switch was taken down by Nintendo, unfortunately.
@@ChillstoneBlakeBlast no, the Switch security is a lot higher than the Wii U one, Nintendo learned the lesson and the Switch security would be great... if it wasn't because of Nvidia and their RCM (Recovery Mode), which had an exploit that allowed to run code before the system booted up, newer systems have the exploit patched, that's why the security can't be used
Now tell me, if what you said was right (Using Wii U security), why the hell newer systems aren't be able to use the exploit? That supposition is stupid
TLDR nvidia forgot to lock debug mode after production now a paper clip defeats the switch
Not just one of the best retro youtube channels on here but one of the best youtube channels full-stop. Never fails to entertain and inform. A true advert for this new media.
I can not wait for you to upload the video on the Wii. I remember how I cracked it with that famous Letterbomb Exploit
I was never massively into consoles and games but your videos have me hooked on learning. So much information and great production quality as well as a good quantity of content. Thank you! Keep it up, we appreciate your hard work!
Please do a video on how the Wii's security was defeated.
there is one a pair of twezers did the trick
I really enjoy these tales of game system hackery. I know there's a finite number of systems to cover, but please do keep going until you've done them all!
I really appreciate the retrospective with these console copy protection videos. As someone that pays attention to the "scene", its nice to see a video get made that makes that history digestible by so many. I consider myself more on the "white hat" side, and by that I mean that I am more interested in running my own code/homebrew versus running backups, which I know is hotly debated in the scene. I believe for example that Team Tweezers (the team behind the original Wii Hacking) was very unhappy when their work started to get used for "evil" (backup and piracy playback). Anyway, I hope we get to see more of these (although I suppose we are running out of consoles to talk about) and thank you for all your work!
11 full minutes and not a single time he said "piracy". Amazing.
I mean he said pirates, which is close
1:09
Love the intro music for these, it's like the "Unsolved Mysteries" theme for game consoles.
1 hour old and already 16,000 views. I love MVG monday videos, one of my favorite youtubers.
I missed all of these hacking scenes as a kid who grew up with these games. Thank you for covering gaming history excellently!
I love your videos! They're a favor to the history of video games! Such a great job you do here, keep it up :)
MVG, I can ALWAYS depend that your uploads never try to follow trends that come and go each day, but posting well researched and highly interesting videos - thanks,
Holy shet. Didnt know gamecube had online capabilities
SNES also had online functionality, but I think it was restricted to Asian region's
@@chillhour6155 shit really? wow
These are far and away my favorite videos of yours. I keep telling myself I'm going to get into the modding scene. It is fascinating.
that intro music
BEEOWOOOOWEEOEOOWO
First of all, I must compliment with you for the high quality of your videos, they are absolutely fantastic and I appreciate the in-depth explainations you make about the more technical aspects. That being said, I'd like these explanations to be a little slower, especially when talking about the most complex arguments (e.g. how the mini-DVD copy protection works in the GameCube). I am a software engineer but I must admit that sometimes I have to watch some parts of your videos twice to fully understand them. Keep it up!
Seriously love this series...keep it up! Cannot wait to see the Wii edition I did love modding mine
This channel is better than some others I have seen, I also learned what the homebrew was about.
Keep them coming!
I always thought the Datel discs only worked because they are professionally produced and not burned.
Does that mean if I knew the exact method Datel used, I could just burn homebrews or games on a dvd and it would boot
on any gamecube without a modchip?
WuselDusel Perhaps it’s possible in principle but I don’t believe you could execute the Datel method with a typical DVD burner either. It’s not the burnable media that I see as a problem, if you had the right hardware I think a burned disk would work. However most disk burners simply don’t support the level of software control required to implement this nonstandard encoding method. When it comes to writing to the disk a typical burner works more like a “typewriter” than a “printer” the burner has a finite number of modes and knows how to write 1s & 0s in those modes, the burning software doesn’t have the level of control necessary to make the hardware do anything else.
you need a disk press for that
I love videos like this. I don't even pirate games, but seeing how those bypasses work is amazing, people are so creative when it comes to cracking games.
I'm surprised how good GameCube UI was compared to the barebone PS2.
But could gamecube play DVDs?
Gamecube had some gigantic shortcomings compared to it's rivals though. The tiny discs were a joke. 1.5gb compared to 9gb DVDs on PS2 and Xbox meant that GCN games were always horribly compressed, or criminally small. So many third party games of the era were more than 5gb, and devs weren't interested in gimping the hell out of their games just for a GCN port, so Nintendo screwed themselves out of third party support for the second generation in a row.
Also, the GCN was capable of drawing 12 million polygons per second, which might have looked very impressive to Nintendo while they were developing the system, considering their out-going console - the N64, was capable of just 150,000 polys/sec. But the problem was Nintendo hadn't accurately predicted how capable Sony and Microsoft's consoles would be. The PS2 was capable of 75 million polys/sec, and the OG Xbox could do a whopping 125 million. Suddenly, with their console clearly being much slower than their rivals, and their storage format being literally a 6th of the size of their competitors' format, the GCN looked very weak in comparison.
@@formulajuan5762 thankfully the gamecube had an awesome lineup of first party games. And not every single game used the full 9gb on the disc so there was a lot of decent ports on the gamecube
@@formulajuan5762 ehh nah
@@nadirjofas3140 what do you mean nah, its part of the reason it didn't do aswell, games either had to remove so much content or or cut heavily down on quality of most things.
even though the gamecube was more powerful of the three, it didn't make a difference because only first titles leverage it to its full extent and any third party games were reduced visually and had missing aspects that were seen on the PS2 and XBOX versions.
Nintendos piracy justifications was understandable but was defeated easily, if they had just gone with DVDs the gamecube probably would've done way better in general, due to more games better performance, but nintendo is nintendo
0:41 Art-X (mostly ex-SGI employees who worked on the N64, does anyone else remember SGI?) was bought by ATi in 2000, but *they* are now known by the name of their new owner, AMD. ArtX and ATi-West no longer exist, but the Radeon series lives on.
This series is very interesting. Please continue to do them
The single and only issue i had with this amazingly well put together video is this : You put the SD Media Launcher in Memory Card Slot A. That's just plain wrong. All of these SD card loaders came with warnings in huge letters that this is for Slot B only.
I love this serie, its technical but it's well explained. Can't wait to see the Wii video now! :P
I can't stress enough how much I love these videos! Learning about gaming hardware from a technical and historical viewpoint is fascinating.
Awesome and informative as always, thanks 👍
Nowadays the Picoboot is the cheapest Gamecube IPL alternative. It uses and off-the-shelf Raspberry Pi Pico as an IPL chip replacement, and can be easily customized with a PC to enable all kinds of IPL firmware patches, including customizing the Gamecube's boot animation color and text, and it can boot the system to homebrew without the need for a DVD drive and connect SD cards and USB storage devices to the Gamecube without special memory card adapters. As a modchip, it does require soldering experience though.
Personally, I find modern, open source, off-the-shelf microcontroller-based modchips extremely cool. The BlueRetro, for example, takes advantage of your ESP32-based devkit of choice to grant extensive Bluetooth controller support to older, non-Bluetooth capable consoles, like the Gamecube, NES, SNES, Genesis, N64, Dreamcast, PS2, PSX, etc, and it allows those systems to interface with Wii, Switch, PS3, PS4, PS5, Xbox and even generic wireless controllers by converting the Bluetooth HID information into the controller port signals the system is expecting.
I always get sad when you say "..bye for now"
Mistakes were made litterally just became my favorite quote now
That might explain why sony didn't allow backwards compatibility with the PS4, they were probably worried their security would be infiltrated to quick.
I am loving your 'Mistakes Were Made' series, man. I'm getting into the homebrew scene myself, and enjoy hearing about the history of homebrew on older systems. Keep up the good work. Looking forward to the next video! 👍🏻 👍🏻
That moment when you realize that adding security to an entertainment system generates a community specialized in tinkering and defeating said security...
Many beers were held for a long time
man you're a machine! Awesome video, Gamecube is a fantastic console!!!
Mistakes were made indeed
Central Processing Unit Processor
ArtX IP was bought by ATI, but ATI wasn't what became of ArtX any more than Rare is now known as Microsoft.
That dancing at the end with 2 Gamecubes just Up'd your street cred so much
Ohh so that's why the emulator is called Dolphin because the console was codenamed Dolphin
I'm so old that i remember when nintendo announced they were developing the (codename) "dolphin". And there was a website that had a logo of Mario riding a dolphin and said 'coming soon', and nothing else. Exciting times 😅. Long time later they announced the name gamecube 🫤 much less cool
Once I heard the “Song For Eternal Story”, i got hyped even more from this video. Crazy to think one of my favorite games of all times played a part in such a thing 😭😭
OMG I LOVE YOU!! This is great. I subscribed to your patreon. Gonna subscribe for a few months.
I was looking very forward to this video. You did not disappoint. You're awesome.
Those videos are just epic!
You're kind of legend, you know? Even though half of the things that you talk about go a few feet over my head, it's really enjoyable information and content. Thank you for the videos is what I'm saying.
"...now known as ATi"
It's worth mentioning ATi was bought out by AMD years ago. So saying "now known as" is technically false and a better wording would have been "which later became known as ATi before being acquired by AMD in 2006."
I find it crazy how intelligent these people are to find these exploits
You're literally the same guy who would say "modders take less time to make (something) while a multimillion dollar company takes months more."
@@frozenturbo8623 right what does that have to do with my comment m9
"Mistakes were made"
yeah i remember my parents saying that one time, maybe they were just reading the thumbnail out loud idk
Filled a hole in your jailbreak timeline!
WHY ARE SO MANY GOOD VIDEOS COMING OUT TODAY
First ATi too I guess?
Everything's ATI now.
ATi made graphics back in the 80's. Commissioned by IBM, Commodore and later powering Amigas and some more machines. But in a sense they innovated so much in graphics it's acceptable to say every GPU, even in your TV has parts of things innovated by ATi decades ago.
ArtX was essentially SGi that later bankrupted. Lot of staff from SGi moved either for AMD or nVidia or FOSS world. Because their execs were idiots who decided to give up the high end PC market for overpriced intel servers.
Nice overview, really enjoy your look backs at console security circumvention.
@Modern Vintage Gamer - whats the intro music called?
damn i really wanna know
Can be found from his BandCamp account: modernvintagegamer.bandcamp.com/track/pacific-drive
I thought you said you'll never were going to do another Nintendo video. I'm glad you did it. Great video MVG!
One minor correction, the discs aren't 1.2GB, they're 1.4GB
@Frankie OoO `antidote@chappa-ai ~/HECLProjects % ls -lh Metroid\ Prime.iso
-rw-rw-r-- 1 antidote antidote 1.4G Sep 29 2018 'Metroid Prime.iso'`
@Frankie OoO Really amusing when someone corrects a person who has been reverse engineering GameCube and Wii games since they were even a thing.
@Frankie OoO gitlab.axiodl.com/AxioDL/nod/blob/master/lib/DiscGCN.cpp#L340 consider me educated.
you are both wrong hahahah "Capacity: GameCube: 1.5 GB" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_optical_discs
@@VocaloidEnjoyer1 The wikipedia article is incorrect.