Nintendo: massive leak reveals source code for old consoles
Nearly 2 terabytes of confidential data from old Nintendo consoles ended up on the 4chan forums this weekend. Theoretically, they would allow porting of Nintendo’s flagship titles to PC, but also to understand what was going on internally in the Japanese firm.
Last weekend, a major data leak concerning Nintendo took place on the 4chan forums. Nearly 2 terabytes of data were thus disclosed, including the original source codes of many of the manufacturer’s flagship consoles, the Nintendo 64 to Wii via GameCube. This includes both source codes and internal documentation for these consoles, and even the test software that was used by Nintendo at the time. Here is the list of everything that ended up online:
- Source code for boot0 / 1/2
- Diagram / technical sheets for each component of the system and Verilog for AES / SHA
- BroadOn documents describing the planning and implementation of functionality + APIs + documents for internal software
- SDK + Source code for IOS (Wii operating system)
- Planning documents for the implementation of the system from 2004 to 2006
- Wii sdk library source codes (DVD, EXI)
- Source code and information on manufacturing and publishing systems
- Miscellaneous (WPAD internal SDK from 2005, Wii preview of RVL_SDK 1.0)
- sdboot ”, a specific version of boot2 which loads the data from the SD card, which can probably be used to execute the boot2 code on all Wii
- Gamecube et ique (internal gamecube documents, including physical disk layout, 2GB of iQue, as well as a complete CVS)
Certainly, these are old consoles, and the most recent of them, the Wii, dates back almost 15 years. However, this massive leak could have serious consequences. According to VideoGamesChronicle, at the origin of the discovery of this leak, this data would make it possible to make virtual clones like the original consoles and their games. This would, theoretically, make it easier for emulators since they could now rely on the original source codes of the consoles. Above all, some fierce could rely on this data to offer versions of Nintendo’s flagship titles – like Pokémon, Mario or Zelda – directly on PC, without going through an emulator. This has already been seen recently, since a perfectly functional DirectX 12 version of Super Mario 64 has thus emerged, as spotted VideoGamesChronicle may’s beginning.
At the moment, the origin of this massive leak is not known, even if a user of Resetera supposed that this data would come from the hacking of a server of BroadOn, company which collaborated with Nintendo on the Wii. This is not the first time that confidential Nintendo data has been found on the web. In 2018, a British hacker managed to infiltrate Nintendo’s servers and stole a lot of data, which is now being shared on the web. At this time, we do not know if this new data breach could possibly be linked to this hack that occurred two years ago.
