Freeloader?
 

* Lets PAL gamers finally play some games on their system.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y13...loaderyeah.jpg

Naturally everyone's shitting their pants expecting Nintendo to crush the use of it with a firmware update just like they did with the GameCube Freeloader over and over again on the Wii, but hey! I think Datel would have kinda been expecting that by now, so this may have some mystery magic in it to get past that junk. Comes out in like two weeks or something, you can order it from Datel's Code Junkies site for £9.99 ($20 US). They only accept credit cards though which is shit. ='( Plus there's the whole you'll probably get screwed being an early adopter with something like this. Oh, and judging by the first bullet point in their exciting list, this Freeloader will work on any system. Unlike the GC one, which was sold in PAL and NTSC formats.

I wish Datel all the best, if only because Nintendo Europe's pretty much officially the slowest bunch of twits out there. I'm talkin' 'walkin' into closed doors and wondering why they're not getting anywhere' style slow. Much smaller publishers are getting PAL games out within days of the American release, even extremely text-heavy games! Yet NoE takes four months for Excite Truck, or seven months for that fucking Pokemon Battle Revolution game that has a whopping one sentence in it "that attack was super nintendo!".

I will consume ALL the Simple Series on Wii! :cmb:

I'll get it if it supports Naruto 4. That will give me a good reason to put away my GCN. Then again, I might as well just buy that Japanese Wii sequel instead.

I'd be surprised if Nintendo did crush this too quickly. After all, the DS is region free so they aren't anti the idea of cross region gaming and let's face it, it's only a matter of time before everyone who rushed out to buy a Wii realises that once they're bored of Wii Sports there's nothing else to play on it.

I can't see them selling many copies of PAL Brawl if this gets a good take up though, given that the predicted launch date is still sometime in 2019 or something.

Handheld systems have always been region free, so I wouldn't rely on that logic.

I don't know... I used to double-dip games I'd imported sometimes on the Gamecube, because the disc-swapping involved in using the Freeloader was a bit of a pain compared with directly booting a domestic game.

For an RPG where you play once, complete the game and then likely never touch it again, it's fine. For something like SSB where you could be booting it daily for a couple of years, it's a pain in the arse.

With regards to the topic, this is probably the thing that will finally tip me into getting a Wii, if the disc continues to work for a while.

Think of it this way, the more people easily obtain a Freeloader (one that doesn't become useless in a week), the more likely they are to buy legit games (even if they do import), ergo the less likely they are to modchip their console and thus have access to warez.

I am seriously getting this as soon as it's confirmed not to crap out on you when something (anything) is updated. I don't even have a Wii yet and I know I'll have plenty of use for this. I still love my GC Freeloader, and I only had like three US games and one jap game I used it on. STILL GREAT <3

gonna get it for my friend.


Don't need it for myself (hello, twilight hack)

That's an excellent point. There are solutions for the Sega Saturn and the Gamecube that allow imports but don't allow pirate copies. The equivalent on most other systems permits you to load illegally copied games. It's a shame that importing and piracy are tied together this way.

If only they came out with this a few weeks earlier, then I could've indulged in Brawl. But it's coming out in more or less than a week, so... :mad:

I'll probably get it if I find something worth importing on the Wii. Can't think of anything right now.

You mean the hack that can only play homebrew?

So far.

It's not clear what hardware access we can get through that yet, though.

Well, either way it's still money in their pocket, right?

I mean granted, there's a potential for loss in all the effort of making PAL versions, but like others have pretty much said, better this than the path of pirating, right?

If NoE hasn't figured out yet that much of their audience is rather disillusioned, maybe this will do it.

Well I find two problems with the Freeloader and one has already been mention. The other problem is that some game REQUIRE an "in-game" update in order to play the game. Like for Brawl, it doesn't matter if you have the latest firmware, it will need to install something in order for the game to run. If the freeloader bypass/skip over the update it need, the game will not load (unless the freeloader does something that will check the disc for the necessary update file and install it there to which I doubt).

I'm not sure why, but a lot of people seem to be connecting the announcement of Wii Freeloader with the new homebrew Trucha Signer (which allows you to take updates out of Wii isos, then burn them again with Wii signatures). How does this have anything to do with Freeloader?

Anyways, I'm getting this if people report being able to play Smash (and avoid Wii updates). Screw PAL release dates.

Uh huh. =(

I was briefly swayed towards buying this and playing the US No More Heroes, but really, I don't think the censorship of the PAL bothers me enough to import.

It's apparently shipping already.

ORDERED LIKE WHAT

It can't play backups right?

If you look at it, it's most likely Datel use that program to create the Freeloader. They have the source to pressed their own disc and using that program they are able to make one (er, massive pressing the disc).

If they created the Freeloader, oh say, before the Trucha Signer and/or the release of Brawl in Japan, then it would be a different story (and not to mention the Japaense version of Brawl would had sold more copies).

If a new Wii firmware update stop the Freeloader AND Trucha Signer from running on the Wii at the same time it mean they had been using the same Wii signatures exploit.

Oh ho.

Also huuuuuge box art!

http://www.vooks.net/images/BigFreeloader.jpg

No access to a credit card and no PayPal whatever sucks. =') I'm thinking of putting down a pre-order on that Play-Asia site (along with Brawl) and doing a direct bank transfer thinga-ma-jig.

...that doesn't stop the internet sending the download to you...

What?

HMMMMMM.

CAPITAL LETTERS.

So if playing an import game requires the Freeloader to somehow bypass firmware updates (which I assume do more than simply block Freeloader), wouldn't that make your console a lot more unstable? Does using Virtual Console require you to keep your firmware up to date?

Last time I checked, it did. At one point, I couldn't even enter the store without it telling me I needed up go update. :(

I don't see any titles in the future which would make me want to update (yet).

As far as I'm concerned, once I get Smash, my Wii will only go online for brawlan purposes. I might be coaxed into updating if a new Zelda comes out or summat.