Nintendo gets hit by major leak

[Sweet Snow]

Due to a hacking of a company that works with them, Nintendo is being hit by a major data leak
Among the most noticeable things leaked are BIOs to every console to n64 to DSI and N64 test demos, yeah, bad news for who actually leaked it, I suppose, you know they are getting sued

 

[LeftyGreenMario]

Well some legal activity, one person got arrested and apparently that person possessed child pornography, but this was back in January. Not sure if this is related to the leaks we got here.

California man who hacked into Nintendo servers to steal video games and other proprietary information pleads guilty

Seattle – A 21-year-old Palmdale, California, man pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Seattle to federal crimes related to his computer hacking scheme and his possession of child pornography found on his digital devices, announced U.S. Attorney Brian T. Moran.

www.justice.gov

But this is huge. I'm hoping we get some really interesting tidbits on pre-release content on several Nintendo games, and hopefully reverse-engineering and stuff for the sake of game preservation take notes from the leak. Guess development of emulators will be further down the gray zone.

 

[Czario]

Pretty interesting. We'll have to wait and see if any game prototypes come out of this. Even without that, the fact that someone with this information could conceivably recreate the Wii is pretty mind-blowing, though I can already tell that a lot of this info is going to be hard to track down due to it being taken down from various sites.

 

[MiracleDinner]

what are the implications of this?

 

[Glowsquid]

what are the implications of this?

Well for starter, SDK and components documentation would be majorly helpful for emulators, particularly N64 as many of its functions are not well-documented.

 

[London Parris]

Leaks seem to be a new norm, both with the government stuff and video game companies. There is a ton of potential floodgates to ruin video game companies if it is bad enough.

 

[The Green Knight]

-Fan Theroy-
What if this was secretly staged by Nintendo for a way to make people more interested in new/upcoming releases?

 

[LeftyGreenMario]

Well for starter, SDK and components documentation would be majorly helpful for emulators, particularly N64 as many of its functions are not well-documented.

Most definitely. What's included in developer kits tend to be conversion tools that most modders don't have access to (they're usually reverse-engineered instead and usually come with their own problems and limitations). The Wii SDK and Switch SDK were leaked years ago, and I've used some of their stuff to produce mods. But the implications aren't just mods, it's accurate emulation as well. I'm not a programmer, but it's really a boon if you know documentation of how code and other things are put together rather than just trying to reverse-engineer or doing ASM hacking (both otherwise extremely time-consuming processes).

Leaks seem to be a new norm, both with the government stuff and video game companies. There is a ton of potential floodgates to ruin video game companies if it is bad enough.

While this is a major leak, I don't think it's the biggest one and I can't say if there's a trend of leaking stuff more and more these days. Leaks are a lot easier to do than ever. I doubt this'll impact the companies significantly though, but I hope they'll keep better security. I personally like when modders and emulation-makers can benefit but I also am aware of bootleggers that can also take advantage of it, so it's a double-edged sword. But do I feel bad about Nintendo either way? No.

-Fan Theroy-
What if this was secretly staged by Nintendo for a way to make people more interested in new/upcoming releases?

That'll be waaaayy too risky for the sake of a stunt and it goes against what they usually do when it comes to modding and emulation.