The DCEmu Homebrew and Gaming Network has announced the first-ever “Dual Nintendo Wii and Nintendo Gamecube Coding Competition.”
“This Coding Competition will hopefully ignite a mass of interest for creating homebrew and emulators on the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo Gamecube,” according to a post on the DCEmu website. Entries can be emulators, homebrew games, demos or applications that work directly on the Nintendo Gamecube or Wii consoles, and all entries must be freeware so that they may be distributed after the end of the contest.
“Homebrew” refers to making consoles – in this case, the Gamecube and Wii – operate in fashions beyond those intended by the manufacturer. Currently, one of the primary goals of the homebrew crowd is giving the Wii the ability to run software that isn’t licensed by Nintendo. While it is currently possible to run Gamecube homebrew software on the Wii through the use of boot disks or mod chips, the system’s protection against the execution of unauthorized code has thus far made it impossible to run native Wii homebrew. Organizers hope that through the contest, an exploit will be found that will allow full homebrew on the Wii without requiring a mod chip.
First prize in the competition is $300 to spend at the GP2X Store; second prize is $150, and third prize is $50. All submissions to the contest must work with SD Load, or include a corresponding SD Load version if they are designed to work with mod chips. Full contest rules and other details are available at the official web site.
