According to recent reports, source codes for the Nintendo 64, Nintendo GameCube, and now the Nintendo Wii consoles have leaked online following a massive server breach. Now that so much of the world's personal and business information is stored online, there is always the possibility of that information falling into the wrong hands or being stolen by hackers, and constant data breaches exposing people's private information has since become something everyone has become accustomed to hearing about, whether they think it will happen to them or not.
Nintendo is no stranger to being hacked themselves, and less than two weeks ago it was confirmed that 160,000 Nintendo Switch accounts were compromised by hackers. Thankfully, Nintendo was able to cancel out the Network IDs which were causing the security flaw and it doesn't appear as if anyone's credit card information was accessed, but user birthdays, genders, and email addresses were. It now appears as if the company has had their security thwarted yet again, but fortunately the consoles involved in this particular data breach are much more out of date.
As detailed by a lengthy post on ResetEra (thanks, NintendoLife) by a user named Atheerios, over the past few weeks the message board 4chan has received a number of out-of-date Nintendo-related information, "starting with old Pokémon debug ROMs and source code, then most recent 3DS debug ROMs, then keys for all consoles up until the DSi." The leaks didn't end there, and the most recent hacked Nintendo content which has been revealed is "the full source code, design files, documentation and pretty much everything used to create the Revolution, aka Wii." There are even videos, which the user claims are leaked N64 demo ROMs "used by Nintendo to test the console." Check one out below:
According to the user, these files all came from "a server hack related to the BroadOn company, who Nintendo hired for developing most of the Wii hardware and software." The leaks don't just contain the hard information, either, but also diagrams and descriptions for every component of the Wii's hardware thanks to the inclusion of Verilog files, which Atheerios describes as "a hardware description language; is used to describe circuits via code, so with this we can learn how every single piece of the Wii was made."
While likely to be of use to the majority of the gaming public, there are some people out there who would jump at a chance to figure out how classic Nintendo video game consoles were made, be it so they can duplicate the technology for profit or simply teach themselves some new coding tricks. Because of the nature of this particular Nintendo leak and the age of the content involved, it's unlikely to prove detrimental to any players, but it should serve as a warning for the company that they need to think about protecting their backlog (and making sure other companies they employ do the same) as well as watch out for present-day Nintendo Switch hackers.
Source: Sebastian/YouTube, ResetEra (via NintendoLife)