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Famiboards
FYI: Don't post direct links to the leaked archives in this thread.
Figured it's time for a thread on this, as today marks the 15th anniversary of the jingle that plays when you select a Virtual Console game on the Wii Menu. Info which was brought to light through these leaks.
How we got here
On March 2018, someone hacked into Nintendo's servers. Dumped a ton (allegedly over 2.54 TB, but this is not 100% confirmed.) of content from it, and began spreading it around his personal friend group.
The first proper release, which dropped that April, from these leaks was the internal SDK for the iQue, alongside decrypted versions of it's entire library. But this would be quickly overshadowed by the surprise release of the infamous "Spaceworld 97" builds of Pokemon Gold/Silver the next month. Marking the beginning of what would later become known as the Gigaleak.
Recapping everything that has been discovered would prove to be an overwhelmingly daunting task, so i feel it would be best to start the thread with a selection of items that haven't been spread around all that much.
Part 1: Tomohiro Kawase
Tomohiro Kawase, for those of you don't know. Is a figure i've researched thoroughly over the past few years. After unofficially helping write some documentation on the NES's hardware (credited under his pen-name of "Kawasedo"). He would go on to be officially hired by Nintendo, developing a pair of Game Boy and NES emulators for the Nintendo 64. The latter of which he would further develop for the Game Boy Advance (He also did some work for the System's BIOS, as his pen-name is stored in the data), the Gamecube, and eventually lead to the creation of the Wii's Virtual Console.
Naturally, a figure like this shows up several times in these leaked files.
The first thing, and quite possibly the biggest revelation. Relates to the NES emulator. Officially it debuted in 2001 as part of the original N64 version of Animal Crossing (Dōbutsu no Mori). But the wildly popular N64 source leak actually contains a folder (TFC) featuring a much earlier version.
Dated to 1999, this isn't actually Tomohiro's first work at Nintendo (Pocket Monsters Stadium is still a year prior). But it does mark the beginning of the NES emulator. A pre-compiled version is stored in "rom.nopad", but it seems it might be broken. As every emulator i've tried fails to go past that selection screen.
The Animal Crossing source folder unsurprisingly has it's version of the code lying around too. Which reveals a few other small details, like Super Mario Bros (Which wouldn't be officially added until the Gamecube port) being used as a test rom, Ice Climbers being planned as a included game in the N64 version, and mapper support so through that it supports bootleg carts.
Also relating to Animal Crossing, one of the clear signs that Nintendo did not "download ROMs off the internet" like was claimed at one point was that Clu Clu Land D, a disk writer exclusive, had it's internal Manufacturing date and "Rewritten disk" dates listed as identical in the data. Which would be impossible if Nintendo didn't pull the game from their internal archives.
Said internal FDS archives were acquired from the leak, unsurprisingly. Which means we actually have a photo of the exact disk Nintendo got the data from, alongside countless other titles.
Which pretty much proves once and for all that the rumour is false.
and finally, he shows up a few times in the internal E-mails. With the most important one being a proposal to add NES zapper support to the Wii Virtual Console, something which wouldn't be realized until the Wii U, over eight years later.
Part 2: a pair of unreleased Wii games
One of the biggest things to drop out of the E-mail leak was a set of spreadsheets containing internal lists for upcoming Wii and DS games, people have poured through the list already. Discovering notable projects like Project X (A Retro Studios developed game about Sheik) and the infamous Metroid: Dread.
But lesser known is the fact that two of the listed projects have extra data lurking in the E-mails, including screenshots in one case!
剣格闘テーマ
Y'sK (of Fire Pro Wrestling Returns fame) was working on this sword-fighting game for the Wii, and provided these concept sketches to Nintendo.
I'd imagine they realized the motion controls of the time couldn't really be as accurate as they were intending, but the idea would stick with Nintendo for a while. Before finally getting realized on their own through the Swordplay mode in Wii Sports Resort, as well as Skyward Sword.
ZERO
This project was being developed by Gaia, a studio founded by Kouji Okada, who had previously formed Atlus. Several screenshots exist thanks to them e-mailing Nintendo multiple bug reports throughout development. With the below screenshots demonstrating a problem in how the game is handling vertices.
Like the sword fighting game, this also had it's own grand attempt at trying to push the motion controls too hard. With an E-mail discussing training neural networks to more accurately map the nunchuck's lackluster motion controls.
Parts of the protagonist's design (Namely the buttons on the front of his chest.) would go on to be somewhat reused in the PSP exclusive title "Coded Soul: Uketsugareshi Idea",
while Gaia would eventually do a public announcement for a Wii game titled "Cosmic Walker" in 2008, which would also go on to be unreleased.
Captain Rainbow
This game would, in fact, get released. But the E-mails contain a few bug reports relating to it. Such as this early texture for the ocean waves. (I believe they had issues converting it or something?)
Some bushes (Which relates to a question about how to handle layered textures.)
As well as a few early models, almost all of them require a copy of Maya to load. But there is one test model in the more standard .max file format.
Part 3: The DSiware debug builds
There's been a bit of awareness that the leaks included quite a bit of DSiware content, including a debug build for Four Swords.
But what's not as well-known is the fact it's not the only game to have a debug build out there now. Such as.....
Face Pilot! An unusual game that is entirely controlled by moving your head around, predating the Kinect by about 4 months. You can pull up the menu at any time by pressing select.
(Note: i forgot to take a photo of this, so here's the original trailer)
Make and Sing: Monkey Band! This one just cuts straight to the point, and launches into the debug menu automatically.
Uh, "DSココロぬりえ". It's some sort of application that judges your mood by what you draw. This build launches by displaying that build info screen, with the actual debug menu being accessed by holding down the A Button before launching.
A pair of "Photo wordbook" (書いて覚える 写真単語帳) and "English wordbook" (書いて覚える 英単語帳) applications! They share an identical codebase, so accessing the debug menu is the same method in both games. (Hold down L and then press the R button)
There's even a ROM for the DSi eshop with early HTML files! The most notable difference is the gifting feature, which i'm pretty sure was only available on the Wii Shop.
There's also a few builds with debugging symbols, which seem to require a devkit to run. Including Pinball Pulse, Reflect Missile, and X-Scape.
Needless to say, this is just a small sample of discoveries. There's plenty of content out there that hasn't been fully documented just yet! Not to mention the possibility of more leaks eventually making it out there. There was a pretty lengthy gap between the E-mails and the leak prior to them. So it's not completely out of the question that there's more lying around.
Figured it's time for a thread on this, as today marks the 15th anniversary of the jingle that plays when you select a Virtual Console game on the Wii Menu. Info which was brought to light through these leaks.
How we got here
On March 2018, someone hacked into Nintendo's servers. Dumped a ton (allegedly over 2.54 TB, but this is not 100% confirmed.) of content from it, and began spreading it around his personal friend group.
The first proper release, which dropped that April, from these leaks was the internal SDK for the iQue, alongside decrypted versions of it's entire library. But this would be quickly overshadowed by the surprise release of the infamous "Spaceworld 97" builds of Pokemon Gold/Silver the next month. Marking the beginning of what would later become known as the Gigaleak.
Recapping everything that has been discovered would prove to be an overwhelmingly daunting task, so i feel it would be best to start the thread with a selection of items that haven't been spread around all that much.
Part 1: Tomohiro Kawase
Tomohiro Kawase, for those of you don't know. Is a figure i've researched thoroughly over the past few years. After unofficially helping write some documentation on the NES's hardware (credited under his pen-name of "Kawasedo"). He would go on to be officially hired by Nintendo, developing a pair of Game Boy and NES emulators for the Nintendo 64. The latter of which he would further develop for the Game Boy Advance (He also did some work for the System's BIOS, as his pen-name is stored in the data), the Gamecube, and eventually lead to the creation of the Wii's Virtual Console.
Naturally, a figure like this shows up several times in these leaked files.
The first thing, and quite possibly the biggest revelation. Relates to the NES emulator. Officially it debuted in 2001 as part of the original N64 version of Animal Crossing (Dōbutsu no Mori). But the wildly popular N64 source leak actually contains a folder (TFC) featuring a much earlier version.
Dated to 1999, this isn't actually Tomohiro's first work at Nintendo (Pocket Monsters Stadium is still a year prior). But it does mark the beginning of the NES emulator. A pre-compiled version is stored in "rom.nopad", but it seems it might be broken. As every emulator i've tried fails to go past that selection screen.
The Animal Crossing source folder unsurprisingly has it's version of the code lying around too. Which reveals a few other small details, like Super Mario Bros (Which wouldn't be officially added until the Gamecube port) being used as a test rom, Ice Climbers being planned as a included game in the N64 version, and mapper support so through that it supports bootleg carts.
Also relating to Animal Crossing, one of the clear signs that Nintendo did not "download ROMs off the internet" like was claimed at one point was that Clu Clu Land D, a disk writer exclusive, had it's internal Manufacturing date and "Rewritten disk" dates listed as identical in the data. Which would be impossible if Nintendo didn't pull the game from their internal archives.
Said internal FDS archives were acquired from the leak, unsurprisingly. Which means we actually have a photo of the exact disk Nintendo got the data from, alongside countless other titles.
Which pretty much proves once and for all that the rumour is false.
and finally, he shows up a few times in the internal E-mails. With the most important one being a proposal to add NES zapper support to the Wii Virtual Console, something which wouldn't be realized until the Wii U, over eight years later.
Code:
村川さん
開発部の川瀬です。
先程のＩＳさんとの会議で検討事項に上がった、ファミコンエミュレー
タでの光線銃対応案を申し上げます。
ファミコンエミュレータで、光線銃への対応方法の提案
(正式な資料が手元になくて申し訳ございません、インターネットで得た
情報を元にしています…たとえば "nestech.txt" で検索してみてくださ
い。その中に "Zapper Trigger", "Zapper Sprite Detection" として説
明があります。)
ファミコンの光線銃がファミコンにセットされたとき、ファミコンのCPU
が0x4016番地をリードすると、トリガーの状態と、光センサーに受光し
ているかどうかを返すと思います。
Zapper Triggerをエミュレーションすることは特に問題ないはずです。
レボリューションのコントローラの何かのボタンの状態を渡すだけで良
いと思います。
Zapper Sprite Detectionですが、後述の方法で調べて、レボリューショ
ンのコントローラが対象物を指しているかどうかによって、該当ビット
を0/1にセットすれば良いと思います。
ここからQFC_IRDのソース上での話になります。QFC_IRD.cをご覧くださ
い。
for (player = 0; player < PAD_MAX_CONTROLLERS; player++) {
i = DEMOPadGetButton(player);
j = DEMOPadGetDirs(player);
上記の for ブロックで、ゲームキューブのコントローラの各ボタンに対
応するビットを、ファミコンのビット順に並び替えています。光線銃は
ファミコンのアドレス空間0x4016を使います。(海外版ではコントローラ
が脱着式ですので、2Pは0x4017番地でアクセスできるようですが、2P同
時に光線銃で遊べるタイトルが必要になったら、その時点で対応して頂
ければ十分です。)
それを踏まえて頂き、「ファミコンのCPUが0x4016番地をリードしたとき
に得られる値」をエミュレータがセットするには、以下の擬似コードの
ようにしてください。
wp->serial4016d4 = (Zapper Trigger is ON) ? 0 : 0xffffffff;
wp->serial4016d3 = (Zapper Sprite is Detected) ? 0xffffffff : 0;
つまり、"Zapper Trigger is ON" であれば、ファミコンのCPUが0x4016
番地をリードしたときに、bit d4が常に0を返します。(ビットの論理
(0/1)が異なるもしれません。)
では最後に、"Zapper Sprite Detection" の判定方法について説明しま
す。
光線銃を撃った瞬間に、画面全体が真っ黒になります。しかし、対象物
(鳥など)だけは、白いベタキャラクタで塗りつぶされます。この瞬間に
光センサーがこの白い光を受光すれば、 "Zapper Sprite is Detected"
状態となります。
これだけでは、別の発光体(TVなど)で画面を真っ白にしておき、トリガ
を連射すれば百発百中になってしまいます。おそらく、
「完全に画面が真っ黒で、"Zapper Sprite is Detected" が成立しない」
「次に対象物だけ白ベタキャラクタで表示し、"Zapper Sprite Detection"を行う」
(もう一回？)「完全に画面が真っ黒で、"Zapper Sprite is Detected" が成立しない」
という方法で、ファミコンは光線銃が正しく対象物を撃ったかどうか判
定していると私は想像します。
そこで、以下の方法を提案します。
1. レボリューションのコントローラがポイントしている画面上の座標を、
ファミコン座標系での座標にドット単位で置き換える。
u32 RevolutionPointX; // 左端を0、右端を639とします
u32 RevolutionPointY; // 上端を0、下端を479とします
u32 NesScreenPointX; // 結果の左端が0、右端が(KS_NES_DRAW_RESULT_WIDTH-1)になるように
u32 NesScreenPointY; // 結果の上端が0、下端が(KS_NES_DRAW_RESULT_HEIGHT-1)になるように
NesScreenPointX = (RevolutionPointX * KS_NES_DRAW_RESULT_WIDTH) / 640;
NesScreenPointY = (RevolutionPointY * KS_NES_DRAW_RESULT_HEIGHT) / 480;
数字は調整してください。これで、エミュレータが持っている画面イメ
ージ(テクスチャイメージ)のどこのドットを調べればよいか、分かりま
す。
2. ファミコン座標系での座標に対応するテクスチャイメージを取得。
黒なら"Zapper Sprite is Detected"はFALSE。そうでなければTRUE。
QFC_IRD.c中の、以下の部分をご覧ください。
GXInitTexObj(&texobj, wp -> result_bufp,
KS_NES_DRAW_RESULT_WIDTH, KS_NES_DRAW_RESULT_HEIGHT, GX_TF_RGB565,
GX_CLAMP, GX_CLAMP, GX_FALSE);
ここから、エミュレーション結果のテクスチャイメージの先頭を
wp->result_bufp で取得できることがお分かり頂けると思います。
テクスチャフォーマットはGX_TF_RGB565です。以下の式で、テクスチャ
イメージが取得できると思います。描画はグラフィックスプロセッサが
行っていますので、CPUが取得するためにresult_bufp全体のデータキャ
ッシュを無効化(invalidate)して頂く必要があると思われます。
DCInvalidateRange(wp->result_bufp,
KS_NES_DRAW_RESULT_WIDTH * KS_NES_DRAW_RESULT_HEIGHT
* sizeof(u16));
u16 TexImage = *(u16 *)((u32)wp->result_bufp
+ (NesScreenPointY * KS_NES_DRAW_RESULT_WIDTH
+ NesScreenPointX) * sizeof(u16));
一切未検証です。申し訳ございません。
以上、よろしくお願いします。Part 2: a pair of unreleased Wii games
One of the biggest things to drop out of the E-mail leak was a set of spreadsheets containing internal lists for upcoming Wii and DS games, people have poured through the list already. Discovering notable projects like Project X (A Retro Studios developed game about Sheik) and the infamous Metroid: Dread.
But lesser known is the fact that two of the listed projects have extra data lurking in the E-mails, including screenshots in one case!
剣格闘テーマ
Y'sK (of Fire Pro Wrestling Returns fame) was working on this sword-fighting game for the Wii, and provided these concept sketches to Nintendo.
I'd imagine they realized the motion controls of the time couldn't really be as accurate as they were intending, but the idea would stick with Nintendo for a while. Before finally getting realized on their own through the Swordplay mode in Wii Sports Resort, as well as Skyward Sword.
ZERO
This project was being developed by Gaia, a studio founded by Kouji Okada, who had previously formed Atlus. Several screenshots exist thanks to them e-mailing Nintendo multiple bug reports throughout development. With the below screenshots demonstrating a problem in how the game is handling vertices.
Like the sword fighting game, this also had it's own grand attempt at trying to push the motion controls too hard. With an E-mail discussing training neural networks to more accurately map the nunchuck's lackluster motion controls.
Parts of the protagonist's design (Namely the buttons on the front of his chest.) would go on to be somewhat reused in the PSP exclusive title "Coded Soul: Uketsugareshi Idea",
while Gaia would eventually do a public announcement for a Wii game titled "Cosmic Walker" in 2008, which would also go on to be unreleased.
Captain Rainbow
This game would, in fact, get released. But the E-mails contain a few bug reports relating to it. Such as this early texture for the ocean waves. (I believe they had issues converting it or something?)
Some bushes (Which relates to a question about how to handle layered textures.)
As well as a few early models, almost all of them require a copy of Maya to load. But there is one test model in the more standard .max file format.
Part 3: The DSiware debug builds
There's been a bit of awareness that the leaks included quite a bit of DSiware content, including a debug build for Four Swords.
But what's not as well-known is the fact it's not the only game to have a debug build out there now. Such as.....
Face Pilot! An unusual game that is entirely controlled by moving your head around, predating the Kinect by about 4 months. You can pull up the menu at any time by pressing select.
(Note: i forgot to take a photo of this, so here's the original trailer)
Make and Sing: Monkey Band! This one just cuts straight to the point, and launches into the debug menu automatically.
Uh, "DSココロぬりえ". It's some sort of application that judges your mood by what you draw. This build launches by displaying that build info screen, with the actual debug menu being accessed by holding down the A Button before launching.
A pair of "Photo wordbook" (書いて覚える 写真単語帳) and "English wordbook" (書いて覚える 英単語帳) applications! They share an identical codebase, so accessing the debug menu is the same method in both games. (Hold down L and then press the R button)
There's even a ROM for the DSi eshop with early HTML files! The most notable difference is the gifting feature, which i'm pretty sure was only available on the Wii Shop.
There's also a few builds with debugging symbols, which seem to require a devkit to run. Including Pinball Pulse, Reflect Missile, and X-Scape.
Needless to say, this is just a small sample of discoveries. There's plenty of content out there that hasn't been fully documented just yet! Not to mention the possibility of more leaks eventually making it out there. There was a pretty lengthy gap between the E-mails and the leak prior to them. So it's not completely out of the question that there's more lying around.