Power On Games

You may have noticed your Wii's disc slot glowing eerily in the night this week, signaling that Nintendo just released firmware updates for both its motion-controlled console and the DSi. The company cites "behind-the-scenes improvements to system performance" as the reason for the patches, but the updates also reportedly remove support for a number of flash cards, mods, and other solutions for running pirated and homebrew software.

Users on the GBA Temp forums (via Gamasutra) were among the first to discover the quiet disabling of unauthorized software on Nintendo's platforms. While a handful of homebrew devices apparently still work on the DSi, this week's Wii firmware update seems to have once again eliminated all current workarounds for running unapproved programs -- potentially even disabling some modified systems altogether.

The Wii's update prompt reads, "If your Wii console includes unauthorized modifications this update may detect and remove unauthorized content causing immediate or delayed inoperability of your console."