Nintendo finally patches ENLBufferPwn vulnerability in two Wii U games

[ExperiencersInternational]

Summary

In a post published on Nintendo's social media accounts, online services for the Wii U games Splatoon 1 and Mario Kart 8 will return on the 3rd of August at 1am UTC. This follows a 5 month downtime for both games, and the fact that some legacy Nintendo WFC logon servers for some CoD games have gone down 9 years after WFC's discontinuation.

 

The updated version numbers are 2.12.1 and 4.2.0 respectively.

 

Quotes

Quote

In March 2023, Nintendo paused network services for the Wii U games Splatoon and Mario Kart 8 to address a vulnerability related to online play. The issue has now been fixed, and so we will resume online play for these games based on the schedule below. Please accept our sincere apologies for the extended waiting period.

[...]

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

 

My thoughts

I really find this story interesting with the fact that Nintendo took practically 8 months to sort this out, when other affected games on the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo 3DS were fixed last year. I feel like this update may be bigger than we think though, I've encountered people hacking in Mario Kart 8 before and there's a few YouTube channels (not sure if I'm allowed to mention them) that have a quite a few short clips of hackers in Splatoon 1, perhaps those issues could be patched?

 

Sources

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Support/Wii-U/Wii-U-Splatoon-and-Mario-Kart-8-Notice-regarding-the-ending-of-the-current-maintenance-2425435.html

 

Regarding the CoD logon issues:

https://mas.to/@oatmealdome/110818633809844844

https://wetdry.world/@ipg/110816441417309196

[jaslion]

Keep in mind the wii u has a minimal userbase. Like they didnt even get 1/10th the sales compared to what the switch is at right now AND the switch was a direct wii u replacement leaving very littl incentive for people to stick on the wii u especially for the games you mentioned as these have superior version on the switch

[tkitch]

I'm shocked they're still fixing shit on the WiiU.... 

[ExperiencersInternational]

9 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Keep in mind the wii u has a minimal userbase. Like they didnt even get 1/10th the sales compared to what the switch is at right now AND the switch was a direct wii u replacement leaving very littl incentive for people to stick on the wii u especially for the games you mentioned as these have superior version on the switch

I could argue for both that there still are reasons to play the original games.

 

Also, don't forget that Linus still has a Wii U hooked up iirc lol

[jaslion]

12 minutes ago, ExperiencersInternational said:

I could argue for both that there still are reasons to play the original games.

 

Also, don't forget that Linus still has a Wii U hooked up iirc lol

Are there reasons?

 

Course

 

But see this from a bussiness standpoint.

 

The wii u was a megaflop. The game library was basically 95% of all the switch games at the start because they were excellent games but very few people played or even heard about them.

 

Now you maybe have some thousands of people left that still use the wii u online. So sure you can fix the issue as a bit of goodwill but this would be a extreme low priority compared to the switch and 3ds since these systems both outsold the wii u MASSIVELY hardware wise dont even begin about software wise.

 

[TrigrH]

10 hours ago, jaslion said:

The wii u was a megaflop. The game library was basically 95% of all the switch games at the start because they were excellent games but very few people played or even heard about them.

It was only a fail because everyone thought it was a dumb accessory for the wii. I'm sure if it was called the Wii 2 it might of actually sold.

[da na]

Good for them, I hope the 3 Wii U users (Scott the Woz not included) benefit greatly from the rare Nintendo W

[ExperiencersInternational]

25 minutes ago, da na said:

Good for them, I hope the 3 Wii U users (Scott the Woz not included) benefit greatly from the rare Nintendo W

I'm actually planning to play it personally later today.

 

I have played both Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon online with a friend within like the past 2 years so ermm yeah.

 

I think Splatoon 1 was actually less dead before the servers got nuked than what 2 is atm

[Kisai]

14 hours ago, jaslion said:

Keep in mind the wii u has a minimal userbase. Like they didnt even get 1/10th the sales compared to what the switch is at right now AND the switch was a direct wii u replacement leaving very littl incentive for people to stick on the wii u especially for the games you mentioned as these have superior version on the switch

Japanese users are still playing Splatoon 1.

[jaslion]

7 hours ago, TrigrH said:

It was only a fail because everyone thought it was a dumb accessory for the wii. I'm sure if it was called the Wii 2 it might of actually sold.

Sure but that didnt happen. Didnt stop me from buying one and enjoying it tho.

 

Still its a fail with very few users so as for op that is simply the reason this isnt fixed.

 

Also why activision wont ever fix cod on the wii u. Theres probs enough players to fill at most a handfull of lobbies so might as well shut down the game behind a bug

[jaslion]

3 hours ago, Kisai said:

Japanese users are still playing Splatoon 1.

That doesnt change that numbers wise its a fraction of the other consoles so the incentive to fix it soon is simply not there.

 

I still play on my wii u too. But that doesnt change thr fact that I am a massive minority here which will be easily overlooked

[ExperiencersInternational]

4 hours ago, jaslion said:

Sure but that didnt happen. Didnt stop me from buying one and enjoying it tho.

 

Still its a fail with very few users so as for op that is simply the reason this isnt fixed.

 

Also why activision wont ever fix cod on the wii u. Theres probs enough players to fill at most a handfull of lobbies so might as well shut down the game behind a bug

About the CoD stuff I was referring to the Wii. Apparently some old Nintendo WFC reliant stuff was still working in the past, but now it's not. It's easy enough to get Wiimmfi running anyways so I can't see it being too much of an issue.

 

Also, I still do not see Nintendo's excuse for making both updates take 5 months. Mario Kart 7, a 3DS game, which is still active tbh, got updates for this in December. Pretendo Network had patches for ENLBufferPwn for MK8 and Splatoon 4 days after the vulnerability was disclosed, not 8 months. There's no excuse why two games released 3 years later didn't get updates until now. I want to see the new MK8 and Splatoon updates get datamined anyways tbh.

[jaslion]

31 minutes ago, ExperiencersInternational said:

About the CoD stuff I was referring to the Wii. Apparently some old Nintendo WFC reliant stuff was still working in the past, but now it's not. It's easy enough to get Wiimmfi running anyways so I can't see it being too much of an issue.

 

Also, I still do not see Nintendo's excuse for making both updates take 5 months. Mario Kart 7, a 3DS game, which is still active tbh, got updates for this in December. Pretendo Network had patches for ENLBufferPwn for MK8 and Splatoon 4 days after the vulnerability was disclosed, not 8 months. There's no excuse why two games released 3 years later didn't get updates until now. I want to see the new MK8 and Splatoon updates get datamined anyways tbh.

Oh I also have a simple answer for that:

 

Nintendo is stuck in a old mindset and sees online as a 2nd rate experience. This has been shown and even told over and over hence why it is still so behind their competitors.

 

Its not all bad of course means lots of good local multiplayer but it does show a lack of care.