Two months. It's been two months since Nintendo launched the NES Classic. It quickly became the most desired system of the holiday season, to the point that its price tripled on secondary sales channels. However, what we were all waiting for was the hack to install additional games. The process is still a bit inconvenient, but it's already at the level of a softmod, meaning we don't have to open up the hardware.
The Story of a Promised Hack
The NES Classic (Classic Mini on this side) responded first to a deep sense of nostalgia. Many users who couldn't buy the original NES at the time found the ideal opportunity to get revenge and put their personal universes in order, beyond the stock problems that affected (and still affect) the new console. But the truth is that after the confirmation of its launch, our "inner hacker" started screaming. Nintendo made the strange decision to limit the number of games on the console to thirty (with exclusive titles depending on the region), and the selection wasn't very clear either, since, for example, we find Mega Man 2 and Double Dragon 2, but their first parts are not available. Once hardware enthusiasts got their claws on the console, they began to work…
The Hack and Its Tools
… and it took them just two months. Multiple reports indicate that two users identified as 'madmonkey' and 'ClusterM' created the method and the installation program (dubbed 'hakchi'). The key to the hack working correctly is the existence of a saved game in the first slot of Super Mario Bros., which is very easy to achieve. After that, you have to turn off the console, connect it to a computer with a good quality micro USB cable, enter FEL mode (hold RESET while turning the console on again), install the USB driver for the Allwinner chips' FEL mode with a tool called Zadig, and from there choose the manual route, or use the hakchi2 application, which initially loaded with what seemed like a false positive under Windows Defender and other antivirus software (the version linked here indicates 2 out of 54 on VirusTotal). To clear up doubts, ClusterM released hakchi2's source code and stopped using UPX.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/DfklPLb14TQStorage Limits and ROM Issues
The user will have to add extra metadata for each game, including the cover in JPG format (hakchi2 can get images directly from Google) and the number of players. In total, the loading process takes no more than fifteen minutes, although this changes with the number of games. What's the limit? The NES Classic has 512 megabytes of internal storage, but you also have to consider the operating system and the space for saves. So far, the community suggests a maximum of 65 games (30 original + 35 loaded), which in turn guarantees a save slot for each one. As a closing, we must highlight that some ROMs simply don't work on the console. The most mediatic case is that of Battletoads, which hangs on the second screen. Yes, the whole process involves running some risks, but the general response is very positive. It will be a matter of time until they find a way to change the software from the root and increase the storage on the console.
