Hackers under fire for Mario Kart 8 Wii U modding

A group of hackers have modded Wii U racing game Mario Kart 8.

The video, below, published to YouTube by MrBean35000vr, shows Mario Kart 8 running with changed music, track titles and menu fonts.

The modding is based on a recently-released browser exploit as well as additional code that allows the Wii U browser to edit Mario Kart 8's memory on the fly.

The video has had a number of comments from angry YouTube users, who accuse the hackers of damaging Nintendo and Mario Kart 8 with their work.

MrBean35000vr has been fighting those fires, however, insisting the group is not in the modding game to enable cheating.

"Very very basic stuff, more of a proof of concept rather than anything else," MrBean35000vr said, describing the video.

"None of this is in any state to be released at present, and it's unlikely that we ever will in the interest of preventing cheaters.

"We're not going to be encouraging cheating with this and won't let our work be used for it. Our goal is to make game mods; custom tracks, etc. Relax and enjoy what we come up with."

According to a FAQ on GBATemp.net, the exploit does not work with firmware 5.0.0. "We're deliberately outdated, yeah, in order to keep the exploit running," MrBean35000vr replied when asked about this.

While the Wii U and the 3DS have so far resisted hacking to a large degree, back in April 2013 the group responsible for the first Wii mod chip claimed to have hacked the Wii U so it could play copied games.

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