Comment by tentacleuno
4 years ago
> There are 256 bits in the set of ODM_RESERVED fuses, and there are 8 ODM_RESERVED. This allows for 32 fuses, or 32 future FW versions (provided they burn a fuse on every major release).
32? Is that it? So if Nintendo want to push more than 32 updates, they either need to not blow any more fuses, or stop using the fuses when they've all gone? Wouldn't they be totally useless then?
As far as I can read the chart, they only burn fuses in major updates, e.g., 9.x->10.x, but not x.7 -> x.8
So they must have some guidelines for what kind of features are worth burning a fuse.
But yeah, 32 sounds low. Let's just hope number 32 has an easy exploit :)
And hopefully that is not currently a piece of tribal knowledge that gets lost over time
It would be pretty tough to find 32 unique exploits!
Remember, Ninty doesn’t need to burn one for each update, just for the ones they consider important enough.
Precisely, if 1 exploit downgrade block every 6 months for 16 years isn't effective enough then there is no number of fuses that are effective enough.
The Wii had 4 major versions over the lifetime of the product, and the Wii U had 5. So I think 32 is pretty generous.