Nintendo NES Classic Has Been Hacked So It Can Store More Games

Nintendo's Mini NES Classic console is pretty hard to find these days and is still one of the most highly sought gaming consoles in the market. Gamers who want to take a trip down 8-bit memory lane will not go wrong with the NES as it comes bundled with many of their favourite classics from yesteryear.

The only drawback to this is there is no other official way to add more to the console's gaming library, so fans have took it upon themselves to hack the Mini NES Classic so they can add more to games to it. The surprising thing about this is the hack doesn't require a screwdriver.

A Russian hacker going by the name "madmonkey" says all that is needed to hack the console are a PC, a micro-cable USB, a tolerance for the possibility of infecting your computer with malware, and a total disregard for the law. According to a report from Boing Boing, this is an illegal way of transferring your games, even if you do own the original cartridges.

The hack posted by madmonkey involves connecting the console to a PC using a micro-cable USB, booting the computer in "FEL" which is a mode used for programming devices via USB, and then duplicating the NES Classic's information to your PC and modifying it using a tool called "hakchi", developed by madmonkey himself. Hakchi will then overwrite the original info found on the NES Classic and replace it with a new one that includes new games.

A detailed discussion of this method can be found in this thread on Reddit. It did not take long before other hackers stepped in and made some improvements to madmonkey's hack. A user going by the name "Cluster" also posted in the same thread and programmed a second version of the tool used to overwrite the data on the NES Classic called "hakchi2".

The second version makes the whole process more streamlined because it does not require a "Super Mario Bros." save file and it is much easier to navigate. While both methods might be illegal, they have at least shown us that Nintendo's Mini NES Classic is more capable than it seems.