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→Placeholders: considering that Nintendo used version 255.0, they probably didn’t plan on reusing old slots
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Nintendo can come back at a later date if necessary and "reuse" an IOS slot at their own discretion by simply increasing the version number of the title and replacing it with a functional IOS once again. These IOSes have been marked as '''Mothballed''' on the table denoting that Nintendo may have planned on reusing them during the Wii's lifetime. +
+
As a rule, an existing IOS will never have new features added to it, to protect binary compatibility. This means that any updates for existing IOSes are only meant to fix bugs (generally, security bugs).
As a rule, an existing IOS will never have new features added to it, to protect binary compatibility. This means that any updates for existing IOSes are only meant to fix bugs (generally, security bugs).
−=== Placeholders ===
+=== Stubs ===
−As of late 2008, Nintendo has been replacing some versions of IOS with small non-functional "place holder" IOSes. This is to prevent the reuse of the IOS "slot" for software other than official Nintendo Software which utilized that IOS number.
+As of [[3.3rev03|late 2008]], Nintendo has been replacing some versions of IOS with small non-functional [[stub IOS|stub IOSes]]. This is so that they do not need to port security fixes to unused IOS slots, or in some cases, prevent [[IOS16|private IOSes]] from being leaked and installed for older exploits, as [[:/dev/es|ES]] refuses to install a title if an already-installed copy has a higher version number.
−A few IOSes above slot 200 were also stubbed in the [[4.2]] update, namely those commonly used by pirates. Nintendo's intentions are unclear, but they seem to have been attempting to overwrite the [[cIOS]]. However, this was trivially bypassed with version 65535 (most stubs, including the anti-cIOS ones, use version 65280).
== Version Table ==
== Version Table ==