From

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/27/060224&from=rss

It took two days for Team Twiizers to hack the new firmware update, that was supposed to prevent installation of homebrew. If Nintendo is actually bothered by the homebrew scene, it needs to sort itself out

It's asymmetry of responsibility. If Nintendo wants to patch a hole, they have to be certain that 100% of legal users, games and channels are unaffected by the update or face lawsuits or bad publicity. If homebrew teams want to exploit a hole, they have to make it work just for themselves and anyone who uses it is on their own.

The homebrew scene is surprisingly amazing. Especially with Brawl when you use a certain cheat coding program. Unlimited Master Peices Time, Unlimited Replay Time, not so strict Camera in pause/replay, less strict custom builder and custom stages on WiFi :]

Do i need to go online to get the updates?
Also, are the updates essential for new games?

The official Ninty update? at the moment you need to be Japanese

There are no games currently that require it, nor any mentioned. But as with previous upgrades, if it's needed by a game, they'll most likely put the update on the disk

Wat?!  Links plz?