Wii Homebrew

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4,974]

Anybody else tried this? I got my old Wii out a week ago or so to play with our nearly three year old, and I got to thinking that as old as the Wii is and it being unsupported now, surely somebody has figured out how to hack it and play older nintendo games and stuff on it. Well, of course they have. So after less than an hour last night I was up and running on Mario 64.

All you need is a Wii and an internet connection. An old SD card you probably have sitting in a drawer somewhere is handy as well to put stuff like ROMs on, but some people have had success with hard drives and flash drives. I pulled the micro SD card I had in my Raspberry Pi 3 and deleted all the partitions on it and reformatted it to FAT32, so that seems to work as well.

I think this will turn out better than using a Raspberry Pi as an emulator since it plays N64 games pretty well, but I haven't really played around with it too much.

Here's a guide:

https://wii.guide/get-started

I used the Str2hax method. 

[Liquor and Poker 3,659]

You can buy a WiiU for next to nothing and hack it to play all the WiiU and Wii games, including all the virtual console stuff (the big SNES and N64 games).  Takes about an hour all in.  You just need an external drive for the WiiU games and an SSD card. 

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4,974]

I haven't messed with the WiiU any, but I figured some folks here probably have an old Wii laying around and might be interested in trying some homebrew stuff. I guess pretty much everything has been hacked, but since Nintendo is no longer supporting the Wii, they aren't going to be sending out any updates that will screw up a hacked machine either.

[Liquor and Poker 3,659]

They’re both crazy easy to hack. True that if you still have a Wii sitting in your closet you ought to hack it or get rid of it.

Also true almost nobody has a WiiU but it does get you a whole lot more and newer games, many of which are basically being re-released on the Switch in almost identical form. I bought a WiiU on craigslist for $50. 

As far as disabling hacking on the WiiU, although it’s possible I guess, it’s unlikely. The WiiU has been out of production since early 2016, and the last WiiU firmware update was almost 2 years ago and didn’t disable hacking.

There’s a walkthrough on gbatemp.net for either system. 

[HornsOverIthaca 2,333]

Hmm.  That does sound like an interesting idea.  Mine has been collecting dust for years.

[rage-a-holic 4,370]

Hacking an old WiiU lets you play Breath of the Wild free. It's worth it just for that.

[atomheartbevo 89,618]

Our Wii is perfect for those 100+ degree days in the afternoons for the 3 year-old and 6 year-old.  They love it - I haven't even hacked mine, I had a decent library from when it came out, and acquired a bunch here and there used.  With all of the games we have, the kids always gravitate back to Mario Kart, Wii Sports Resort, and Wii Sports.