There’s a ton of reasons why someone would want to mod their Nintendo Wii. One of the most disappointing features on the Wii was a complete lack of DVD player! Every other gaming system can act as one, but Nintendo has yet to build a system that plays DVDs in addition to games. There’s also a ton of homebrew games out there, as well as emulators, that simply cannot be played on an ordinary Wii and must be modded. Not to mention, for anyone learning Japanese via the input method, explained in its most extreme form by the blog All Japanese All the Time, then playing Japanese games is a must. Unfortunately, the Wii is region-coded, and Japanese Wiis are horribly expensive, so for most people on a budget, this is just a ridiculous purchase.
Now, as expensive as a Japanese Wii is, most people will cringe because buying a pre-modded Wii is the biggest rip-off in video gaming history. Seriously, I’ve seen them for over $700 before, which is way more than even the PS3! It doesn’t pay to try and save money by buying a pre-modded Wii because as good as the benefits are, they just aren’t worth that price tag, especially since the Wii U will be making its debut someday, and these problems might be fixed.
A better solution is to pay someone to mod your system, but that can be too expensive as well, and most people are afraid to try modding it on their own because so many things can go horribly wrong trying to get that little chip in there. Yes, I’m in that camp. As much as I like taking things apart, I don’t want to wind up accidentally breaking an expensive piece of equipment.
Luckily, there are ways out there to mod a Wii without a chip, so anyone can do it. I recently tried it on a used Wii I bought just in case it failed, and even I managed to get it unlocked, so now I can buy overpriced Japanese games! Hooray for life!
Basically, I thought Wii had a fair share of shortcomings, but this does a world of good to alleviate the system of those frustrations. Nintendo designed their product to be a machine for games only, implementing a virtual store for downloading older titles, many of which most of us already have or know how to easily get them for free via emulators. By doing this, they were able to keep the price tag down, but in a world where consoles are becoming a lot more than “toys” Nintendo missed out greatly.
Seriously, the results are worth it. Unlocking your Wii is the best thing you can do for the system, allowing it to play movies, music, old games, and even Japanese games and do things the AJATT way. It’s also a lot easier than I thought it would be, so you don’t have to worry about damage to your system. It’s safe, efficient, and makes the system a lot better, in my opinion.
