WiiHackingGuide

Intro

The Nintendo Wii is a completely obsolete '7th generation' game console. Nintendo stopped selling the original version of the Wii all the way back in 2013 in the US. So, why bother with a Wii in 2019? Well, there are a number of reasons

1. It's cheap! You can pick up an entire system on ebay for $50-$60.
2. It's fun! There are hundreds of excellent games you can play on it.
3. It's hackable! That's what this article is mainly about - there's a robust world of hacks and mods available that can completely change your Wii experience.

I first got involved with Wii hacking a few years ago when a friend gave me his old Wii. It came with a few games and my young sons enjoyed playing them. However, I found having to constantly change discs to change games to be annoying. I knew that there were ways to modify your Wii and I suspected that I could do something like load games on to an SD card. Thus, I started investigating. The result of that investigation is this guide.

Audience

There are many, many guides out there for modifying your Wii. However, all the ones that I've found all share one basic flaw: they do a terrible job of explaining exactly what is going on or what is even possible. In addition, there's a lot of Wii-specific jargon in all of them.

The existing guides also are very windows-focused and lacking in explanations if you are a linux user who wants to mod a Wii. In light of this, I decided to write a guide that

• explains what mods actually do
• gives instructions for linux users
• targets the more sophisticated computer user in general.

If you find this intimidating, don't despair! My goal with this guide is to help any person interested in hacking their Wii. If you are more of a novice computer user, I suggest reviewing some of the other existing guides first (I'll provide links to some of the better ones I've found). Then, come back here and see if this all makes sense. My hope is that It will.

Equipment

Obviously you will need a few things to hack your Wii. I suggest the following starting list

1. A Wii (of course)
2. HDMI adapter (not strictly needed, but vastly improves your Wii experience with a modern TV)
3. An old SD card (ideally a 1 or 2 GB one you've got laying around).
4. An internet connection (I assume you've already got your Wii on the internet)

There are several HDMI adapters available for the Wii, but the one I used is https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07539JW4W/

Goals

This guide will help you with the following

1. Jailbreaking your Wii
2. Installing Homebrew
3. Installing third party tools such as USB loaders
4. Configuring your Wii to run games from an attached USB drive

First Steps

I assume you've got your Wii powered up and on the Internet. This process should be fairly self-explanatory. The first step is to ensure your Wii is running the last released version of the system software, version 4.3. As of September 2019, the Nintendo upgrade servers are still alive, so you can just follow the automated process to do the upgrade. Presumably at some point Nintendo might shut those servers off, at which point you will have to either use a different jailbreak method appropriate for an earlier system software version, or figure out how to manually upgrade the system software. Just something to think about.

Check Your System Software Version

Boot up your unmodified Wii and go to Wii options (lower left of the screen):

From there, choose 'Wii Settings':

Your system software version is displayed in the upper right:

If it the software version is lower than version 4.3 follow the below steps to upgrade it.  Note that the letter at the end of the version string indicates the region your Wii is configured for.  US Wiis run version 4.3u, European Wiis run version 4.3e, etc.

Upgrade Your System Software

If your system software is at version 4.3, you can skip to the next section.  Otherwise you must upgrade your system software since the jailbreak we are going to perform requires version 4.3.  I assume you already have your Wii connected to the internet. Back on the Wii main screen, go to Wii options again:

Select 'Wii Settings' again:

Go to page 3 of the settings and choose 'Wii System Update':

From there, follow the prompts to upgrade your Wii to the last system version. Once this process is complete, your Wii will reboot.  Go back to the Wii Settings screen and verify you are indeed running version 4.3.

Find Your MAC Address

You need your Wii mac address (network hardware address) to perform the jailbreak.  This can be found under Wii System Settings page 2.  Select 'Internet' on that page:

 and choose 'Console Information':

This will display your MAC address like so:
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