First Wii Mod Chip Shipping Out

Via Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs blog, and their commentary on the device, a review of the first Wii mod chip at the MaxConsole site. The review offers step-by-step instructions for putting it in place, and then rates the resulting options opened up by the device. Most interestingly the chip is apparently updateable via a DVD, allowing for new functionality to be released for as time goes on. At $50 and with just a little soldering to get in place, the Wii CycloWhiz sounds like a great deal for anyone looking to do some outside-the-box thinking with Nintendo's console.

Re:Updateable via DVD?

[Chairboy]

You appear to have mistaken "DVD Movie Playback" with "Support for the DVD disk format". The Wii has a DVD drive.

How very awkward.

Summary

[drinkypoo]

The modchip works. It lets you play Wii and GC backups. It lets you play GC imports, but PAL games don't work on NTSC without GCOS, the first version of which was just released for the Wii. It makes SOME PAL games work on an NTSC control. No idea about NTSC on PAL. Wii imports DO NOT WORK. It's $50. Personally I'd wait for the next version, unless you're buying it only to play backups. I want region unlocking.

No homebrew though.

[noretsa]

From the article it sounds like this hack is very similar to the XBox360 DVD firmware hack in that it tricks the system into thinking the disc is a different type than it really is (pressed as opposed to DVD-R). However, the executables are still signed and the only thing this enables is "back ups" aka piracy.

This strategy will not enable custom user applications which is what a lot of us really want. However, this is definitely a step in the right direction. Even though the executables are signed, it is likely that the data on DVDs is unencrypted. Maybe by modifying this data a more effective exploit can be found?

Fact check: summary, articles all inaccurate

[nxtw]

- The Wiinja chip [wiinja.com] was announced first.
- No chip is actually shipping yet to end users -- CycloWiz has however been shipped for review to MaxConsole. Foundmy lists it as being in stock starting Thursday [foundmy.com].
- The CycloWiz appears to be selling for around $40, not $50.
- The CycloWiz (NOT CychloWiz) is NOT firmware upgradeable.
- The WiiKey [wiikey.cn] is reportedly firmware upgradeable.

The Wiinja requires wires to older it in, while the CycloWiz has a "quicksolder" interface that lets you directly solder the chip to the motherboard. (I think I'd prefer wires -- but you can still use wires with the quicksolder interface.)
The WiiKey supports both, apparently -- I assume this means that you can solder the chip using wires if you prefer and that the chip facilitates this easily by having pads for soldering wires directly.

Re:So how long for homebrew?

[Torne]

They advertise it as running Gamecube Homebrew, but the Wii has been capable of that since day 1 without a chip.

Only NTSC Wii's can run Gamecube homebrew without a chip - it requires an Action Replay to boot the loader, and the PAL Action Replay is not compatible with the Wii for some reason, it refuses to recognise it as a gamecube disc. You can't use an NTSC Action Replay in a PAL Wii as the region protection is not bypassed until you already booted it. :)

So, there is still some value in this for homebrew if you live in a PAL region.

Re:Custer's Revenge

[drinkypoo]

Because of this manufacturers are pretty careful to make it very, very difficult to release such unauthorized games. This of course means the primary purpose of such mod chips isn't to allow anything except piracy.

Uh, the real reason they want to make it hard to release unauthorized games is that they don't get licensing fees when one is sold.