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The Wii U was truly the black sheep of the main Nintendo consoles, but in terms of homebrew capabilities, it was but a diamond in the rough. While the Wii U is way past its heyday by almost a decade, the homebrew community still continues to thrive and develop great things for the system.

One of these developers, @shinyquagsire23, has made some research and advancements towards creating a modchip for the Wii U, which he titled "de_Fuse". The modchip started when Shiny Quasire started looking at the then unhacked Wii Mini console, in an attempt to glitch boot0 on it, and while getting curious if it could work on Wii U, he found that a similar exploit could be attempted for it, with the only downsides being OTP dumps being impossible due it being all 00s and the driver for boot0 being limited to SDHC cards.

While the necessity of having a modchip for the Wii U is not a must since Wii U already has coldboot exploits and many other things like Aroma that could serve a similar purpose, the main purpose of this modchip is to allow booting a Wii U console straight from the SD card, without having to rely on the Wii U's internal eMMC chip to boot into the console. This due to the recent news about some Wii U consoles bricking entirely due to failures in the eMMC chip, so giving players the option to boot from SD card would be a relief to this delicate issue that plagues the console.

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The rest of the information is highly technical and dives into the eFuses, OTP, boot0, boot1 and SRAM of the console, so those interested in a more in-depth and detailed information regarding the process can read it in Shiny Quagsire's own article about de_Fuse on his webpage.

The modchip is currently in early stages of development, and it currently requires an FPGA of sorts, but it hasn't been standardized in terms of schematics or parts. However, Shiny Quagsire is trying to aim for a $25-$35 dlls range when its finished (or lower), based on RP2040 chip. Those interested and willing to collaborate and help out throughout its development can do so through Shiny Quagsire's GitHub repository for the modchip, where he keeps all of the coding and research for it open source.

de_Fuse, the One True Pwn article
GitHub Repository

 

[Spectremint]

I really liked my Wii U but boy howdy I hated how starting the console and then a game could take 10 minutes. The load times were so abysmal.

Me and my buddies would want to smoke and play Mario Kart but it would take so bloody long that we'd be blitzed enough that by time it loaded we'd say screw it and just go back to laugh at Miiverse posts.

Wonder if this could help that at all... since I bet most of it was just the disc + well, loading the aforementioned Miiverse posts on your home menu.

Even after they improved them?

 

[linuxares]

Could you not flash new nand if you made a backup and replace?

Technically yes, but its soldered to the board so this is much easier

 

[halfashark]

Even after they improved them?

Improved them?
As soon as the switch came out I jumped ship and the 3DS scene was so much more active that I never bothered "keeping up" with anything Wii U related. It was a Mario Kart machine for us (and we played hundreds, if not thousands of hours of only that)

Unlike most of my consoles I never got any urge to do more with it, tbh. I found it to be pretty underwhelming, the zelda game for it never appealed to me nor did the Mario game(s). It really could've been so much more but turning it on or changing games was just so abysmal I hated it. We used to just leave it on the Mario Kart title screen for days at a time to avoid going through the whole process.

 

[Spectremint]

Improved them?
As soon as the switch came out I jumped ship and the 3DS scene was so much more active that I never bothered "keeping up" with anything Wii U related. It was a Mario Kart machine for us (and we played hundreds, if not thousands of hours of only that)

Unlike most of my consoles I never got any urge to do more with it, tbh. I found it to be pretty underwhelming, the zelda game for it never appealed to me nor did the Mario game(s). It really could've been so much more but turning it on or changing games was just so abysmal I hated it. We used to just leave it on the Mario Kart title screen for days at a time to avoid going through the whole process.

sometime around March 2013 they did some tweaks and managed to cut down the loading times between games and the HOME menu by like 10-15 seconds

 

[codezer0]

Great work! Good to see new Wii U developments. Is there any retailer with that RP chip in stock?

I could be wrong, but rp2040 is basically the pi pico.

Either way, being able to use something so inexpensive and plentiful will only help the cause.

 

[halfashark]

sometime around March 2013 they did some tweaks and managed to cut down the loading times between games and the HOME menu by like 10-15 seconds

i played Mario Kart on that machine until the disc drive literally died and at no point did i notice load times speeding up

i -did- notice that the horrendous lag you'd get pressing the home button was a little snappier but it felt like they just waited a second or two before displaying the menu (which had a faster animation) rather than making you sit there and cringe at the choppiness. it wasn't actually faster tho as far a i could tell.

reminded me of how sprinting outside of combat in mass effect never actually sped you up at all.

 

[djpannda]

yes We need more eyes on this.... Maybe than We can have a efficient way to bypass 300 game limit

 

[linuxares]

yes We need more eyes on this.... Maybe than We can have a efficient way to bypass 300 game limit

bah 300 is enough for the entire library of physical games of the Wii U.

 

[gorgyrip]

I hope this will fix the blinking blue light problem.

 

[djpannda]

bah 300 is enough for the entire library of physical games of the Wii U.

but my Eshop only games need love .....

 

[Naendow]

Will it be possible to use bigger SD cards with this modchip? This would probably be the only way to get enough storage space without the need of an external storage.

 

[Ryab]

Any idea how many dead Wii U's could be brought back to life? My own might be one of those, I don't know what's wrong with it but if it's the NAND this could fix it. What does a failing eMMC error look like?

I would get a dump of your eMMC incase it does fail. You would need that backup for this.

 

[Dud]

I knew about the Wii U bricks over the years but never dug into how some of them could be caused. I got my console as a gift from a pawn shop about 8 years ago, so it's already pre-owned.

I have yet to encounter any major setbacks regarding the eMMC and the system as a whole, but I hope this exploit gets more attention and support.

 

[Guacaholey]

i believe the only safe bet on a non-Hynix system is the Wind Waker edition, but i could be wrong

I hope it's true cause that's the Wii U I have.

 

[fvig2001]

Hopefully by the time it comes out, I have the soldering skills to install it. At least my 2 Wii us are not hynix

 

[Olmectron]

Yeez since none one is actually reading what IT IS FOR.

The Wii U have an issue with the quality of the eMMC. It breaks!
This will make it possible to boot your Wii U from a SD Card.

"With the news that a handful of Hynix Wii U eMMCs were starting to rapidly degrade, I decided to revisit a recurring project idea of mine: an open-source Wii U modchip."

I did read. Funny to see how a lot of people only read half the title and jump to the comments section.

 

[Latiodile]

emmc unreliability moment

 

[lordelan]

It's great to see both solutions to save these consoles. Sad that it's needed but hey!

This will happen to each single console, even every Nintendo Switch, so it's always great to have options.
Yes it usually takes decades until it happens, depending on the usage milage, but everything dies sooner or later.

That being said, its especially handy for those few faulty eMMCs of the Wii U, yeah.
Guess I'll make another NAND backup just in case. If it dies on me, I can use this or any other solution.

Improved them?
As soon as the switch came out I jumped ship and the 3DS scene was so much more active that I never bothered "keeping up" with anything Wii U related. It was a Mario Kart machine for us (and we played hundreds, if not thousands of hours of only that)

Unlike most of my consoles I never got any urge to do more with it, tbh. I found it to be pretty underwhelming, the zelda game for it never appealed to me nor did the Mario game(s). It really could've been so much more but turning it on or changing games was just so abysmal I hated it. We used to just leave it on the Mario Kart title screen for days at a time to avoid going through the whole process.

Seeing MK8 on my friend's Wii U back then made me instantly buy it.
However it was so much more than a MK machine for me. In fact it was my (then) favorite console ever as it played GC, Wii and Wii U natively and anything else via RetroArch. And all of that while my girlfriend was blocking the TV.
Only the Switch outclassed it by even being able to be taken outside. Unfortunately therefore it lost backwards compatibility to the Wii (U) era.
The Wii U (fully hacked including the vWii mode) is still one hell of a funhouse and can entertain up to 4 people (plus spectators) for countless evenings.

 

[Olmectron]

If someone already commented or I missed it in the OP, sorry.

Would this still work without a pre-made NAND backup?

 

[ChibiMofo]

for the wiiu? what a waste of fucking time. but on the other hand there is no way nintendo will try to stop it!

You claim to have made over 9000 posts here. Are they all this positive and intelligent or did we catch you on a good day?