I had one softmodded.......until the GPU was fried. It worked great, with some tweaking on some of the software. It took about a week to get everything just the way I wanted it, and everytime I ran something I was holding my breath, always expecting a brick. It never did, and was okay, but now I got a new wii and put a chip in it. Ive never messed with any settings ......all my games work just fine with no tweaks or adjustments..........so Im going to say the 34 dollars was welllllllllll worth the money. Maybe after bootmii comes out, it will be a little "safer" ....and more control over stuff. as he said above, its my opinion after trying both. good luck.