Hacking Changing Wii U and/or vWii region?

[ProtossEvo]

Hi guys, it's me again! I have a question about the Wii U region.

Thing is, back in 2007, I was living in Japan for the first time. I bought the Nintendo Wii, and for my abysmal disbelief, Nintendo didn't included language selection to the menus of the Japanese Wii console. I was stuck with Nihongo menus, sub menus, etc... It was a real nightmare, couldn't figure out the overly complicated settings of the console (imagine, from Gamecube that starts a game automatically, to a newer console that asks to configure motion controllers, internet connection, update the console, wipe the memory, a system menu with channels, etc...). Well, time has passed, the Wii was hacked by the community, and solutions started to appear. I solved the problem by installing an emulated system menu in the external hard drive, the USA system menu, which was loaded with Priiloader. Perfect. I returned to my home country, 10 years have passed, I returned to live in Japan in 2017.

So I found a very cheap, second hand Wii U, and bought without thinking twice. And for my disbelief, Nintendo did the same stupid decision again, no Menu language change for the Japanese version of the console. Ok, this time, the pain in the a** it's not so hard, because we're living in the age of smartphones, that can translate in real time, Japanese text on screen. But still an annoyance anyways. Well, unfortunately, Wii U sold 10x less consoles than the Wii, and it seems the hack community pretty much hadn't spent the same time and effort on the Wii U (or maybe, being a more advanced system, the difficult to hack it increased a lot).

So I want to ask: there is any hack, trick, whatever, to change the Japanese Wii U menu to the English menu?

Luckily, I could do it to my Japanese 3ds, but I didn't find anything related to the Wii U/vWii. And for my surprise, when I thought about importing an american Wii U, I discovered that people at Amazon are asking for just too much money for the console, so it's not an option...

Thanks for taking your time to read my "Wii" story, any help would be gadly appreciated.

Ps: I know, that Nintendo finally added language selection for the menus of Japanese Switch. So no future headaches, I guess...

 

[Shadow#1]

Problem with doing a region change is the Wii U pad is region locked

 

[ProtossEvo]

Problem with doing a region change is the Wii U pad is region locked

So it probably would demand both console and Pad to be hacked... yep, it's complicated...

 

[Shadow#1]

So it probably would demand both console and Pad to be hacked... yep, it's complicated...

Pad can't be hacked

 

[godreborn]

pad can't be hacked. it's region locked. you can try haxchi or region hax, but it won't make the menus english. it will just allow english games to be played. however, not all will work.

 

[ProtossEvo]

pad can't be hacked. it's region locked. you can try haxchi or region hax, but it won't make the menus english. it will just allow english games to be played. however, not all will work.

I know... I already had my fair share of hours spent, trying to force english language in some games (messing with language folders, files, etc... Mario Kart 8 is specially annoying, nothing makes the texts change to english). I wonder, if it would not be as simple as changing some banners, some text files for a translated version, instead of installing an entire system menu from other country.

 

[godreborn]

changing system menu might be unsafe.

 

[Shadow#1]

changing system menu might be unsafe.

It is he just have to buy a us Wii u

 

[N7Kopper]

Technically the GamePad is only region locked at sync time - and there are known ways to bypass it.

Don't ask me, I bought European kit and took good care of it, so I never needed to actually use these workarounds.

 

[Feffe]

I think you can set the language to English using the Wii U system config tool. It used to float around the Internet and you know what they say, nothing is ever lost on the Internet.

Accidentally, the same tool lets you synch an out-of-region GamePad.

 

[ProtossEvo]

I think you can set the language to English using the Wii U system config tool. It used to float around the Internet and you know what they say, nothing is ever lost on the Internet.

Accidentally, the same tool lets you synch an out-of-region GamePad.

Oh, that sounds promissing. Time to dig up some ancient internet websites, hoping for strange links to be still working!

 

[godreborn]

might be related with the sys_prod.xml, which is how you can make the system region free. be very careful with system config tool it can cause unrecoverable bricks even with a hard mod, since you don't know what's changed.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

btw, rule of thumb, the further down you go the more dangerous the option. that's why saves and installs are near the top.

 

[ProtossEvo]

might be related with the sys_prod.xml, which is how you can make the system region free. be very careful with system config tool it can cause unrecoverable bricks even with a hard mod, since you don't know what's changed.

Well, the region is another problem I found. Some USA games run fine in my Japanese console, with the help ot ourloader app (it loads discs from different region), but it wont work with my physical, USA copy o BotW. If I can't change the language of the console menus, but at least, can load BotW, It would be amazing.

One question, If I mess things up, but I had made a backup of the sys_prod.xml file, how I can use it to recovery from a brick, since the Wii U doesn't have an equivalent of priiloader?

 

[godreborn]

the best idea I can think of is to make a nand backup from before you start fiddling. that way you won't have to change anything. it's only when you'd need to use the otp.bin to decrypt the nand to fix a problem that you might have an issue. if we knew where some of that stuff was changed, we wouldn't need system config tool. that's why I suggest making a nand backup from before. it's fixable then.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

there's an app to automatically fix a cbhc brick, but that's it, so be careful.

 

[nosoyFEaDDiCT]

Well, the region is another problem I found. Some USA games run fine in my Japanese console, with the help ot ourloader app (it loads discs from different region), but it wont work with my physical, USA copy o BotW. If I can't change the language of the console menus, but at least, can load BotW, It would be amazing.

One question, If I mess things up, but I had made a backup of the sys_prod.xml file, how I can use it to recovery from a brick, since the Wii U doesn't have an equivalent of priiloader?

Same here, I did the "119" thing with WinSCP and ftpiiu everywhere, but just like with OurLoader, some things works and others... well, no.

Until now, japanese Wii U = worst decision ever. ;(

 

[godreborn]

kinda curious what would happen is you used 119 with system region. that might brick being everything. hah. however, there's only six regions listed for game region, so I don't know how they do things in French and German, etc.

 

[apxmachit]

You could try running System Config Tool in redNAND. It's known to work without modifications (meaning you can download directly from you-know-who), and you can't brick. Try testing if it syncs properly first. If it does then move on to the sysnand modded version (the one with the crappy logos) and sync.

 

[ProtossEvo]

You could try running System Config Tool in redNAND. It's known to work without modifications (meaning you can download directly from you-know-who), and you can't brick. Try testing if it syncs properly first. If it does then move on to the sysnand modded version (the one with the crappy logos) and sync.

I was watching videos about setting up a Rednand, and the simple setupf Rednand, it's already dangerous and scary, so I gave up on it. I mean, I'm not a speciallist in hacking, I barelly remember the method I used to hack mine, and how this hack is called, don't know if it's a cold boot. I remember I had to visit a site in the Wii U, to open Homebrew Launcher, I bought Mario 64 DS to install haxchi over it, and that's all I remember. My fear is to mix my hack with Rednand, and ending srewing everything up.

 

[apxmachit]

I was watching videos about setting up a Rednand, and the simple setupf Rednand, it's already dangerous and scary, so I gave up on it. I mean, I'm not a speciallist in hacking, I barelly remember the method I used to hack mine, and how this hack is called, don't know if it's a cold boot. I remember I had to visit a site in the Wii U, to open Homebrew Launcher, I bought Mario 64 DS to install haxchi over it, and that's all I remember. My fear is to mix my hack with Rednand, and ending srewing everything up.

I'm currently installing rednand as we speak lol. I got spooked at all those old videos too, you're not alone. Luckily Mocha CFW has rednand built in so all you need to do is put mocha on your sd card, apply this to your haxchi files (replace them in the sdroot/haxchi folder), reinstall haxchi (you can do it on top of the old one UNLESS USING CBHC) and you're good to go. (Make sure to enable rednand on the config menu when mocha loads)

 

[ProtossEvo]

I'm currently installing rednand as we speak lol. I got spooked at all those old videos too, you're not alone. Luckily Mocha CFW has rednand built in so all you need to do is put mocha on your sd card, apply this to your haxchi files (replace them in the sdroot/haxchi folder), reinstall haxchi (you can do it on top of the old one) and you're good to go. (Make sure to enable rednand on the config menu when mocha loads)

It's safe to reinstall Haxchi without uninstalling the actual install? I remember it's a certain of brick if I do a factory reset without uninstalling haxchi first (I know it's a different thing, but I'm asking just to be safe)