Hey all, so a couple days ago I joined the Wii U CFW crew and finished loading up everything I wanted on a North American console. Admittedly, I started with a pretty discounted Japanese Wii U, but while following a tutorial to swap out the language pack through FTP I'm almost certain it's bricked.
Anyways, everything works great on the North American one I have now. My one roadblock has been my Japanese copy of "Rhythm Heaven Fever", which the Wii U just pulls up Error Code: 157-1104 for. I will say I'm running the Tiramisu exploit and have tried setting Spiik to Japanese region and it still doesn't recognize. I have also modded the vWii as well with the custom IOS patches and Homebrew Channel installed.
I would just like to install the digital version and run it straight from USB, but I actually plan to do a couple speedruns for this game in the future, and the ruleboards have restricted loading from USB due to cheating/verification issues in the past, so I need to be able to run it from disc.
Anyone possibly have an idea on what I'm missing here to make my NA Wii U read my JP Wii disc? I've tried Googling and hunting these forums but in general people have just been saying "run Spiik" and "if you have cfw then your console is region free", which hasn't worked for me.
Thanks in advance for any assistance.
Easier Solution (Requires running after each vWii restart)
Thanks everyone to pitch in their solutions! The one that I found worked in this situation was to boot GeckoOS on the vWii Homebrew Channel, and boot the disc through there. There's a couple caveats to be known with this method, despite it being a solid and safe method. For one, GeckoOS is not a permanent editor of the vWii, so when you leave your game and come back to the vWii later, you have to run it through Gecko again. Gecko also is one of the several Wii homebrew apps that does not read input from Wii remotes with the built-in MotionPlus. Given you are okay with both caveats, I found Gecko to work quickly and accurately every time if you need to play an out-of-region Wii game.
Harder Solution (More steps, but with retention)
After much digging through dead forum discussions, I found a permanent solution for my issue. To put it simply, we remove the existing vWii's regional NAND and replace it with all of the proper files of the region we want. It's essentially like using AnyRegion on the regular Wii, but through an alternate means since apps like that don't work for vWii. I'll detail the steps on how to do it and include what is needed below.
BUT FIRST: BACK UP YOUR vWii and Wii U NAND if you haven't already. There is always a risk of bricking, you have been warned.
That said, if you follow the steps, it's a rather simple process. Do note that if you've hacked the vWii, this will remove the Homebrew Channel. It is recommended you re-do the process of hacking your IOS and BootMii stuff afterwards if you use any Wii homebrew or injects. This guide assumes you already have CFW running on your Wii U.
As a final note, remember you need to re-hack your vWii if you want to have the homebrew capabilities on that side like USBLoader-GX and nintendont. Important thing to note though, is that if you switch to the Japanese vWii, it will act fully as a Japanese Wii environment, not just a region patch. This is already long enough as is, so if you would like to change just the language of the menu or alter some other settings, pop a quick search on the forums. I've seen a couple good guides written for the process.
Anyways, hope this helps for anyone looking for it! Took me a long time to hunt it down, and also with some trial and error because the write-up I saw for this was honestly a bit lacking.
Anyways, everything works great on the North American one I have now. My one roadblock has been my Japanese copy of "Rhythm Heaven Fever", which the Wii U just pulls up Error Code: 157-1104 for. I will say I'm running the Tiramisu exploit and have tried setting Spiik to Japanese region and it still doesn't recognize. I have also modded the vWii as well with the custom IOS patches and Homebrew Channel installed.
I would just like to install the digital version and run it straight from USB, but I actually plan to do a couple speedruns for this game in the future, and the ruleboards have restricted loading from USB due to cheating/verification issues in the past, so I need to be able to run it from disc.
Anyone possibly have an idea on what I'm missing here to make my NA Wii U read my JP Wii disc? I've tried Googling and hunting these forums but in general people have just been saying "run Spiik" and "if you have cfw then your console is region free", which hasn't worked for me.
Thanks in advance for any assistance.
Easier Solution (Requires running after each vWii restart)
Thanks everyone to pitch in their solutions! The one that I found worked in this situation was to boot GeckoOS on the vWii Homebrew Channel, and boot the disc through there. There's a couple caveats to be known with this method, despite it being a solid and safe method. For one, GeckoOS is not a permanent editor of the vWii, so when you leave your game and come back to the vWii later, you have to run it through Gecko again. Gecko also is one of the several Wii homebrew apps that does not read input from Wii remotes with the built-in MotionPlus. Given you are okay with both caveats, I found Gecko to work quickly and accurately every time if you need to play an out-of-region Wii game.
Harder Solution (More steps, but with retention)
After much digging through dead forum discussions, I found a permanent solution for my issue. To put it simply, we remove the existing vWii's regional NAND and replace it with all of the proper files of the region we want. It's essentially like using AnyRegion on the regular Wii, but through an alternate means since apps like that don't work for vWii. I'll detail the steps on how to do it and include what is needed below.
BUT FIRST: BACK UP YOUR vWii and Wii U NAND if you haven't already. There is always a risk of bricking, you have been warned.
That said, if you follow the steps, it's a rather simple process. Do note that if you've hacked the vWii, this will remove the Homebrew Channel. It is recommended you re-do the process of hacking your IOS and BootMii stuff afterwards if you use any Wii homebrew or injects. This guide assumes you already have CFW running on your Wii U.
- First, we need to acquire the files for the region we want to change the vWii to. Click download on this page and you'll get all three regions' folders. We'll only be using the one labeled whatever you want to change to. In my case, it was vWii JAP.
- Opening the folder, you'll see several subfolders, along with a .json file. Move all of these to the root of your SD card (not the vWii *region* folder, just its contents). Merge folders, but replace individualized files if asked.
- Now that all the files are in place, open the Homebrew Channel on the Wii U and boot up the vwii nand restorer app.
- DID YOU MAKE A BACKUP? Good. Select Clear SLCCMPT, which will wipe the individual files that make up your current vWii. At this point in the process, the vWii will not boot until we successfully restore the correct files back.
- Select Copy extracted NAND to SLCCMPT, and granted you followed the steps above correctly, the replacement folder and files should be in the proper place for the app to start loading all of the new files back into the vWii environment. You'll know things are solid if all of the individual progress steps in the app start with "Copying", and don't have any lines that say something like "failed to copy" or "failed to find". If this happens, your vWii still won't boot and it'll be missing files. Since you have that backup you made earlier, you can restore your backup to the SD card and use this app to Restore NAND.
- If everything runs successfully, we just have to select Fix modes. When that process finishes, select Exit.
- Everything should be done at this point! Pop an out-of-region Wii disc into reader and see if it shows up on your Wii U menu as a "Wii" channel instead of the usual Unknown Disc error. In the case that it works, your vWii is now permanently on your newly selection region. If you want to reverse it, you can repeat the steps again using a different region folder.
As a final note, remember you need to re-hack your vWii if you want to have the homebrew capabilities on that side like USBLoader-GX and nintendont. Important thing to note though, is that if you switch to the Japanese vWii, it will act fully as a Japanese Wii environment, not just a region patch. This is already long enough as is, so if you would like to change just the language of the menu or alter some other settings, pop a quick search on the forums. I've seen a couple good guides written for the process.
Anyways, hope this helps for anyone looking for it! Took me a long time to hunt it down, and also with some trial and error because the write-up I saw for this was honestly a bit lacking.
Last edited by Chromagram,
