Toggle sidebar

Front-page

World's first Wii U Gamepad to PC dongle called Chocolate announced, initial wave of pre-orders sold out immediately

​

A developer named Famidawg has produced the first working dongle that connects the Wii U Gamepad to PC. Called Chocolate, the dongle promises to allow full use of the Gamepad's features, (including the touchscreen, accelerometer, gyroscope, camera, microphone, NFC reader, and IR blaster) on PCs using a new open-source SDK. This dongle will work on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and connect to the gamepad using a companion app.

The dongle will allow the gamepad to run in any app compatible with the Chocolate SDK, as well as a desktop mirroring/virtual display feature and for use in PC games. The brightness settings, rumble toggle, and power-saving modes will also be available right on the gamepad.

The first wave of 30 units sold out extremely quickly. It was priced at $59, with a Fall 2026 delivery target. Only US shipping was offered, however, in their Discord server, Famidawg stated that they were open to international shipping for future waves if they're satisfied the service will be up to their standards. Also, when this first wave ships, the app, SDK, and their sources will be offered on their website.

:arrow: Source
:arrow: Official Website
:arrow: Discord Server
 
  • Like
  • Love
  • Wow
Reactions: thetechguy95, Frankbel, Chellarina and 56 others
Click to expand...
This would be rather neat if I could connect it to my AYN Thor via dock. Like, if I wanted to play my emulated Wii U games on the go, I'd just use the Thor as-is, as it has 2 screens. But say I want to play my emulated Wii U games on the TV? I have a dock that I plug my Thor into that then connects to the TV to display that way. The dock has the additional USB-A ports, so it would be nice if when plugged into the dock and recognizes the dongle, it could then output the bottom screen to the Gamepad.

Could do the same with emulated DS and 3DS games, among other things.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Chellarina and DolphinPussy
DiscostewSM said:
This would be rather neat if I could connect it to my AYN Thor via dock. Like, if I wanted to play my emulated Wii U games on the go, I'd just use the Thor as-is, as it has 2 screens. But say I want to play my emulated Wii U games on the TV? I have a dock that I plug my Thor into that then connects to the TV to display that way. The dock has the additional USB-A ports, so it would be nice if when plugged into the dock and recognizes the dongle, it could then output the bottom screen to the Gamepad.

Could do the same with emulated DS and 3DS games, among other things.
Click to expand...
You may be kinda cooking with this. I don't think any android support has been announced, but it's a pretty cool idea.

I have a syncthing setup between my Thor and computers, so I think my Thor will become my portable/play in bed system while I use this for my PC setup
 
purple_bandit said:
30 units is insane. Seems like something a distributor would partner with to mass produce.

Also, how the hell did this take 13 years to become a thing?
Click to expand...
Mass produce? Seriously? There were only around 13 million of the Gamepads ever made and many no longer work and very, very few people are going to want to do this. Which is a good thing for true preservation as wasting what few -- and essential -- Gamepads that are left on Earth on screwing around with PC gaming is a terrible idea! If they had sold 80 million of them, then okay. But this is NOT good news. Also it was only last year that MattKC hacked the encrypted stream to do the opposite -- make it possible to use something else as a Gamepad on a real Wii U (his Vanilla project). Without that work, it would have taken longer than 13 years.
Post automatically merged:

PeeJay Bonobo said:
Maybe keeping my Wii U was the play after all. Problem is, I need a battery that won't die on me in a nanosecond.
Click to expand...
This one at Amazon.
Post automatically merged:

NitroRevolutionNX said:
It would be nice if we could connect to this dongle on the Wii U as well, since the Gamepad can sometimes have a shitty connection with the console as well.
Click to expand...
You are assuming the problem is with the controller rather than the console...
 
Last edited by ChibiMofo,
  • Like
Reactions: FanNintendo, Chellarina and Exnor
NitroRevolutionNX said:
It would be nice if we could connect to this dongle on the Wii U as well, since the Gamepad can sometimes have a shitty connection with the console as well.
Click to expand...
It's possible the WiFi chip in the GamePad itself is dying. That's apparently a very common problem and manifests itself as connection becoming worse over time until not being able to connect at all.

Unfortunately, while the WiFi board is easily replaceable, doing so requires taking one from a donor. Considering that's the most common fault to my knowledge, you're looking at pricey spare parts (must be the MICA2 WiFi board from the GamePad, not MICB2 from console) or a lucky pull in amongst GamePads broken in other ways.

Edit: It might be on the console side and not GamePad side, but you can't know until you narrow it down. If Vanilla is flakey too, it's the console, otherwise it's the GamePad... or maybe 5 GHz interference.
 
Last edited by lightwo,
Darth Meteos said:
i don't think this is the reason
they're open sourcing everything, (not just the sdk) when the orders ship
technically the fastest way to get one of these is to build it yourself when the orders ship and you'll have it before anyone gets a 'real' one in the mail
also, genuinely, if their whole idea is to not release the source until they've made their money, they're thinking awfully small
30 orders is a chunk of change but is seemingly drastically below the demand
Click to expand...
the idea is almost certainly to open source after those 30 have received their adapters. he wants the people who paid him to actually get the adapter before anyone else clones it.

So building your own won't be possible until after the 30 are in the hands of the buyers. That's also most likely why he only did us shipping for wave one.
 
ChibiMofo said:
Which is a good thing for true preservation as wasting what few -- and essential -- Gamepads that are left on Earth on screwing around with PC gaming is a terrible idea! If they had sold 80 million of them, then okay. But this is NOT good news.
Click to expand...
Huh? How is this bad news? This doesn't modify the Gamepad in any way, so it's not taking Gamepads out of the ecosystem. This just gives people a new way to use the gamepads they already have.
 
LanHikariDS said:
Huh? How is this bad news? This doesn't modify the Gamepad in any way, so it's not taking Gamepads out of the ecosystem. This just gives people a new way to use the gamepads they already have.
Click to expand...
This, my Wii U has been sitting in my wardrobe for almost a decade, a project like this would make me actually use it for something
 
  • Like
Reactions: DarknessPlay3r
My only concern with this is the connection. I have a weird thing with my Wii U where the GamePad is sensitive to where I hold it, and it will loose connection from time to time. I've taken the GamePad apart and didn't notice any oddities with the hardware, so I'm not sure.
 
Isn't the name "chocolate" already used for something, that brown stuff?
They could have picked something better - but apart from that, this is incredible.
I guess wii u gamepads will go up in price now.
 
Btw this exists as an alternative in the meantime: https://github.com/GaryOderNichts/moonlight-wiiu?tab=readme-ov-file

Has anyone here ever tested this?
Post automatically merged:

cearp said:
Isn't the name "chocolate" already used for something, that brown stuff?
They could have picked something better - but apart from that, this is incredible.
I guess wii u gamepads will go up in price now.
Click to expand...
I'm not surprised by the name choice. Apparently Wii U's GPU is named Latte, the processor is named Espresso and Wii U was named Project Café before its announcement
 
  • Like
Reactions: Chellarina and 4961
Hope it's become easy to get and get world shipping
Would be great to have portable gamepad with screen
 
ciro64 said:
I'm not surprised by the name choice. Apparently Wii U's GPU is named Latte, the processor is named Espresso and Wii U was named Project Café before its announcement
Click to expand...
I'm aware - but they're internal codenames basically. "chocolate" for an actual device on the market seems weird.
anyway, their choice, I'd still buy it :)
 
DeadSkullzJr said:
My only concern with this is the connection. I have a weird thing with my Wii U where the GamePad is sensitive to where I hold it, and it will loose connection from time to time. I've taken the GamePad apart and didn't notice any oddities with the hardware, so I'm not sure.
Click to expand...
Again (link), could be either GamePad's or console's WiFi chip acting up or 5 GHz interference, but considering how you worded it, it sounds a lot like the GamePad's WiFi chip is failing. I never dealt with repairing either, but I've seen this issue a couple of times in a few places.
 

Site & Scene News

Go to forum More news

Popular threads in this forum

Gaming Apple Android  Nintendo reveals their newest mobile game to release soon

Emulation  CEMU high threat alert on Linux

Sony agreed to a $7.85 million class action settlement to resolve claims it violated federal antitrust laws by monopolizing the digital game market

Megaman X for the SNES gets native PC Port

Gaming  Bubsy 4D releases to less-than-spectacular reviews

Forza Horizon 6 Files Reportedly Leak Through Steam Ahead of Release

Neon Odyssey - Official Announcement

Simpsons Hit & Run Android Port