Any downside to a (J) Wii U, once modded? More trouble to mod?

[Hanafuda]

Thought I'd finally get around to modding a Wii U soon, but not gonna mess with my daughter's even though she hasn't touched it in years. See a lot of Wii U's available on ebay from Japan, and I know from experience that Japanese gamers generally take good care of their shit. So, any downside to modding a J Wii U? It's all region free once you're done right?

1. Does CFW effectively "convert" the OS to English?

2. Any compatibility issues with games/language playback on Wii U, Wii, GameCube???

3. Any compatibility issues with peripherals (wireless controllers, etc)?

 

[Leqz]

I've hacked a JPN WIi U a few days using Aroma CFW. Once hacked it will become region free.

1. No. With Aroma, you can play the games in English but the system applications like the home menu and settings would still be in Japanese. You can however track down the English files for those applications and use SDCafiine plugin to mod the applications into English. There is a guide around here but you should only follow on how to get the files, as the guide there replace the files on NAND rather than using SDCafiine which is not recommended. Even then it would not 100% convert your Wii U to English, mine still shows the title name in japanese and so does pausing the gamepad

2. There should not be any but if there is, you can just report it to the CFW devs. Aroma got an update which fixes ZombiU and COD Black Ops 2.

3. Again there should not be any, if anything with Bloopair plugin it can be compatible with more controllers including the Switch JoyCon which is the only other controller I have.

 

[Aheago]

I've hacked a JPN WIi U a few days using Aroma CFW. Once hacked it will become region free.

1. No. With Aroma, you can play the games in English but the system applications like the home menu and settings would still be in Japanese. You can however track down the English files for those applications and use SDCafiine plugin to mod the applications into English. There is a guide around here but you should only follow on how to get the files, as the guide there replace the files on NAND rather than using SDCafiine which is not recommended. Even then it would not 100% convert your Wii U to English, mine still shows the title name in japanese and so does pausing the gamepad

2. There should not be any but if there is, you can just report it to the CFW devs. Aroma got an update which fixes ZombiU and COD Black Ops 2.

3. Again there should not be any, if anything with Bloopair plugin it can be compatible with more controllers including the Switch JoyCon which is the only other controller I have.

In theory you should be able to put the files on his SD with sd caffeine instead of having to modify the nand directly. That should almost never be needed anymore from what I understand

Also if your system still fully isn’t in English. You’re likely missing a few files. This can happen if you transferred over FTP(unless you missed the files as a whole)

 

[jeffyTheHomebrewer]

As for controller issues, I've only seen one on here where someone couldn't pair a pro controller until they turned Bloopair off, then it would pair and stay paired with Bloopair on. So, if you can't pair a Wii U controller (that being the pro controller and Wii remotes, the gamepad actually pairs over 5GHz Wi-Fi) then turn off Bloopair, reboot and pair the controller, then turn Bloopair back on and reboot.

 

[MikaDubbz]

While I wont tell you your business, you totally could hack your daughter's Wii U with no real risk at this point. Even if you do brick, we now have a means to unbrick any Wii U without the need for a hardmod. Though perhaps you have reasons beyond fear of brick for not wanting to hack that Wii U, but if that's all it comes down to, I would say just go for it with the Wii U available to you already.

 

[fvig2001]

Thought I'd finally get around to modding a Wii U soon, but not gonna mess with my daughter's even though she hasn't touched it in years. See a lot of Wii U's available on ebay from Japan, and I know from experience that Japanese gamers generally take good care of their shit. So, any downside to modding a J Wii U? It's all region free once you're done right?

1. Does CFW effectively "convert" the OS to English?

2. Any compatibility issues with games/language playback on Wii U, Wii, GameCube???

3. Any compatibility issues with peripherals (wireless controllers, etc)?

1. No. System apps will still use Japanese. You have to ftp and replace some files and at least settings becomes english but other system apps are still japanese.
2. Haven't tested Aroma but it's a lot of work on Nintendo games since they went out of their way to remove Japanese stuff on western releases (games hang and shit)
3. Gamepad is region locked but Aroma is said to fix that.

It's not worth it imo (pre Aroma). Just get a western Wii U. I only got the Japanese Wii U as a backup for parts.

 

[Hanafuda]

While I wont tell you your business, you totally could hack your daughter's Wii U with no real risk at this point. Even if you do brick, we now have a means to unbrick any Wii U without the need for a hardmod. Though perhaps you have reasons beyond fear of brick for not wanting to hack that Wii U, but if that's all it comes down to, I would say just go for it with the Wii U available to you already.

She's 19 now and like I said, hasn't touched the Wii U for years. But it is hers, we bought it for her and someday she might want to claim it. It's a pristine Zelda edition, complete with box, manual, etc. Also with the Pro controller, a Gamecube controller adapter, and that Pokemon wired controller that's really good for 2D emulation. Very tempting, but no won't do it.

I should add that I have a modded Wii and a "spice" Gamecube with GC Loader, Retro-bit Prism, and GB Player, so I'm not exactly hurting here. Just wanting to delve into that Wii U catalog a bit.

 

[Leqz]

In theory you should be able to put the files on his SD with sd caffeine instead of having to modify the nand directly. That should almost never be needed anymore from what I understand

Also if your system still fully isn’t in English. You’re likely missing a few files. This can happen if you transferred over FTP(unless you missed the files as a whole)

1. No. System apps will still use Japanese. You have to ftp and replace some files and at least settings becomes english but other system apps are still japanese.

I've used SDCafiine hence why I mentioned it, I've been told that FTP'ing file into the NAND could lead to a brick. I probably missed a few files like Aheago said.

2. Haven't tested Aroma but it's a lot of work on Nintendo games since they went out of their way to remove Japanese stuff on western releases (games hang and shit)

Aroma fixed that as well, been playing Tekken Tag Tournament 2 in English with no crashes. Just look into the description of this plugin which Aroma included from the get go https://github.com/wiiu-env/region_free_plugin

EDIT: Now I've reread it, I probably misunderstood what you said. Yes, if you play a game which doesn't have the English files it will stay in the original language. But considering the guy want to region free the console, I don't think he want the JPN version/stuff of the games which what you implied.

She's 19 now and like I said, hasn't touched the Wii U for years. But it is hers, we bought it for her and someday she might want to claim it. It's a pristine Zelda edition, complete with box, manual, etc. Also with the Pro controller, a Gamecube controller adapter, and that Pokemon wired controller that's really good for 2D emulation. Very tempting, but no won't do it.

I should add that I have a modded Wii and a "spice" Gamecube with GC Loader, Retro-bit Prism, and GB Player, so I'm not exactly hurting here. Just wanting to delve into that Wii U catalog a bit.

Nice that you respect you daughter belongings . If your primary concern is the console language, you should just get a western Wii U. I only bought a JPN Wii U because I am a cheapskate.

 

[Anomaladox]

I would say it was totally worth modding my Japanese Wii U. It works quite nicely especially with Aroma , it became even better.

 

[Schmeerio]

She's 19 now and like I said, hasn't touched the Wii U for years. But it is hers, we bought it for her and someday she might want to claim it. It's a pristine Zelda edition, complete with box, manual, etc. Also with the Pro controller, a Gamecube controller adapter, and that Pokemon wired controller that's really good for 2D emulation. Very tempting, but no won't do it.

I should add that I have a modded Wii and a "spice" Gamecube with GC Loader, Retro-bit Prism, and GB Player, so I'm not exactly hurting here. Just wanting to delve into that Wii U catalog a bit.

Make sure to leave it plugged in, even if it will sit unused. There are reports of systems sitting for a long period of time and errors on powering up due to longevity of the NAND in unpowered state.

 

[Hanafuda]

Make sure to leave it plugged in, even if it will sit unused. There are reports of systems sitting for a long period of time and errors on powering up due to longevity of the NAND in unpowered state.

Shit, really? That's ... odd. But thanks for the tip. The console has been unplugged, probably for ~ 2yrs. Guess I need to fire it up and give it a checkup, at least.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Shit, really? That's ... odd. But thanks for the tip. The console has been unplugged, probably for ~ 2yrs. Guess I need to fire it up and give it a checkup, at least.

Take the battery out of the gamepad too. It will discharge in weeks because it keeps pinging the console for notifications, and the battery will be damaged if left like that.

 

[Akumara]

I would say it was totally worth modding my Japanese Wii U. It works quite nicely especially with Aroma , it became even better.

How did u fix USA ISOs to play in English?
Im trying to inject Wii games as WUP, but many of them default to Japanese even with aroma and region free set.

 

[jeffyTheHomebrewer]

How did u fix USA ISOs to play in English?
Im trying to inject Wii games as WUP, but many of them default to Japanese even with aroma and region free set.

Wii games on disc only include the languages for their intended region, e.g. a japanese disc/ISO would only include japanese and maybe another language, whereas a north american disc/ISO can include english, spanish, and french (since canada and mexico are rather close to NA)

 

[Akumara]

Wii games on disc only include the languages for their intended region, e.g. a japanese disc/ISO would only include japanese and maybe another language, whereas a north american disc/ISO can include english, spanish, and french (since canada and mexico are rather close to NA)

This is NOT the case!
I've injected multiple USA ISO's into my Japanese Wii u, and they are in Japanese....

 

[jeffyTheHomebrewer]

This is NOT the case!
I've injected multiple USA ISO's into my Japanese Wii u, and they are in Japanese....

Which games? I didn't mean to say it was a concrete thing; moreso just a thing most games do in my experience
Plus, if a game uses a font already on the Wii's NAND for text, it'll likely have japanese support. But still, I don't doubt a few games having unusually out-of-region languages.

 

[godreborn]

This is NOT the case!
I've injected multiple USA ISO's into my Japanese Wii u, and they are in Japanese....

I have an American wiiu, so I don't know about aroma's or tiramisu's region fix. however, spiik, if it's a disc, should be able to do region as well as language. I don't know where it gets the info from about region, but it may be the sysprod.xml (is that right???) it's in the config folder on the root of slc I believe.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I have an American wiiu, so I don't know about aroma's or tiramisu's region fix. however, spiik, if it's a disc, should be able to do region as well as language. I don't know where it gets the info from about region, but it may be the sysprod.xml (is that right???) it's in the config folder on the root of slc I believe.

I think he's still talking about Wii games (as he was replying to a post about Wii games) and none of the things you mentioned affect vWii.

 

[godreborn]

I think he's still talking about Wii games (as he was replying to a post about Wii games) and none of the things you mentioned affect vWii.

then try the system tool for the wii/vwii. I don't know if it can change regions, but for crying out loud, I don't understand why no one does any research, and I have to remember everything for everyone.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

then try the system tool for the wii/vwii. I don't know if it can change regions, but for crying out loud, I don't understand why no one does any research, and I have to remember everything for everyone.

Settings Editor GUI? It can't change language. I don't think just running Any Region Changer on vWii would do much good, either. I'm sure vWii can be region changed, if you can get/install a vWii WAD of the other region system menu and run Any Region Changer to change the region setting. Only doing one or the other would probably result in a bricked vWii. But spoofing language with a USB loader is easiest.