Tutorial The Definitive Wii U Modding Guide

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The Definitive Wii U Modding Guide

Updated As Of: 14.2.2020

Revision 3 (With Some Fixes)

The Wii U Is A Console Which i Not Only Grew On, It is also one of the niche Nintendo Consoles ever made. The Wii U Wasen’t Popular As The Wii And Sold only 13.56 Million units in total (Which It’s Sucessor, The Switch, Has Well Surpassed) Since My Love For the console is so vast, I decided to do a Definitive Modding (BE ALL END ALL GUIDE!). A Guide Which will Hopefully help You Mod Your Wii U And Make It More Appealing Console! Yes YOU!


1. Upgrade To The Better Battery Pack!

It’s No Secret That the Wii U Has one (if not) worse battery’s in electronics! And As Such I would highly recommend getting the secret upgraded Wii U gamepad Battery, Which will improve it’s life by a long shot!

You Can Buy This Battery on Amazon.
2. HomeBrew That Sh*t!

The Wii U is Dead as Console, But it’s Scene can and will expand your device use. From Retroarch to Nintendont (More On Later) You Can Play a lot of cool homebrew and also backup your discs!

Method 1: Indexine (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!)

Most Guides Will Ask you to buy a cheap DS Game, But.. Since Late 2019 You don’t need that as you can simply replace the browser app with Mocha CFW(Using Indexine) And Use That instead of Haxchi. It is also safer than CBHC Since You Aren;t Modifying Your System.xml (AKA: Home Menu Files!) (Thanks For @Jonhyjp For Indexine, You Are A Rockstar!)

It will not launch Automatically on boot However, But you can use the Wii U Dreaded Quick Settings Menu to get a faster launch to the web browser and get the same functionality!

Method 2: CBHC + Haxchi (ADVANCED USERS ONLY!)

Haxchi Is An DS VC Exploit Which Replaces A legit Ds VC title from The Eshop with A CFW Launcher/Homebrew App Of Choice.

CBHC Is An Upgraded Version of Haxchi Capeble of Running The Exploited DS VC Title At Boot Automatically. Now You May Think That’s Good. The Problem Lies That The CBHC Exploit Modifies The System.xml (HOME MENU FILE!) And Replaces It With The DS VC Title, Because Of that, if You Mess Up The CBHC Install You Can End Up with A Bricked Wii U And Therefore I Can’t Recommend This Method For Newbie Users!




A Really Cool Guide On How To Install One Of The Options Can Be Found In The Link Below:

https://wiiuguide.xyz

(Thanks Nintendo Homebrew community!)




3. Region Free Loading

One of the Biggest Issues of the Wii U is that it’s region is locked and can’t run Japanense exclusive title’s or other regions titles, Modding your Wii U removes this and with the tool Ourloader, You Can Get This Functionality! (Clap4Dimok!)

Link: https://apps.fortheusers.org/wiiu/ourloader

4. Hidden Gamecube inside!

Since The Wii U Includes a copy of the Wii Gpu and Cpu, It is in theory Capeable To Play Gamecube Games! Using A Program Called Nintendont You Can Unlock This Functionality And Run The Entire GameCube Library!

(sabykos, Thanks!)




Link: https://gbatemp.net/threads/nintendont.349258/

5. No More Discs

Save Your Wii U disc drive by using disc2app! A small program which will enable you to Dump Wii U games and then install them as an EShop app!

(Thanks4@EyeKey)

Link: https://apps.fortheusers.org/wiiu/disc2app




6. Internal HDD/SSD (Advanced Users Only!)

If you dislike the HDD/SSD look on the Wii U externally, luckilly you can solder your HDD/SDD Directly to the Wii U’s usb Port and it will work. Not Recommended for The Faint Of Heart!

Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/WiiUHacks/comments/azbgvt/wii_u_ssd_mod_ssd_installed_inside


7. (Optional, But Good for Advanced Users): Hardmod Your Wii U’s with jumper wires to prevent bricks!





Although Unlikely, I Would highly recommend soldering jumper wires to the Nand Flash Chip in order to prevent bricks! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR (AGAIN!) ADVANCED USERS ONLY WITH MICRO SOLDERING EQUIPMENT!




A Cool Guide Can Be Found here (Thanks @Kafluke!): https://gbatemp.net/threads/guide-kaflukes-hardmod-cbhc-unbrick-guide.476725




8. (Optional, Not For beginners!) Extend The Wii U’s LifeSpan and Uses By Dual booting Gnu/Linux!

If You Have Homebrewed Your Wii U, you can easily load Debian Gnu/Linux On Your Wii U without too much hassle!

Thanks To The Legendery @QuarkTheAwesome, With His Port of Debian you can sideload Gnu/Linux On your Wii U Pretty easily! Read The docs and you should be fine (;

Link: https://gitlab.com/linux-wiiu/linux-wiiu




9. Replace the Thermal Paste! (Optional But HIGHLY Recommended! Advanced Users Only!)

The Wii U IS Quite Old Honestly, And it’s Thermal Paste Isn’t Perhaps As good as new. Replacing the thermal Paste Can Improve The Cooling on your Wii U By Quite A bit, And if you Suffer from Heat, This might solve the problem!




WARNING: DO NOT PUT TOO MUCH THERMAL PASTE OR YOU WILL ENCOUNTER PROBLEMS!




Link For Wii U TearDown (Use This To Dissassemble Your Wii U!): https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nintendo+Wii+U+Teardown/11796




Conclusion!

The Wii U Is (If not) The Second biggest failure since the Virtualboy, Although the console may rest now, it’s still a great Console if you had missed on it. Games Are Pretty Cheap, And You Can Easily Mod This device to extend it’s uses. And Hey! If the Wii U Weren’t Here, The Switch Wouldn’t Be Here Either! This Guide Was Created for the Souls out there who Wanted to (Perhaps?) Make A Reuse Of Your Wii U, And Maybe Extend It’s life more (: .




Also: If I Have Missed Some Mod (Or Discredited Someone Accidently!) Please Ask Me On Gbatemp (User (Again): @ DavidTatikashvili123) And I Will Update This Guide!




Credits To Everyone Involved In the Wii U Scene (Including But Not Limited To, Without you Ladies And Gentleman This Guide Woulden’t Be Possible!):

@ Kafluke

@ QuarkTheAwesome

@ Dimok

@ IFixit

@ Fail0verFlow

@ u/ImodderNation

@ Fix94

@ Plailect

@ Nintendo Homebrew Discord!

@ vgmoose

@ Smealum (ColdbootHax, Etc!)

@ sabykos
@ Jonhyjp

@ Everyone At r/WiiUHacks!

@ Our Gbatemp Fellows!

@ EyeKey (Disc2App!)

@ And All The People Involved In This Amazing Scene!

Since I Did All of those mods Feel Free if you need help to ask this community or myself At Gbatemp (User: DavidTatikashvili123)

FAQ (Read This Before Asking Questions)

1. Question: The Wii U Is Dead! (Move On!)

2. Answer: The GameCube Had Almost The Same Fate And it Was a Great Console! Same For The Wii U!! It Has Great Games And Lot’s of cool Homebrew!

1. Question: Why Not Use CBHC?!

2. You Can Do That (I MYSELF HAVE DONE IT IN THE PAST!), But You Have High (!) Risk Of Bricking The Console! Look At This Guide for more info!: https://wiiuguide.xyz

1. Question: What About Piracy?

2. Answer: This Guide Will NEVER EVER Support (Or Discuss) Any Form Of Piracy! Support The Dev’s if you Seek Games!! That’s Their Job y’k!

1. Question: What About X Y Z! Please Add This!

2. Answer: I Only Covered The Stuff I Did On My own Console! Since I Can’t Say X Y Z Will Work, I Can’t Add This to this Guide!

1. What If i Can’t Do X Y Z (Because i’m Too Normie4Dat)?

2. Answer: My Advice: If You Want the X Y Z Mod anyway you can just ask someone who has the skills to perform it for You!




DISCLAIMER: I’M NOT TAKING ANY RESPONSEBILITY FOR ANY OF THE MENTIONED MODS! I CAN OFFER HELP BUT YOUR’E DOING IT AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!! MODDING EVERY ELECTRONIC DEVICE CAN AND HAVE THE CHANCE OF A BRICK! ALTHOUGH UNLIKELY, IT CAN HAPPEN! SO BE SURE TO BACKUP EVERYTHING! LITERLLY!




Changelog:

Revision 3 Of This Guide!

-- Fixed Some Typos (lol There Were More!)




Changelog:

Revision 2 Of This Guide!

-- Fixed Some Typos

-- Added CBHC

Credit's: Thanks For @pop13 To Point Out Those Things
 
Last edited by VinsCool,

pop13_13

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The Definitive Wii U Modding Guide

Updated As Of: 14.2.2020

The Wii U Is A Console Which i Not Only Grew On, It is also one of the niche nintendo consoles ever made. The Wii U Wasen’t Popular As The Wii And Sold only 13.56 Million units in total (Which It’s Sucessor, The Switch, Has Well Surpassed) Since My Love For the console is So vast, I Decided to do a definitive modding Guide Which will Hopefully help you! Yes YOU!

1. Upgrade To The Better Battery Pack!

It’s No Secret That the Wii U Has one (if not) worse battery’s in electronics! And As Such i would highly recommend getting the secret upgraded wii u gamepad Battery, Which will improve it’s life by long shot!

You Can Buy This Battery on amazon using this link (it’s not affilate): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GC8J3MG/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_nDvrEbZ97N4R2

2. HomeBrew That Sh*t!

The Wii U is dead as console, but it’s scene can and will expand your device use. From retroarch to nintendo’nt (More On Later) You Can Play a lot of cool homebrew and also backup your discs!

Most Guides Will Ask you to buy a cheap ds game, But.. Since Late 2019 You don’t need that as you can simply replace the browser app with Mocha CFW(Using Indexine) And Use That instead of haxchi. It is also more safer than CBHC Since You Don’t Modify Your System.xml (AKA: Home Menu Files!) (Thanks For @Jonhyjp For Indexiine, You Rockstar!)

It will not launch automateclly on boot however, But you can use the Wii u Dreaded quick settings menu to get faster launch to the web browser and get same functionality!


A Really Cool Guide on the method called indexiine can be found Here:

https://wiiuguide.xyz/#/user-guide/mocha/indexiine/sd-preparation

(Thanks Nintendo Homebrew community!)

4. Region Free Loading

One of the biggest issues of the wii u is that it’s region locked and can’t run japan exclusive title’s or other regions titles, Modding your wii u removes this and with the tool ourloader, You Can Get This Functionality! (Clap4Dimok!)

Link: https://apps.fortheusers.org/wiiu/ourloader

https://gbatemp.net/threads/nintendont.349258/

5. Hidden Gamecube inside!

Since The wii u includes a copy of the wii gpu and cpu, it is in theory can use gamecube games!Using A Program Called Nintendon’t You Can Unlock This Functionality And Run The Entire GameCube Library!

(sabykos, Thanks!)


Link: https://gbatemp.net/threads/nintendont.349258/

6. No More Discs

Save Your wii u disc drive by using disc2app! A small program which will enable you to dump wii u games and then install them as an eshop app!

(Thanks4EyeKey)

Link: https://apps.fortheusers.org/wiiu/disc2app

7. Internal HDD/SSD (Advanced Users Only!)

If you dislike the hdd look on the wii u externally, luckelly you can solder your hdd directly to the wii u usb and it will work. Not Recommended for The Faint Of Heart!

Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/WiiUHacks/comments/azbgvt/wii_u_ssd_mod_ssd_installed_inside

8. (Optional, But Good for Advanced Users): Hardmod Your wii u with jumper wires to prevent bricks!

Altough Unlikely, I Would highly recommend soldering jumper wires to the nand in order to prevent bricks! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR FOR (AGAIN!) ADVANCED USERS ONLY WITH MICRO SOLDERING EQUIPMENT!https://gbatemp.net/threads/guide-kaflukes-hardmod-cbhc-unbrick-guide.476725/

A Cool Guide Can Be Found here (Thanks @Kafluke!): https://gbatemp.net/threads/guide-kaflukes-hardmod-cbhc-unbrick-guide.476725

9. (Optional, Not For beginners!) Extend The Wii U LifeSpan and Uses By dual booting Gnu/linux!

If you homebrewd your wii u you can easily load Debian On Your Wii U without too much hassle!

Thanks To The Legendery @QuarkTheAwesome, With His Port of debian you can sideload Gnu/Linux On your wii u Pretty easily! Read The docs and you should be fine (; .Jonhyjp

Link: https://gitlab.com/linux-wiiu/linux-wiiu




10. Replace the Termal Paste! (Optional But HIGHLY Recommended! Advanced Users Only!)

The Wii U IS Quite Old Honestly, And The Thermal Paste Isn’t Perhaps As good as new. Replacing the thermal Paste Can Improve The Cooling on your Wii U By Quite A bit, And if you Suffer from Heat, This might solve the problem!

WARNING: DO NOT PUT TOO MUCH THERMAL PASTE OR YOU WILL ENCOUNTER PROBLEMS

Link For Wii U TearDown (Use This Dissassemble Your Wii U!): https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nintendo+Wii+U+Teardown/11796




Conclusion!

The Wii U Is (If not) The Second biggest failure since the virtualboy, altough the console may rest now, it’s still a great console if you missed on it. Games Are Pretty Cheap, And You Can Easily Mod This device to extend it’s uses. And Hey! If the Wii U Wasen’t Here, The Switch Weren’t Either! This Guide Was Created for the souls out there who wanted to (Perhaps?) Make A Reuse Of Your Wii U, And Maybe Extend It’s life more (: .




Credits To Everyone Involved In the Wii U Scene (Including But Not Limited To, Without you Ladies And Gentleman This Guide Woulden’t Be Possible!):

@ Kafluke

@ QuarkTheAwesome

@ Dimok

@ IFixit

@ Fail0verFlow

@ u/ImodderNation

@ Fix94

@ Plailect

@ Nintendo Homebrew Discord!

@ vgmoose

@ Smealum (ColdbootHax, Etc!)

@ sabykos
@ Jonhyjp

@ Everyone At r/WiiUHacks!

@ Our Gbatemp Fellows!

@ EyeKey (Disc2App!)

@ And All The People Involved In This Amazing Scene!

Since I Did All of those mods Feel Free if you need help to ask this community or myself At Gbatemp (User: DavidTatikashvili123)

FAQ (Read This Before Asking Questions:

1. Question: The Wii U Is Dead! (Move On!)

2. Answer: The GameCube Had Almsot Same Fate And it Was Great Console! Same For The Wii U!! It Has Great Games And Lot of cool Homebrew!

1. Question: Why Not Use CBHC?!

2. You Can Do That (I MYSELF DID IT IN THE PAST!), But You Have The High (!) Risk Of Breaking The Console! Look At This Guide for more info!: https://wiiuguide.xyz

1. Question: What About Piracy?

2. Answer: This Guide Will NEVER EVER Support (Or Discuss) Any Form Of Piracy! Support The Dev’s if you seek Games!! That’s Their Job y’k!

1. Question: What About X Y Z! Please Add This!

2. Answer: I Only Covered The Stuff I Did On My own Console! Since I Can’t Say X Y Z Will Work, i Can’t Add This to this Guide!

1. What If i Can’t Do X Y Z (Because i’m too Normie4Dat)?

2. Answer: My Advice: If You Want the mod anyway you can just ask someone who has the skills to perform it for You!




DISCLAIMER: I’M NOT TAKING ANY RESPONSEBILITY FOR ANY OF THE MENTIONED MODS! I CAN OFFER HELP BUT YOUR’E DOING IT AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!! MODDING EVERY ELECTRONIC DEVICE CAN AND HAVE THE CHANCE OF A BRICK! ALTOUGH UNLIKELY, IT CAN HAPPEN! SO BE SURE TO BACKUP EVERYTHING! LITERLLY!




Also: If I Missed Some Mod (Or Discredited Someone Accidently!) Please Ask Me On Gbatemp (User (Again): @ DavidTatikashvili123) And I Will Update This Guide!

Also: This Guide Is Also On Medium: https://medium.com/@TuxPepeFrog/the-definitive-wii-u-modding-guide-51dba098f013
Great guide, but I have 2 suggestions:
  • REDACTED
  • Fix The Writing And Wording
 
Last edited by pop13_13,
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Great guide, but I have 2 suggestions:
  • Mention the different methods of creating and loading backups
  • Fix The Writing And Wording

Hi! I Know There Are Some Writing Issues. I Will Fix Them as soon as i can, The Reason i only i mention indexine And NOT Cbhc Is for the sole reason as it can brick one's Wii U if one isn't Carefull enough. Perhaps i Will Add Haxchi And CBHC, But It should have a big warning of a brick risk!
 
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TheMrIron2

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The Wii U IS Quite Old Honestly
It's only a year older than the current gen consoles (PS4/XB1), lmao. 2012 is not very old at all.
Since The Wii U Includes a copy of the Wii Gpu and Cpu
The Wii GPU is onboard the Wii U GPU, but the Wii CPU is not in the system - the Wii U under clocks itself to Wii speeds to run Wii software.
But yeah other than the writing suggestion above (open Microsoft Word and see where spelling mistakes are highlighted, or use some other spellchecker) this is a good guide.
 
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It's only a year older than the current gen consoles (PS4/XB1), lmao. 2012 is not very old at all.

The Wii GPU is onboard the Wii U GPU, but the Wii CPU is not in the system - the Wii U under clocks itself to Wii speeds to run Wii software.
But yeah other than the writing suggestion above (open Microsoft Word and see where spelling mistakes are highlighted, or use some other spellchecker) this is a good guide.

I Will Include More Spelling Corrections + vWii Corrections On Revision 4 Of This Guide. Thanks For Pointing This Out!
 

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