On the Wii U, region setting apps such as AnyRegion Changer app are no longer functional. Do not try to use them. That said, you can change some of those settings "manually" if you want different settings to what your vWii comes with. This can be done by modifying the setting.txt file found on the (v)Wii NAND. This file is encrypted, so you can't just edit it directly in a text editor, but you can edit it using a specially-designed tool for Windows, which has the extremely sensible name of SettingEdit. The original community where its author, Spzx0, posted it no longer exists, so I've attached the executable to this post.

Why?

There are a couple reasons why you might want to change these settings.

Changing game region:

• You have games from a different region to your console that you want to be able to play without the need for region-free homebrews.

Changing video mode:

• You have a PAL Wii U but want to play certain NTSC games which have no PAL support, such as Earth Seeker, or poor PAL support, like the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games (limited to 576i) or the Nintendo 64 Virtual Console (limited to 480i).

Preparation

1. Download the SettingEdit.zip file attached to this post and extract its contents (SettingEdit.exe) to wherever seems sensible to you.
2. Install an FTP client on your Windows PC. Filezilla is a popular choice.
3. Install the app "ftpiiu_everywhere" on your Wii U, either manually or from the Homebrew App Store. There are separate Mocha and Haxchi versions of ftpiiu_everywhere, so make sure you're using the appropriate version for your setup.
   
   Note: Currently, you're not really doing anything dangerous, but you can brick if you do the wrong thing with ftpiiu_everywhere, so be careful when using it.​

Obtaining your setting.txt

1. Open ftpiiu_everywhere and make a note of the line which says "FTPiiU everywhere is listening on X.X.X.X:21". This is your Wii U's IP address and the FTP port, 21.
2. On your PC FTP client (e.g. Filezilla), enter your IP address and port and connect to the Wii U. In some clients, you can skip entering the port, because 21 is the default unless you tell them otherwise.
3. Still on your PC, navigate though the Wii U's file system to /slccmpt01/title/00000001/00000002/data/. Inside this directory, you should see your setting.txt.
   
   Note: slccmpt01 is the vWii NAND. You're somewhat safe exploring in here, because even if you brick the vWii, it should be recoverable from Wii U mode. Or you could not brick at all, that's always a cool idea.​
4. Download the setting.txt file from the above directory to the same place where you extracted SettingEdit.exe.

Editing your setting.txt

1. Before you do anything else, make an additional copy of setting.txt and call it something like ORIGINAL DO NOT EDIT - setting.txt. This is in case anything goes wrong, so that you can be 100% certain you have an original copy you can upload back to the vWii NAND to fix it.
2. Open SettingEdit.exe. It will start up with some default values set, it is not reading from your setting.txt currently.
3. Click the Open button in the bottom left and direct it to your downloaded setting.txt. The values will all fill in with the ones from your vWii.
4. You can now change your Video and Game settings using the drop-down boxes. e.g. If you have a European Wii U and want to switch the vWii to NTSC video but keep your European games compatible, you can switch Video to "NTSC" but leave your Game setting on "EU".
   
   Note: Don't mess with any of the other values unless you have a reason to, especially Area. You do have that backup, so you shouldn't be able to permanently brick anything, but it's just generally good practice.​
   Note 2: The vast majority of PAL games will run just fine with your video set to NTSC and vice versa, so it's really not necessary to switch your Game region unless you specifically want to do so.​
   Do note that your Game region impacts which discs, WiiWare, Virtual Console, etc. region software your vWii will run. Homebrew apps like USB loaders bypass this restriction already, this only determines which apps you can launch directly from the vWii System Menu.​
5. Click Save. SettingEdit will ask you for a file name. This needs to be setting.txt for the vWii to read it, so name it that, either overwriting your current setting.txt (remembering that you made that backup earlier) or saving into a different directory, if you prefer.
6. The tool will now ask if you want to encrypt the file. Answer "Yes", because the vWii expects the encrypted file.

Uploading the edited file back to the Wii U

1. Go back to your FTP client. If necessary, navigate back to /slccmpt01/title/00000001/00000002/data/ again.
2. Upload the edited setting.txt to your vWii NAND, replacing the original file.
3. Quit ftpiiu_everywhere and launch into the vWii to confirm that everything is working.
   
   Note: If it's not working at all, shut down the Wii U, get back into ftpiiu_everywhere and restore your original setting.txt. This should not happen; if it does, you probably did something weird like editing the Area instead of Game region.​

And you're done! Congratulations on your very, very slightly modified vWii.

 

[willianholtz]

does this make Japanese games run on the main wiiu?

I mean, without entering the vwii to run it

 

[Vague Rant]

does this make Japanese games run on the main wiiu?

I mean, without entering the vwii to run it

You can't even run in-region Wii games directly from the Wii U menu. When you insert a Wii disc, the Wii U Disc Channel becomes a shortcut to the Wii Menu, and then you launch the disc game as you would on an original Wii, by selecting the Wii Disc Channel and starting the game. At that point, the vWii will only run a disc that matches your game region as set in setting.txt.

 

[godreborn]

does this make Japanese games run on the main wiiu?

I mean, without entering the vwii to run it

my guess would be that it suffers from the same restrictions. afaik, the virtual wii doesn't need to be hacked in order to run a wii vc game. I think it works like using the wii channel except this forwarder forwards to a specific game. I think the wii home menu has a title id of its own, which I think you can find in usb loader gx (can't recall it offhand), so I think a vc game merely changes that title id and redirects the location to an external hdd or wii u NAND. I only have two wii vc games that I've injected with a few more that I bought. none has given me any trouble. the only ones I can see that might've are my injects. you do have a good question there that I'm not entirely sure of. I just know that it's never been a problem for me. if you change the vwii region to region free, there's a strong possibility that it will work like you want it to. wii mode on the wii u is its own thing even with a separate chip than the wii u's firmware, so the system restarts in wii or wii u mode whenever you swap between them. I'm not entirely sure how the game works from the wii u standpoint. it may be one of the ios cuz I know that dragon quest x contains an ios that allows you to use a usb drive officially. it was never released in the states, but it may be a part of the vwii on the wii u by default since it's pretty much a modified 4.3 system menu. I could be totally wrong, just thinking out loud with what I remember.

 

[willianholtz]

You can't even run in-region Wii games directly from the Wii U menu. When you insert a Wii disc, the Wii U Disc Channel becomes a shortcut to the Wii Menu, and then you launch the disc game as you would on an original Wii, by selecting the Wii Disc Channel and starting the game. At that point, the vWii will only run a disc that matches your game region as set in setting.txt.

I know that, exactly why I ask. It would be interesting to be able to get my Japanese games, insert and through the Wii u menu, enter directly without a homebrew from vwii. What currently happens, is invalid disk when inserting in wii U (when Japanese disk is used)

 

[Vague Rant]

I know that, exactly why I ask. It would be interesting to be able to get my Japanese games, insert and through the Wii u menu, enter directly without a homebrew from vwii. What currently happens, is invalid disk when inserting in wii U (when Japanese disk is used)

Ah, I see. I personally don't own any out-of-region discs to test them. Wii U mode doesn't care about the setting.txt file, only the vWii reads that. It's possible you could get the Wii U to accept out of region Wii discs by making the Wii U region free by modifying your Wii U sys_prod.xml. Make sure you know what you're doing though, as you can brick making changes to sys_prod.xml.

 

[godreborn]

it's fixable with the otp.bin or a nand from before the change was made. the otp.bin can decrypt the slc on the computer, where you can exchange files (backup the original sys_prod.xml) using the nand decryption tools (you can find these on the board. I think the dev is @EyeKey ). however, you'll need to do a hardmod. if that sounds scary, try haxchi or mocha. both are region free, though I've heard regionhax is better. I can't confirm that. I have regionhax and cbhc. thus far, I've never encountered a game that wouldn't run. do note: the sys_prod.xml is tied to your profile, so if you delete the profile the wii u and wii channels will disappear. also, if you screw up the file, the system will not boot any app (including the browser), so it's semibricked. I think the system will still make it to the home menu, just nothing will work.

 

[fenderjaguar]

I have a PAL Wii U. I want to use component. But it only launches vwii in 576i 50hz. If you change the video output to NTSC, what does a NTSC Wii U run the vwii in with a component cable? is it possible to force 60hz 480p, or does it run 480i?

With HDMI, the vwii launches in the same video mode as you set in Wii U, but with component and vwii it only runs in 576i for some reason, even if you set component to be 480p in Wii U settings. (btw, I actually wanted to to run in 480p for vwii mode, which is something it won't do with HDMI unless you have the Wii U running 480p as well. the reason I want this, is it seems to me the vwii has less input lag in 480p than it does in 1080p through HDMI.

 

[godreborn]

could be wrong, but I thought the vwii was upscaled.

 

[fenderjaguar]

could be wrong, but I thought the vwii was upscaled.

it is in hdmi (if you set 720p or 1080p in wii u video output). if you set the wii u to be 480p with hdmi, then the vwii also runs that resolution. but if you use component, the PAL vwii is ALWAYS 576i 50hz, no matter what you set in wii u component resolution/scan

 

[sl3ge]

Hi,

I got a jap wii u, when run mario party 9 on vwii show "Region Error"

If i use this method change Game: US
Or need change Area: USA

will it work?

Thanks

 

[Kor_CJunseo]

will this change the region and language to Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Korea?
(which it is not normally supported)

 

[Vague Rant]

will this change the region and language to Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Korea?
(which it is not normally supported)

Not the language, only what region of discs/channels your console will launch. You can set your game region to KR and that will probably let you launch Korean discs/channels, but I know there's also some weirdness with Korean consoles (different key to other regions), so I don't know for sure whether that would be enough to run them.

The tool doesn't support switching to Taiwan or Hong Kong game regions at all, only JP/US/EU/KR. And again, it only changes what titles you can run, not what language the console or games run in.

 

[Akumara]

Is there anyway to force a Japanese Wii to play games in English?
There are countless Wii games I've injected as a WUP. USA ISO then it shows japanese language. Region free doesn't work....
I tried this without changing BASE and it still doesn't work.
I just want to convert my entire console into non-japanese if possible.

 

[KelSolaar]

I tried this method and while it does allow you to change your vWii region it seems like it does not fix that irritating bug which comes with all PAL Wii U consoles. The one that forces vWii to interlaced scan when using component cables. I used this method and changed my vWii region to NTSC but it still goes into interlaced scan :-(