Wii Shop revival service "RiiShop" enters public beta



Many people remember the Wii days fondly with its gimmick controls, memorable in-app music and homebrew friendly system. Ever since the discontinuation of the Wii Shop service back in January 30th, 2019, users could no longer purchase new titles through it, and were only left with the option to redownload already purchased titles.

Since then, a few homebrew developers have worked on a revival service, formerly known as "LaunchShop" to recreate the Wii Shop servers back when they were fully accessible. As of January 8th, 2024, this revival service has been rebranded into "RiiShop", and is now publicly available for Wii users in a WAD format.

The current open beta can be installed in homebrewed Wii systems as a WAD, and users can enter the Wii Shop menu and browse Virtual Console and WiiWare games, as well as Wii channels that were originally available, complete with what seems to be dummy Wii Points to redeem, but with nothing to do with them at the moment due to downloads not working on the current build yet. It's worth nothing that this will apparently work like a free Shop to download titles from, with no currency being involved.

As with any product in beta, expect some issues to pop up, and bare in mind that the public beta might not have download working, since many people online are reporting downloads not being possible as of yet.
 

HarveyHouston

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Since then, a few homebrew developers have worked on a revival service, formerly known as "LaunchShop" to recreate the Wii Shop servers back when they were fully accessible. As of January 8th, 2024, this revival service has been rebranded into "RiiShop", and is now publicly available for Wii users in a WAD format.

The current open beta can be installed in homebrewed Wii systems as a WAD, and users can enter the Wii Shop menu and browse Virtual Console and WiiWare games, as well as Wii channels that were originally available, complete with what seems to be dummy Wii Points to redeem, but with nothing to do with them at the moment due to downloads not working on the current build yet.​
DMCA next? I mean, I love the idea of getting WiiWare again, but if Nintendo doesn't approve, then it's back to the drawing board...
 

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JuanMena

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Did bans really exist in the Wii days? lol
It seems you were a mere child in those days. No, there were no bans. But Nintendo unistalled any kind of "unauthorized software" and were quick to patch entry points.
Entry points were found nearly as soon as Nintendo patched IOS and cIOS. So updating wasn't as bad as nowadays, that is, a literal ban of online services.

Now that I think about it, Nintendo was way more lax about the matter. And then again, a hackeable console equals more consoles sold, so piracy really boosted Wii sales either indirectly or directly. So I assume Nintendo wanted that.
 
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Jayro

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This reminds me of FreeShop on the 3DS.

And by saying that, I mean this isn't going to end well. Nintendo is gonna put an end to this one too for sure.
I miss FreeShop. It was hassle-free once setup. These Switch Shops for Tinfoil run from Discord servers are absolutely ass.
 
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rpg_nippon

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Are they really doing that?
This is just asking for Nintendo to shut them down real quick.
Well at least I got confirmation from that tho, guess I was just misreading stuff from outside the Discord

Wonder what they mean with "charging for other games is illegal"?
It doesn't say "charging for other games is illegal", it says "charging for others games is illegal". And what they probably have in mind is "charging for others' games is illegal".
 

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I meant to say virtual NAND instead of Wad, my bad.
This applies to your physical NAND if you're going to modify your Wii; this includes but not limited to: custom IOSes (cIOS), WADs, system themes, and Priiloader.
 

boot3

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The Wii's an old system, no doubt about that. But I think it's pretty safe to say that a good majority of Wiis out there aren't gonna die out for a while.
 
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