Wiinja: Official GBAtemp Review

[Costello]

Wiinja: Official GBAtemp Review

The first Wii modchip

Update: The Wiinja team have officially decided to drop the price of the Wiinja to 25 euro (+taxes), for all new orders and preorders starting from 09/02/2007 !


shaunj66 and Costello have just finished writing the Official GBAtemp Review of the Wiinja.





The Wiinja is the first real Wii modchip. It supports both Wii & GameCube backups, but only from your own region (PAL or NTSC-U/J).
Want to know more?

Read the review!

 

[azndragonguy115]

HU RAH!

 

[yee]

Time to read!

EDIT: Product sounds excellent, same as with the review, both excellent.

Time to save up for a Wii.

 

[KINGOFNOOBS]

interesting...

 

[Renegade_R]

Its strange...the way you word it, it seems like NTSC-U consoles will have no problem playing the NTSC-J games. Is this true or not?

 

[ProdigySim]

Can you do GCN backups on full size DVD-Rs?
Why aren't there any comments on GCN backups/homebrew?

 

[Magus19]

Yeah the NTSC-U NTSC-J is unclear. I buy all my english games but I would use it for japanese games and cube games.

 

[Hooya]

They don't have an NTSC Wii, so they can still only speculate on this feature. It's assumed.

I had a question about DVD media. Why exactly is DVD-R preferred over DVD+R? I understand somewhat there is a technical difference, but it didn't look like you tested any DVD+R. Is there a reason why the -R versions are recommended?

 

[IBNobody]

Thank you for the review. I appreciated the compatibility list.

I have a suggestion for you two, though.

Can you put the "Marvel Ultimate Alliance" NTSC entry in a separate table or separate it from the PALs with a blank line? When I first looked at the table, I thought the chip wasn't 100% compatible. It wasn't until I noticed the NTSC header that I figured out why.

 

[Magus19]

Did anyone see a NTSC review somewhere? I found another review and the guy had a PAL system too.

 

[Hellfenix]

I need to know about the ntsc-j/ntsc-u compatibility also.. only reason i want chip

 

[Mystic-Homer]

I'd also love to know if this does make a North American Wii able to play Japanese games or not...

As soon as I know for sure, I'm importing Naruto Shippuden EX!

 

[phoood]

I had no idea...

So every product you review is based on the capabilities of the average product.

 

[ChrisBloodShot]

I noticed in your review it said "MultiDisc/MultiGames" in the official features list. Does this mean the Wiinja supports multigame GC disks? If so, how do you select which game the Wii will boot? This wont really effect my future purchase decision. I just always wondered how a drive mod could pull this off without some sort of GUI, or at all.

I was leaning towards the cycloWii, epically after the upgrade ability announcement. The recent debate on the truthfulness of that announcement has put me back at square one in my decision making process. I would love to say I would wait on the Wiikey to finally be revealed, but I've got the itch to bust open that shiny white case and spew some molten metal all over a PCB with my soldering iron.

 

[Vidikron]

I had a question about DVD media. Why exactly is DVD-R preferred over DVD+R? I understand somewhat there is a technical difference, but it didn't look like you tested any DVD+R. Is there a reason why the -R versions are recommended?

I'd like to know this too. Also, if DVD+R really doesn't work... will DVD+R work with the booktype set to DVD-ROM? This actually makes a big difference with some of the XBox DVD drives. I'm curious if the same is true with the Wii.

 

[putamierda]

I'm also interested in the NTSC-U NTSC-J issue, if they can play both regions, then that's a workarround the problem.
Also, if it's so difficult to implement a region free solution, then this chip is great.
I'll have to get a NTSC-U or NTSC-J WII and wait for the chip price to drop down, and off we go

 

[Darkforce]

Nice review.

In other topics I remember reading that the Wii does take DVD+R media though don't quote me on that lol.

The fact that the cheap disc came up with a DRE is nothing to do with 'The cheap brands have less protection layers on discs', but the fact that different discs use different dyes, cheaper discs generally use a low quality dye such as CMC resulting in inferior burns AND increased difficulty for the laser reading the disc. Always buy good quality media, don't cheap out! Verbatims are the bees knees. ^^

 

[BlueStar]

Possibly a stupid question, but is there any possibility of someone working out how to break the region protection on the games themselves so we could play other region games with a chip like this? Or would that not be possible because of the way the chip works?

 

[furbyhaterex]

Possibly a stupid question, but is there any possibility of someone working out how to break the region protection on the games themselves so we could play other region games with a chip like this? Or would that not be possible because of the way the chip works?

AFAIK, the current method of booting games only allows 1:1 copies, so any changes to the games structure (ntsc->pal, for example) would render them unbootable...

 

[amrum]

To Shaun, Costello & all the people who bought the Wiinja,

Did you try the new freeloader to see if it boots the NTSC Gamecube backups ?

If yes, then we have a hope that a freeloader for Wii games could boot the Wii backups from all the regions ?