This is by far one of the best (not easiest) homebrew apps for the Wii.

The app formally known as RiskMiimod has been released in a full blown 1.0 ALPHA version.

This has been tested and confirmed working, but please make sure you know what you’re doing before you attempt this.

SoftMii is capable of doing the following:

v1.0 Alpha Features:

-Custom System Menu Alpha
-SoftMii Health Screen-
-Improved Hacks.ini (Fixed )
-Customizable Via Jizmo’s Theme Packs
-Full Disc Channel Region Free Back-up Loading
-Diagnostic Menu (Recovery) access through GCport1 Y-Button
-No Copy Save Protections Removed
-Retail Discs run 6x, Backups run 3x
-Auto boot ANY Disc Through Recovery Menu
-Skip Disc Updates
-No Error 002 in new games like NFS Undercover
-No Annoying Menu BGM
-Pre loader 0.27 installation
- Regular cIOS for those who have patched discs to 249
- Move your Disc Channel anywhere
-Home Brew Channel 1.01
-Region Free Channels
-Downgrade Method Included

For all questions, comments, and concerns please visit the forums.

Download

According to the Nikkei Business Daily, Nintendo will team up with ad agency Dentsu Inc to launch a video distribution service on the Wii console, in a move to establish a new revenue stream.

The are planning to offer cartoons and other shows created to make it ‘unique’ from other online providers. Nintendo and Dentsu will start the new service early next year in Japan, followed by overseas launches later in the year.

This is a pretty cool idea… I’m curious to see if they will ever get it to North America.

It seems that the huge sales number talked about below caused the Club Nintendo servers to fall over. Users have been reporting since yesterday (christmas) that they have been unable to reach http://club.nintendo.com.

Hopefully Nintendo will get their act together and be back up for all their new users. Until then, why not hit the forums?

With the economic recession torturing many you would think that sales for companies like Amazon would be down… apparently not. Amazon posted the “best ever” holiday sales this year and the Nintendo Wii helped them do that.

According to a sales report released by Amazon the “Nintendo Wii dominated the top sellers in video games and hardware, including the Wii console, the Wii remote controller and the Wii nunchuk controller”. Apparently the 360 and PS3 did their fair share but paled in comparison to the Wii.

With the news of the Wii having a strong November and December CNET made some calculations to figure out how each console was doing this year. So the Wii sold a whopping 43.75 million units, the 360 sold 26.49 milion units, and the PS3 sold 18.82 million units. Notice how the Wii was 2 million shy from selling as many as the other two combined.

Ok, yes, it has been a while since the last time anything Wii related was posted, so I’m throwing some information at you!

First up you may have heard, but there is a new revision of the Wii that at this time is unmodifiable. The DVD drive controller chip that is used by modchips to play backups has been completely removed! You can find more information from the original source, as well as photos.

Source: WiiNewz

Now, for all you homebrew junkies, there have been tons of releases, and I mean tons! Because of so many releases, I have just made a list of some of the more recent releases that you can find all over the web. Take a gander, and if anything peaks your interest any of ‘brew below shouldn’t be hard too find.

As always, if you need any help just head over to the Wii Homebrew forums and post your question!

Loaders
Homebrew Channel v1.0.1
Wii Homebrew Launcher 0.12
Wii Gamecube Homebrew Launcher v0.2.2
Homebrew Disc Loader v0.3

Emulators
RIN Wii (16-12-2008)
Hugo GX (081214)
Gnuboy GX (14/12/2008)
SMS Plus GX (081214)
Genesis Plus GX 1.3.0

Apps
The Homebrew Browser v0.2.5
TheGHOST
whiite-linux Installer
Update Downloader
AnyRegion Changer 1.1b
WiiCM PNCalpha1
ftpii 0.0.16
Xyzzy v1.1

Games
BibleQuiz v0.7
Lpairs v1.0
RedSquare v0.5
Minesweeper v1.3
Yahtzwii v1.0
Pieros Wiicross v0.1
Paradroid v0.4
WiiDoom 0.4.1
Arcade Jigsaw

OS
New Gentoo Linux Distro
Xwhiite-linux v0.2

This tutorial is quoted from WiiNewz.com:

"First, use WiiScrubber to open up the Wii Backup Disc, and extract IOS16-64-v257-prod.wad
This file can be found by clicking the + sign next to "Partition:1 – UPDATE", and then the + sign again next to _sys
Right click on this filename, and click on "Save as" and save it to a WADS directory on your SD card.

More information regarding removing the October 23d update can be found here:
Remove October 23 Update – WiiBrew

A HUGE thank you"

I have uploaded all the necassary tools to use this tutorial. Click the link below.

http://rapidshare.com/files/158782142/WiiWadTools.zip

As always please let us know how this works for you either by commenting in this post or by visiting our forums. Thanks.

Looks like theres been a small breakthrough with the latest firmware. When the Wii 3.4 firmware came out, it disabled multiple homebrew applications from running properly. If you wanted to use the shop channel or the internet browser, you had to update. A patch was released to bypass the update and allow you to use the Shop channel on your current firmware. Here are the instructions and info from the developer.

"Wii Shop and IOS51 installer is a very quick modification of PatchMii modified by Muzer that does one thing: It installs the new IOS51 and Wii Shop Channel, without installing the patches to all the other IOSes. This means that as long as you didn’t update, you can now install this to use the Wii Shop Channel but keep all the benefits of not having the update.

 

 

 

Anybody at all could have made this, just everyone is too busy at the moment, so I figured I would make it. It’s literally modifying 4 lines of code and commenting out a bunch of stuff. Because of this I didn’t bother to include the source in the package, but if anyone wants me to, I’ll happily include it.

 

 

 

This does not have the same effects as updating, so you get the best of both worlds.

 

 

You can do this on any system menu version and it will work fine, keeping the system menu version you have.

 

 

 

I made the program as two separate dol files, because it’s easier and quicker for me that way, if this lasts a while I’ll make a version that combines the two files.

 

 

 

NOTE: TAKE OUT ANY GAMECUBE MEMORY CARDS/CONTROLLERS AND USB DEVICES BEFORE INSTALLING ANYTHING. The first time one person installed the IOS51, and Shop Channel. One person had a Gamecube memory card, and a wireless adapter in the Wii, and it didn’t install correctly. But after taking out all Gamecube items, re-installed everything and it worked fine. Axelpaxel was the one that found that USB devices did it too.

 

 

 

Instructions: Simply load one file, then the other. It does not matter in which order you load them. Use any method.

 

 

Download: http://muzer.hbcapps.com/updater.tar.gz

 

 

Update: Matthew_8 has kindly repackaged my app into a more noob friendly version which is formatted for the homebrew channel."

 

 

 

 

 

As always, please let us know how this works for you by either commenting here or posting our forums.

Nintendo has released Firmware Update 3.4. Here is the changelog from the update:

3.4 Change Log:

* Wii Points will soon be called Nintendo Points, and all references as such will be updated. All other functionality with Nintendo Points will remain the same.
* The controller usage explanation screen will be updated.
* The controller usage explanation screen will be separated from the purchase screen. Along with this, the user will be prompted to confirm that they have any necessary accessories before being able to press the Purchase button.
* The design of the icons displayed will be updated.

 (From users at NES-Hacks) The latest unconfirmed info is as follows:

• Installed WADS will still work as long as you dont use WAD manager (Channels will disappear)
• Homebrew Channel still works but some apps wont
• Modchips are NOT affected
• Backup Loader still works
• GeckoOS still works
• You CANNOT install WADs after you update to 3.4
• Region Changer will NOT work
• Downgrader will NOT work

It is recommended that you not update until a patch has been released.

Looks like a beta tester of Waninkoko's Wii Backup Loader has leaked the software.

This software has NOT been tested and is advised not to use until a full release is made.

As always, if anyone does try this please let us know if it works.

The Wii scene is growing……..

UPDATE: As a result of the leak, Waninkoko has expressed his anger with GBATemp and announced that he has abandoned the project and will no longer be producing any new versions of this app.

UPDATE 2: Since the project has been abandoned and there will not be a new version here are the tools necassary to attempt. We take no responsibility for anything that happens to your console. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Step 1.

Download the files at:

This has all the tools necassary to start from scratch (Twilight hack, homebrew channel, DVDX, and Wii Backup Loader).

http://rapidshare.com/files/147055112/WiiLoader_Tools.rar

Linkworm has posted a final proof of concept video of loading a backup of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.  The final backup loader will hopefully be released in the near future.  He also says that this is the work of Waninkoko, but with no official word from Waninkoko himself, we'll have to wait and see with that one.  Check it out: