@@DavidSanguineti You're welcome. Wait, I'm not Nintendo. I just have Toad as my channel icon due to my channel's theme. Don't get angry with me. I'm not Nintendo!
I would imagine the gamepad was broken and since replacing the gamepad is as expensive as the console the owner just decided they were done with the console altogether.
Trust me when I say those scratches on the Wii U are literally just how the console gets. Mine since 2014 has literally been sitting on stands. No animals, nobody in my house has been clawing at the casing. It's like Nintendo scratched the consoles themselves, said oh shit, put some invisible paint over it that wears off after a few years and the consoles reveal the scratches. I honestly don't have an explanation for it.
this is why whenever i get anything with glossy plastic i just take a scouring pad to it and brush in the same direction over and over. gives a cool brushed metal look to it and it's no longer reflective. i actually sold my wii u i did this with and the buyer thought it was pretty cool.
The Wii U's web browser was AWESOME. You just had to change the user agent to Android. You could browse the web, use the gamepad to read text if it was too small on the TV, have a video up on the screen while you continued to browse other sites on the gamepad, have plenty of tabs etc... It worked with almost every video sharing site which is more than I can say for ANY other console browser. It was the best TV web browsing experience I have ever had hands down.
didnt even need to change the user agent for the first years of its life..... only really became necessery when web became more "complex" and some websites stopped rendering correctly
@@TheDeelunatic Depends on how you use it. You're meant to use it with movies you actually own, but most people I know use their pirated movies instead. I'm not saying that plex is bad, far from it, I just think that most people use it with pirated movies.
@@Some-guy-on-the-internetI legit like the wii u better than the switch, and I don't say that from not being able to afford the switch, it's just not a great deal. Switch = 60 dollar ports and rereleases of 5-10 year old games with very little effort put in + $70 "next gen" games that chug and drop frames and can't keep up trying to produce 30 fps, let alone the 60fps that is synonymous with "Next Gen" games. Simply put, Rip Iwata-San. The current Nintendo is a greedy shell of the former Nintendo company, thus, I enjoy wii u for the ability to collect physical media still with fewer day 1 updates, and cheaper games in general that are almost the exact same as 60 dollar titles they shamelessly put out now. Nintendo is not friendly anymore, they never make anything affordable for players, there are occasional sales w minor discounts on their first party titles, but never any greatest hits, players choice, nintendo selects program to make great games affordable, there isn't anything like that anymore--they tested the customers w the 60 dollar price point of old games, and the customers failed. Can't blame Nintendo, but it is what it is, and I unironically like the wii u better.
Reminds me of the time I bought a perfectly usable Wii at a flea market for 4 bucks No seriously, guy said it was for parts but when I plugged everything it worked just fine, it even had Guitar Hero songs on it lol
I similarly bought an original Xbox at my high school flea market for only $5. At the time, I was like "eh, why the hell not?" but it has since become one of my best investments (ESPECIALLY after finding out it came with the Xcalibur chip!)
Got a PS3 Ultra-slim (with a 300GB drive no less) for 10 euros similarly. Guy said it was broken, only problem is a noisy fan for like 5 minutes tops when the console cold boots. Let it warm up and it's not only functionnal but also silent as a library.
My local Savers had like 5 Wiis sitting on a shelf for $5 a piece. I ended up picking up the nicest looking one, and it works perfectly and looks beautiful
Nintendo did a similar thing with earlier models of PAL SNES consoles. They region locked the controller ports. You had to use European (and Australian) controllers or they wouldn't get recognized otherwise.
@@NonsensicalSpudz And even the Power Supply itself, my Super Smash Bros Ultimate Edition I bought from a German dealer got a european Power Plug and another whole Power Supply with an IEC Type G Plug (UK), even Apple got interchangeable Plugs on their MacBook PSUs since years (and AFAIK it's a C7 connector, nothing proprietary)...
I mean at least there’s some reason. There’s a different voltage meaning they could glitch a different region controller (Maybe, I don’t really know much about electricity aside from it make human die and it don’t like water). This is wireless so there’s no damn reason why aside from purposeful stupidity.
Reminds me of the time my mom bought me a PS2 at some yard sale. Apparently, the owners couldn't figure out how to get it to work, so they sold it for $20. Get it home, the thing is like brand new, almost out of the box condition, and even had a game inside!
The Wii U was my first console and it holds literally all of my childhood nostalgia. My neighbours and I would play Go Vacation and Mario kart for hours everyday after school and through the holidays. I still have it and a few weeks ago after literally 7 years we re booted it and played some of the games again. The nostalgia hit hard. Also that gamepad was always fought over! The wii U and gamepad is still proudly displayed next to my TV.
The Wii U definitely sold poorer that all of Nintendo's main home consoles but the Wii U is far from the worse-selling console in general. The Wii U still outsold the Sega Dreamcast but not by much.
12:42 Hey Matt, try out Meguiars Scratch-X for removing scratches from glossy plastic. Just some of that and a microfiber towel, you're good to go. Works wonderfully, I made an original PS3 look like new that way. Just make sure not to get it in crevices, can be kinda annoying/difficult to clean out. Edit: though I wouldn't expect to make this look like new super easily, you could improve it for sure.
@@elvispretzel9331 Brasso can leave a cloudier finish in my experience, it seems a little too abrasive for some plastics. I suppose it depends on how many polishing steps you want to do.
Meanwhile I still have my Wii U I specifically bought for Smash Bros. Barely used. Only kept it as a VC emulation machine. It and the game pad are basically like-new still.
@@TrevorFalzarano oh, good! Hope you enjoy it. If you don't mind playing Smash 4 again after Ultimate, there's some fun Smash mods you can check out too.
I was working for a tow company and had a car going for scrap that had a Wii U and pad in the trunk, Nobody else wanted it so I took it home, I haven't done anything with it yet since I don't have any of the cable or power adapter for it. This video has inspired me to get said wires and have some fun with it. Thanks for the video and keep the content coming.... A new subscriber
im like a third of the way through and already i cant begin to describe how refreshing it is to just see someone acknowledge nintendo's shitty business practices
Is it really that "refreshing"? I hear people call them out all the time, and a lot of the time it's just people misinterpreting Nintendo's bullish stupidity as insidiouness. Plus he's acknowledging shitty practices that they stopped doing over four years ago. The Switch doesn't suffer from any of this.
@@alfiehicks1 the only thing I can think of for the Switch are those awful joycon analog sticks. I've already changed them 4x since release while I only got to change my 3DS analog stick once.
I really love this community, that still sees use in old consoles and tries everything to keep them alive. If you ever have any questions, there are tons of tutorials online or you can ask on reddit, everyone is so nice and it's so much fun. When my 3DS stopped working around a week ago, I was devastated. It's probably the console I have the strongest bond to, playing on car rides or on my way to school. I was searching for an answer online but couldn't find much. But after asking on reddit, I got a lot of recommendations and now it's working again. These videos just show how much value old consoles have.
Congrats on getting your N3DS fixed and I love seeing stuff like this, too from time to time. Old consoles getting another chance at life because someone saw worth in it, despite its age or condition. Especially with consoles or handhelds that you had a personal connection with. 😊 ❤
@@alfiegordon9013 I think a better way to put this is quality control has changed in recent times for better and for worse due to a number of factors. So yes, your NES and PS1 may have survived to this day but quality control and manufacturing control has changed in recent times to the point electronics of the current era often fail quicker than that of older generation devices. Take it from someone who diagnosis and repairs electronics all day, largely phones, but it still matters in that case, and even more so if were talking phone durability.
Just fyi, sometimes windex can take the protective later off some LCD screens. The company I work for did some extensive testing on cleaners for equipment and monitors and found a glass cleaner called bonami that doesn't affect that layer and does a good job of cleaning pretty much everything. Just make sure you use it with ventilation; it doesn't smell nice and the smell sticks in your nose for a while.
The weakest part of the wii u is the little ribbon connector that connects the faceplate to the rest of the console. Without it, you can't eject game discs, can only power it on with a gamepad... it's basically bricked if you unplug it for too long or never turned it on in the first place. You can "hotwire" it by rubbing conductive material on the capacitors near that connector, but god I hate Nintendo hardware sometimes.
Speaking of GameStop (Well, back when it was called EB Games), I bought a 2DS XL for $160 (I think), and after 2 months, I dropped it, and the entire back popped off, breaking the volume slider. All because they *forgot to screw in the back cover* It's been too long for me to ask for a refund. Also, my Wii U's GamePad is kinda busted right now. A few months after I got my console, my GamePad stopped working unless it was literally right next to the console. Last year, I decided to replace the wifi card in my GamePad, but then the *right stick started controlling the volume* (WTF, also only two other people have had this issue and posted about it online) I think I'm just going to buy a new GamePad and pair that instead. I swear I have the worst luck with Nintendo consoles that don't start with the letters "SW" Update as of November 2021: I just fixed the volume slider! I posted a comment about that on the Game Boy Pocket video.
Just don't throw the original seeing how hard it it to get one. If anything, sell it for parts. Repairing it should be relatively easy for those who know what they are doing.
For the gamepad i found that it can be a faulty chip inside of the gamepad, i found a tutorial and for what I could see is an easy fix that you can do on your house, I hope it can help. th-cam.com/video/EbmAoHpWVdc/w-d-xo.html
@@fuxi1444 I already fixed my sync issues, it's just that I'm also having an issue that only two other people have reported online (last time i checked anyway)
This kind of thing makes me hate Nintendo. I have no real motivation to play or nostalgia for their games, and for those limited cases where I might want to try their games, emulators have proved more than sufficient. All this region-locking stuff basically makes me never want to buy anything from them.
@@zbot2123 i believe the switch isnt really region locked lmao you can just make another nintendo account and set the region to anyone you want and then you'd have access to the eshop for that region
@@denverkweh1642 i mean it as in like if you wanted to access the japanese eshop where it has some exclusive games you could just make a Japanese alternative account
@@EricTGK I have an account like that just lying around 😂. Sadly I don't think I'll be able to read Japanese so there goes the exclusive items to Japan for some reason
damn its really gonna be 10 years, a decade in the next month. i vividly remember seeing it at a christmas party in 2012 being gifted to someone else, and i felt so jealous and sad, typical for my age at that time. but i remember that moment like it happened yesterday, i remember the way the room smelled, the people talking and laughing, and the sense of happiness with a magical feeling that only happened on christmas. now thats all gone, now im working at a circle k not far from the lonesome freeway, typing this on my typewriter that echoes with each letter pressed into this dark abyss called circle k. and i spend my time lost in this memory as i mindlessly put the hot dogs on the hot rollers, and watch the hot dogs rotate. the hot dogs hot temperature meets my cold skin and its winking at me with its shiny reflection. rotating, over and over and over again.
13:10: Note that your Wii U over the Wii U's HDMI cable has *WORSE output than a Wii* using the Nintendo component cables or a good Wii2HDMI adapter ($16). This has been proven over and over again, including here on TH-cam. So sure, it can run them natively over the HDMI cable, but they look worse than on my 2006 Wii with OEM component cables to my 2016 Samsung TV. And there's no mod for that. It's just something all Wii U owners must accept. The Wii is still the best way to play Wii and GC games.
For convenience I can see the merit and would even have considered it. But yeah this seems to check out. I know the original (as in first motherboard generations) Wiis could have a 480p fix so I wonder if there's a fix in the future.
I still wonder WHY the console was thrown out? Did they just.. not try another disc or even try cleaning the disc? There were literally no hardware problems!
Assuming the Gamepad wasn't included, it was maybe broken or something, rendering the console unusable, so instead of getting other gamepad, they just decided to throw it out
My guess is that the power supply broke and the original owner belived it was the console itself that broke, that also explains why the disc was left inside since without power the it can't be ejected.
I got lucky and got a refurbished Wii U from GameStop that was in pristine condition, still had plastic shrink wrap around the console and the gamepad still had the plastic screen protector on it. No scratches or nicks at all. I modded it, added a 2 TB external hard drive, and installed RetroArch. This thing runs like a champ playing games like Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, Viewtiful Joe from GameCube, Pac-Man from the arcade, and everything in between. I own many systems and handhelds and the Wii U is probably right up there in my personal top 5.
The nicest thing about playing gc games on wii u is that it's running on native hardware that was designed for that purpose. Not all pcs can emulate very well, but the wii u has a wii physically contained within, which is the exact same hardware as the gamecube. The only thing preventing the wii u from running gc games without homebrew and ISOs is that they removed the ability for the disc reader to read gc discs
I've had a WII U for a long time now, and it's so easy to mod. You have (almost) the whole Nintendo library on a single console! It's very great, even in 2021.
Nintendo on the surface look like the perfect family game company, but they secretly rule with a totalitarian iron fist and if the tiniest unscheduled change occurs to a console, they'll punish you severely.
@@acumenium8157 Xiaomi is such restrictive that you even don't need to unlock the bootloader, because it's already, seems legit, it's rather Samsung (bootloader unlocking much harder, eFuses...), they try hinder third-party-repairs similar to Apple nowadays with non-working Features like TrueTone, fingerprint Sensor etc. after changing parts...
Jesus, the Wii U is almost 10 years old... I still remember watching a Wii U first impressions livestream by a tech channel I used to watch back then. Damn.
Did you know that Nintendo officially sold batteries for the gamepad with a much higher capacity than the OG one? That's why there's so much extra space in the battery compartment :D Just recently got an official unused battery and my capacity nearly tripled from 2-3 hrs to 8! Now this thing is actually usable for an extended session of Xenoblade Chronicles X without having to keep it plugged in ^^
TBF.... that is also partialy do to the abttery degredation of the original one. a new WII U gamepad woudl have held around 4-5 hours of xenoblade X(speaking from experience) AND TBF... playing XCX with the gamepad is a pain... you use the wii u pro controller wiht the gamepad on its charging stand(only included in the black wi u premium bundle) for the map
I've had a modded WiiU for a number of years now. I actually got mine when the console was new, and ended up stopping using it because my gamepad stopped functioning. Since when at its "peak" the gamepad was stupid expensive, I ended up putting it in a drawer for a couple years. Once the switch came out (and I couldn't afford it) I git a craving for some Nintendo and repaired my gamepad and homebrewed it. Honestly it's great. I love this little machine, and I'm genuinely concerned that the situation with gamepads are gonna make these neat little consoles impossible to use by the end of the decade.
There are some videos here on youtube of people modding common cell phone batteries to use on them. I think a more ideal solution would be custom made battery adapters.
If implementations like DRC-Sim don't get any progress the wii u will effectively end up just being landfill, the consoles themselves will not have any defects, but due to nintendo being nintendo millions of perfectly good consoles will end up as E-Waste
to remove those tiny scratches from the console I've had good luck with "displex", which is a scratch removal paste made for early naughties phones. It's still sold, though you need to do quite some searching (maybe it's old stock or still being made IDK).
12:35 my dad taught me a meathod of using turtle wax and buffing it in to remove scratches. You can also use a substance called polywatch, but this is riskier.
Small correction at 5:13: All Wii U adapters are dual voltage. They work fine with either 220V or 110V, despite statements to the contrary on the actual adapter. I imported a US Wii U to a PAL region and it worked just fine without a step-down transformer or anything like that. Plugs right into the wall.
It’s about time Matt joined the WiiU gang! I had one when it was new, and I played it TO DEATH! Even now, though the game-pad was broken (damn you Nintendo and your irreplaceable gamepads!!), we still modded the ever living shit out of my friends WiiU and did all sorts of cool stuff. In my eyes, the WiiU really wasn’t a bad console.
About the scratches: a vinyl cover would have worked great. You can just buy a larger sheet roll and cut it to size. Could have even gotten a glossy vinyl.
I recall Chuggaaconroy mentioned in I think his Yoshi's Woolly World playthrough that he bought a white Wii U to use the gamepad with his black Wii U because he really liked how it looked but couldn't use it because the white one was a European unit so the region lock prevented the gamepad from pairing with his US Wii U. I was kinda shocked to hear that but once the initial shock went away I realised that's exactly the kind of bullshit you should expect from Nintendo. I figured this problem would turn up during this video. Lo and behold, it did.
13:06 I'm actually really surprised you're saying this. How has the Switch *not* been busted wide open, with Fusée Gelée and such? I remember when people were still figuring out custom NSPs, and all homebrew was run from the Homebrew Launcher which replaced the album button on the home screen. And when there weren't custom themes, or entire Qlaunch (home menu) replacements. Or even when there was no XCI installer and you had to convert it to an NSP first. The only way I think you could say it isn't open for homebrew is that the newest firmware and the new hardware revisions aren't exploitable. But there's still a very active and large homebrew community for the Switch, I would say one larger than the Wii U's ever was.
Same. The issue is that the Switch features a microkernel. Microkernels are pretty rare, Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android and iOS all use normal "fat" kernels, where all of the kernel modules share a single process with the kernel core, meaning any security error in any of these modules compromises the entire kernel. In comparison, by separating those modules from the core and running them as normal, sandboxed apps, the microkernel of the Switch becomes extremely small. Small enough for a single person to wrap their mind around the whole thing and polish it to perfection until there's no vulnerabilities left for anyone to find. Without any kernel vulnerabilities, there's no privilege escalation: userspace exploits are completely useless because without any bugs in the kernel, there's no breaking out of any app or driver's confines and into the rest of the console. Because of this, the Switch required everyone to tackle it in the opposite direction: attacking from the hardware side directly instead of building up a userspace exploit chain the way it usually goes. Research is still ongoing in the community to more openly reverse-engineer and reproduce the TX voltage glitching method that remains the only publicly known way to run unsigned code on newer Switch models (and no word about whether even that's still possible on the OLED model)... Still a shame that since those guys were profiting from piracy and didn't share their exploit to the open-source community, Nintendo had an easy time taking them down and making modding the new Switches next to impossible.
@@trashtrash2169 Depends mostly on the version. Old Switches that are open to fusee only require what electrically amounts to pushing a button, and the rest is done in software through a programming error in the console's USB interface when in RCM mode. A jig is no big deal. The new Switches are where it gets tricky, requiring an actual modchip being installed that cuts power to the Switch's CPU at a very precise window and duration to get it to skip the signature checks, and then takes over as the 2nd-stage bootloader to unlock the console. It's funny. Back when consoles had small, simple BIOSes (6th generation and earlier) modchips and CFWs were much more common. The Switch had security so tight it basically required a return to basics. Fusée itself is a buffer overflow exploit that overwrites the stack. That's some '80s shit. And it only works becase it happens in a mode where none of the CPU security features developed in the last 30 years are turned on until the last moment, and by smashing the stack before the process completes we get full control. In fact, fusee grants more control over the Switch's CPU than you can get under normal circumstances unlocking a phone's bootloader or on a PC. Hypervisor secure world mode is typically only ever for the hardware manufacturer to play with. This makes it unusually trivial to extract the Switch hardware keys once pwned.
After seeing this, and knowing that I have nothing to lose with my Wii U, I think it's finally time for me to get into softmodding the Wii U half of it
@@alfiegordon9013 I actually bought mine shortly after it came out, and unlike many people, I was not disappointed in the slightest. Also, this video mentioned being able to load Gamecube games? Is that through emulation, or can I legit put a GC disk into the Wii U and run it?
I have my Mario Kart 8 WiiU Package still well treated sitting on my shelf. Sure I have better ways to enjoy the games that work on it but in general, the WiiU is a nicer console than many people think it is.
@@gdemerald581 I think that's part of the reason it didn't do so well. Well, that and the marketing, both of which led to a downward spiral that left the console as another sad lump of untapped potential, unless the homebrew community starts making games that push its limits.
Yes that is kind of true basically the weather level creator but your new maximum limit so if you kept on like spamming stuff eventually you’ll get to the secret screen of ninja eggs but it’s not actually that secret because most people know it
The Wii U raised me. I didn't have an Xbox or a playstation or a PC, I had a Wii U. It entertained me non stop. Nintendoland, Wii Sports, literally every game on it is flawless. The Wii U has better games on it than the Switch does in my opinion. My parents still play on it. My grandparents come to mine every saturday night and they have a Wii Bowling tournament. They have so much fun. The Wii U will always have a special place in my heart
I grabbed one earlier this year from a goodwill auction because I wanted direct HDMI output for Wii games, and they were serious in the listing with "power tested only," they didn't bother to wipe the dust off and the front port cover was left open (which actually made me think it was missing until I inspected the console closer). Then when I received it there was a smash bros. disc in the drive and the 16gb SD Card had remnants of the previous owner's homebrew setup on it.
Got a Nintendo Wii U earlier this year and I haven't regretted that decision. It's a shame Nintendo never gave this amazing console the attention it deserved.
Nintendo actually did give the Wii U attention -- just look at the games! They're fantastic! It was the gamers who shunned it. Nintendo didn't do itself any favors with the marketing and naming scheme, but the console itself was solid and the first party games (and even some 3rd party) are tops. MK8, SM3D World, Yoshi's Wooly World, DKC Tropical Freeze, and on and on, they look gorgeous and the gameplay is pure Nintendo joy.
With the right hardware, you could theoretically make your own gamepad. Just after the Switch came out, people actually found the firmware on the gamepad. They got it so easily because it's stored on an unencrypted device. Imagine region-locking a controller.... any other controller would've worked with the console, actually. As of the middle of the console's lifespan, I think you're able to use any controller to start the system and interact with its menus - the 'pad was no longer required to fully operate the system. Obviously, some functions require it still, but if you had just used a wii remote the console could've probably worked
Got wiiu at launch. Love the console. Same reason you mentioned. It can play almost the entire nintendo library. I never got n64 to work great but everything else is perfect. Atari, gb, gbc, gba, nes, snes, gamecube, wii, wiiu, master system, genesis, sega cd, and tons more. Great console!
I still have my Wii U and even though I have a Switch now, I will keep my Wii U until death do us part. So many memories of me and the boys playing local multiplayer. I wouldn't get rid of it for any reason.
This Wii U situation reminds me of one time where my dad found a Wii in a box on the side of the road with a bunch of games in it that someone was going to throw out. The original owners probably threw it out because the wire in the sensor bar was cut but my dad fixed it and now it works perfectly fine. We also found that Wii Sports was in the disc drive. The stand was also missing along with the cover for the GameCube controller ports.
That cover for the GameCube ports seems have been engineered to fall off and disappear even without usage. Mine just vanished into the ether, and I didn't even have GameCube controllers.
12:41 Disc cleaner? There are products out there that "fill in" the scratches on a disc without damaging the finish so that it doesn't make it difficult for the system to read it. If they're good enough for a disc drive, they've got to be good enough for the human eye. Just a thought.
IMO, The console is great, really good in fact. It just sold poorly and the media called it a fail so people didn’t like it, when in reality it was a great console
While it's not a terrible system, especially considering systems as the CDI, Game.com, Ngage, Ouya, Atari VCS, Amico, and others are actually terrible all around, it was one that by design was destined for failure thanks to many bad decisions from the name, going with a dual screen approach for a home console (dual screen is easier to deal with with a handheld than a home system), a vastly underpowered cpu that was used in early 2000's iMacs, poor marketing, no real killer apps till way after the system was dying, had they had a Mario 3d world, a Odyssey or even breath of the wild at launch instead of stuff like New Super Mario U it may have done better. Not talking Switch numbers but maybe N64 levels of sales. But yeah I agree that the Wii U wasn't a terrible system just one that was set up for failure from the word go
Actually, the Nintendo Wii U has a pretty large catalog of titles that can be played across a large variety of consoles. Officially, it supports the following platforms via its virtual console service: Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo 64, Nintendo Gamecube, Nintendo Wii, Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, and Nintendo DS.
13:06 This is completely false. The Switch is (typically) modded by injecting a custom payload into the recovery mode which Nvidia accidentally left enabled. It can do so much more because it doesn't even require the original Switch OS to boot homebrew. Even if your Nand is corrupted and you have no backup, you can still use the Switch as a Android tablet or portable Linux machine. Just about the entire OS has also been replaced by Atmosphere as most parts of it are reverse engineered, reimplemented and are open source. I first modded my Switch around 2 years ago and can easily say that it is one of the greatest experiences I've had with a modded console. There is so much you can do.
Not really because not only does it work exclusively on the standard switch, it also has to be the model from before 2019 so the majority of consoles are out. Also it kinda requires the thing to hold the pins which you have to buy soo...
You can still do it on newer consoles (including the lite) but it requires a mod chip. You also don't have to buy the jig, you just need to be able to short one of the pins to ground, which I did easily with a wire. And once you booted into RCM, you can enable AutoRCM to never need to do it again.
"I thought nobody was dumb enough to actually pay money for these... until I met Matt" ouch^^ edit: there is only one thing dumber than that: regionlocks
Not sure if these are sold in the land of upside down, but 3M makes a headlight restoration kit with a bunch of fine grit sandpaper (going up to I think 2000 grit?), a buffing pad, and a foam-backed spindle or whatever its called that you can put in a drill and attach these different pads to. It's expensive, but the sandpaper is all 3M so it lasts forever, and all the squishiness of the pads and foam backing makes it great for plastic buffing and polishing. If you get yourself some fine cut polishing compound for the foam buffing pad you can absolutely achieve factory mirror finish on plastic. Just make sure that if you do use any of the sandpaper, you have water dripping over it as youre sanding to prevent the plastic heating up and going gooey.
3:23 Sir, have you ever heard of the Nintendo Wii U Pro Controller/Nintendo Wii Classic Controller? And, most Video Games developed for the Nintendo Wii U did not require The Nintendo Wii U GamePad.
it needs it for the first boot and also to isntall homebrew.... as the homebrew entry points require the browser, and you cant navigate the browser without the gamepad(i may be wrong on the browser part? i am fairly sure you cant enter URLs with anything but the gampepad)
8:28 hey if anyone is seeing this now and in the future the wii u now has autobooting in the form of tiramisu. This mod is fairly new like it's from december last year but it will auto boot
@@rev0lu7ion it's really strange, they probably reduced the power and added 2 more ports for some reason, meanwhile on the wii modern hard drives work fine without an y cable
On the Wii U, you have a tv screen and a handheld screen. The Switch just has one screen you can play on one or the other but not both at the same time. The Wii U was handy because you have an extra screen like the DS or 3DS.
oh and MattKC the reason for the region lock is due to the unique firmware the AUS tablet had a specific firmware which is why the region lock was their to prevent issues with updating the gamepad
He never said the Wii U is the worst selling, but that it would be remembered as such, which frankly, most people I know who aren’t very interested in game preservation, probably think it is.
10:44 my original Wii that I received back in 2006 had a disc reading error between Wii games and GameCube games. One of the last games that I remember playing on it was Legend of Zelda wind waker. After Trading the system into GameStop for a refurbished black one, I realized that I lost wind waker inside of the system. Or at least that's what I surmise because after that point, I had only the case and not the game. I would hate to think I "met a terrible fate", wait sorry wrong Legend of Zelda game.
Awesome that you got the Wii U working again! I find that the Wii U and Dreamcast are very similar; neither one sold particularly well and those who own them swear by them
5:07 hey so about that, apparently the official power adapters ARE universal voltage (i'm using a 110v one in an 220v country as we speak), this is so bizarre. like seriously what were they thinking?
I love how the actual console itself had no problems
yea lmao
it was just nintendo problems lol
Thanks Nintendo *
@@DavidSanguineti You're welcome.
Wait, I'm not Nintendo. I just have Toad as my channel icon due to my channel's theme.
Don't get angry with me. I'm not Nintendo!
Nintendo, the Apple of consoles
I absolutely love that finding a disc in it implies the console was thrown out without much thought lmak
Yea
I would imagine the gamepad was broken and since replacing the gamepad is as expensive as the console the owner just decided they were done with the console altogether.
it is funny lmak
or stolen
lmak
Trust me when I say those scratches on the Wii U are literally just how the console gets. Mine since 2014 has literally been sitting on stands. No animals, nobody in my house has been clawing at the casing. It's like Nintendo scratched the consoles themselves, said oh shit, put some invisible paint over it that wears off after a few years and the consoles reveal the scratches. I honestly don't have an explanation for it.
It's unironically probably just hairs and dust that grind away at the console
@@Shuroii Could very well be! But who tf knows lmao
this is why whenever i get anything with glossy plastic i just take a scouring pad to it and brush in the same direction over and over. gives a cool brushed metal look to it and it's no longer reflective. i actually sold my wii u i did this with and the buyer thought it was pretty cool.
My Wii U is at least 8 years old and is in near perfect condition, I think because it's black minor blemishes are just more obvious.
My thought when he was looking at the scratches was "oh yeah the wii U shipped with those"
The Wii U's web browser was AWESOME. You just had to change the user agent to Android. You could browse the web, use the gamepad to read text if it was too small on the TV, have a video up on the screen while you continued to browse other sites on the gamepad, have plenty of tabs etc... It worked with almost every video sharing site which is more than I can say for ANY other console browser. It was the best TV web browsing experience I have ever had hands down.
didnt even need to change the user agent for the first years of its life.....
only really became necessery when web became more "complex" and some websites stopped rendering correctly
Also worked great with Plex
@@pillowhacker *Piracy*
@@awii.neocities How is Plex, Piracy? Actually curious on this point.
@@TheDeelunatic Depends on how you use it. You're meant to use it with movies you actually own, but most people I know use their pirated movies instead. I'm not saying that plex is bad, far from it, I just think that most people use it with pirated movies.
The Wii U has absolutely got to be the most clumsy, misguided device I have ever owned. I love it so much.
Every Nintendo fan (we're all gullible):
We know it sucks but we still love it all the same lol.
@@Some-guy-on-the-internetI legit like the wii u better than the switch, and I don't say that from not being able to afford the switch, it's just not a great deal.
Switch = 60 dollar ports and rereleases of 5-10 year old games with very little effort put in + $70 "next gen" games that chug and drop frames and can't keep up trying to produce 30 fps, let alone the 60fps that is synonymous with "Next Gen" games. Simply put, Rip Iwata-San. The current Nintendo is a greedy shell of the former Nintendo company, thus, I enjoy wii u for the ability to collect physical media still with fewer day 1 updates, and cheaper games in general that are almost the exact same as 60 dollar titles they shamelessly put out now.
Nintendo is not friendly anymore, they never make anything affordable for players, there are occasional sales w minor discounts on their first party titles, but never any greatest hits, players choice, nintendo selects program to make great games affordable, there isn't anything like that anymore--they tested the customers w the 60 dollar price point of old games, and the customers failed. Can't blame Nintendo, but it is what it is, and I unironically like the wii u better.
@@Some-guy-on-the-internet it doesnt
@@opywndowit’s an opinion
Reminds me of the time I bought a perfectly usable Wii at a flea market for 4 bucks
No seriously, guy said it was for parts but when I plugged everything it worked just fine, it even had Guitar Hero songs on it lol
I haven't gotten any score like that, though I got an iPod 6th gen at a flea market free and only needed a screen replacement and I use it often
I similarly bought an original Xbox at my high school flea market for only $5. At the time, I was like "eh, why the hell not?" but it has since become one of my best investments (ESPECIALLY after finding out it came with the Xcalibur chip!)
@@TELMEman sick!
Got a PS3 Ultra-slim (with a 300GB drive no less) for 10 euros similarly. Guy said it was broken, only problem is a noisy fan for like 5 minutes tops when the console cold boots. Let it warm up and it's not only functionnal but also silent as a library.
My local Savers had like 5 Wiis sitting on a shelf for $5 a piece. I ended up picking up the nicest looking one, and it works perfectly and looks beautiful
Nintendo did a similar thing with earlier models of PAL SNES consoles. They region locked the controller ports. You had to use European (and Australian) controllers or they wouldn't get recognized otherwise.
i mean like even with the switch, sure its USB-C but it doesn't actually support USBPD(power delivery) which is why some people bricked their switch
@@NonsensicalSpudz And even the Power Supply itself, my Super Smash Bros Ultimate Edition I bought from a German dealer got a european Power Plug and another whole Power Supply with an IEC Type G Plug (UK), even Apple got interchangeable Plugs on their MacBook PSUs since years (and AFAIK it's a C7 connector, nothing proprietary)...
@@kuchenblechmafiagmbh1381 LIke I use my macbook pro lead to charge my ipad quest 2 and other usb c devices, but its not going anywhere near my switch
Seriously, that's so freaking stupid. No joke, I didn't even know controllers could actually be region locked for certain consoles, until this video.
I mean at least there’s some reason. There’s a different voltage meaning they could glitch a different region controller (Maybe, I don’t really know much about electricity aside from it make human die and it don’t like water). This is wireless so there’s no damn reason why aside from purposeful stupidity.
He gave the Wii U another chance at life.
This does put a smile on my face.
oh my god its fukami from
yo, is this fukami from
@@Josuh Have we met before?
@@fukami143 not really, i was just trying to start a chain based on what the guy above said 😔
Wii Ü
Reminds me of the time my mom bought me a PS2 at some yard sale. Apparently, the owners couldn't figure out how to get it to work, so they sold it for $20. Get it home, the thing is like brand new, almost out of the box condition, and even had a game inside!
The Wii U was my first console and it holds literally all of my childhood nostalgia. My neighbours and I would play Go Vacation and Mario kart for hours everyday after school and through the holidays. I still have it and a few weeks ago after literally 7 years we re booted it and played some of the games again. The nostalgia hit hard. Also that gamepad was always fought over! The wii U and gamepad is still proudly displayed next to my TV.
"Worst selling console"
cue the Virtual Boy hiding behind a corner, furiously sweating
Omg I was thinking that lol
Its crazy to think its prequel is actually the best selling nintendo console
It's not a console, it's an accessory.
So bad that everybody forgets it even exists.
The Wii U definitely sold poorer that all of Nintendo's main home consoles but the Wii U is far from the worse-selling console in general. The Wii U still outsold the Sega Dreamcast but not by much.
12:42 Hey Matt, try out Meguiars Scratch-X for removing scratches from glossy plastic. Just some of that and a microfiber towel, you're good to go. Works wonderfully, I made an original PS3 look like new that way. Just make sure not to get it in crevices, can be kinda annoying/difficult to clean out.
Edit: though I wouldn't expect to make this look like new super easily, you could improve it for sure.
Or brasso and micrifiber would also work, according to dankpods
Maybe that video about removing scratches on the glossy Fat PS3 would help him th-cam.com/video/ZT_ijQyRLto/w-d-xo.html
@@elvispretzel9331 it's made for metal afaik, prob works on plastic but it would be best to use something made for plastic
@@elvispretzel9331 Brasso can leave a cloudier finish in my experience, it seems a little too abrasive for some plastics. I suppose it depends on how many polishing steps you want to do.
@@elvispretzel9331 geir geir dank na no shrek
Meanwhile I still have my Wii U I specifically bought for Smash Bros. Barely used. Only kept it as a VC emulation machine. It and the game pad are basically like-new still.
Same. I still love playing smash and using my 3ds as a controller. The wii u might have flopped but when it got it right it was perfect.
Highly recommend setting up Homebrew on both the Wii U and old Wii menu. Gives it a lot more use.
@@paulnovacek3715 way ahead of you.
@@paulnovacek3715 I do all the injections so I have pretty icons on my home screen for all the games whether it’s GameCube, Wii, n64 etc.
@@TrevorFalzarano oh, good! Hope you enjoy it. If you don't mind playing Smash 4 again after Ultimate, there's some fun Smash mods you can check out too.
Tbh, the Wii U was actually a great, underappreciated console. Even I passed on it at the time, though I now own the zelda special edition one.
Yeah!
I absolutely love Nintendo Land, Wii Party U, and Splatoon
It was great. I still play it regularly since the games have so much replay value. They look fantastic even after 10 yrs. I love the Wii U.
I was working for a tow company and had a car going for scrap that had a Wii U and pad in the trunk, Nobody else wanted it so I took it home, I haven't done anything with it yet since I don't have any of the cable or power adapter for it. This video has inspired me to get said wires and have some fun with it. Thanks for the video and keep the content coming.... A new subscriber
Did you turn on your Wii U in the end?
im like a third of the way through and already i cant begin to describe how refreshing it is to just see someone acknowledge nintendo's shitty business practices
Agreed. This needs to come up more and more often, until it starts to drown out the cheers over a new Smash Bros. release.
Is it really that "refreshing"?
I hear people call them out all the time, and a lot of the time it's just people misinterpreting Nintendo's bullish stupidity as insidiouness.
Plus he's acknowledging shitty practices that they stopped doing over four years ago. The Switch doesn't suffer from any of this.
@@alfiehicks1 the only thing I can think of for the Switch are those awful joycon analog sticks. I've already changed them 4x since release while I only got to change my 3DS analog stick once.
It really isn't rare though. But hey, I guess that just means you live a very refreshing life.
@@CrayonConoisseur get a pro controller also Nintendo fixes them for free
I really love this community, that still sees use in old consoles and tries everything to keep them alive. If you ever have any questions, there are tons of tutorials online or you can ask on reddit, everyone is so nice and it's so much fun. When my 3DS stopped working around a week ago, I was devastated. It's probably the console I have the strongest bond to, playing on car rides or on my way to school. I was searching for an answer online but couldn't find much. But after asking on reddit, I got a lot of recommendations and now it's working again. These videos just show how much value old consoles have.
It's a very involved community and it reveals more about the console than you would ever have known about.
Congrats on getting your N3DS fixed and I love seeing stuff like this, too from time to time.
Old consoles getting another chance at life because someone saw worth in it, despite its age or condition.
Especially with consoles or handhelds that you had a personal connection with. 😊 ❤
wii u is kinda underrate too.. it had some underrated gems, like nintendo land.
"The switch hasn't been busted wide open like the wiiu"
Dude we have bootrom level arbitrary code execution what more do you want?
Yeah what was that about?
What about being able to run Android on the Switch? you can do that as well.
@Walther Penne lmao what do you mean they’ll die in 5 years?
@Walther Penne no they really don’t? And damn I mean I got a perfectly functional nes and ps1 but sure they dead as hell, cause u said
@@alfiegordon9013 I think a better way to put this is quality control has changed in recent times for better and for worse due to a number of factors. So yes, your NES and PS1 may have survived to this day but quality control and manufacturing control has changed in recent times to the point electronics of the current era often fail quicker than that of older generation devices.
Take it from someone who diagnosis and repairs electronics all day, largely phones, but it still matters in that case, and even more so if were talking phone durability.
Just fyi, sometimes windex can take the protective later off some LCD screens. The company I work for did some extensive testing on cleaners for equipment and monitors and found a glass cleaner called bonami that doesn't affect that layer and does a good job of cleaning pretty much everything. Just make sure you use it with ventilation; it doesn't smell nice and the smell sticks in your nose for a while.
The weakest part of the wii u is the little ribbon connector that connects the faceplate to the rest of the console.
Without it, you can't eject game discs, can only power it on with a gamepad... it's basically bricked if you unplug it for too long or never turned it on in the first place.
You can "hotwire" it by rubbing conductive material on the capacitors near that connector, but god I hate Nintendo hardware sometimes.
I’m genuinely surprised he didn’t have to mess around with the consoles internals. The only issue was that it didn’t have a gamepad
Speaking of GameStop (Well, back when it was called EB Games), I bought a 2DS XL for $160 (I think), and after 2 months, I dropped it, and the entire back popped off, breaking the volume slider.
All because they *forgot to screw in the back cover*
It's been too long for me to ask for a refund.
Also, my Wii U's GamePad is kinda busted right now. A few months after I got my console, my GamePad stopped working unless it was literally right next to the console.
Last year, I decided to replace the wifi card in my GamePad, but then the *right stick started controlling the volume* (WTF, also only two other people have had this issue and posted about it online)
I think I'm just going to buy a new GamePad and pair that instead.
I swear I have the worst luck with Nintendo consoles that don't start with the letters "SW"
Update as of November 2021: I just fixed the volume slider! I posted a comment about that on the Game Boy Pocket video.
Just don't throw the original seeing how hard it it to get one. If anything, sell it for parts. Repairing it should be relatively easy for those who know what they are doing.
For the gamepad i found that it can be a faulty chip inside of the gamepad, i found a tutorial and for what I could see is an easy fix that you can do on your house, I hope it can help.
th-cam.com/video/EbmAoHpWVdc/w-d-xo.html
@@fuxi1444 I already fixed my sync issues, it's just that I'm also having an issue that only two other people have reported online (last time i checked anyway)
We still have ebgames in our country.
your first mistake was buying a 2ds xl
Somehow I predicted the Game Pad being region locked when you mentioned not having one. I'm surprised you didn't consider it!
This kind of thing makes me hate Nintendo. I have no real motivation to play or nostalgia for their games, and for those limited cases where I might want to try their games, emulators have proved more than sufficient. All this region-locking stuff basically makes me never want to buy anything from them.
@@zbot2123 i believe the switch isnt really region locked lmao you can just make another nintendo account and set the region to anyone you want and then you'd have access to the eshop for that region
@@EricTGK True,my country doesn't let me access the Nintendo eShop,so I just had to create an American account and all is well
@@denverkweh1642 i mean it as in like if you wanted to access the japanese eshop where it has some exclusive games you could just make a Japanese alternative account
@@EricTGK I have an account like that just lying around 😂. Sadly I don't think I'll be able to read Japanese so there goes the exclusive items to Japan for some reason
damn its really gonna be 10 years, a decade in the next month. i vividly remember seeing it at a christmas party in 2012 being gifted to someone else, and i felt so jealous and sad, typical for my age at that time. but i remember that moment like it happened yesterday, i remember the way the room smelled, the people talking and laughing, and the sense of happiness with a magical feeling that only happened on christmas. now thats all gone, now im working at a circle k not far from the lonesome freeway, typing this on my typewriter that echoes with each letter pressed into this dark abyss called circle k. and i spend my time lost in this memory as i mindlessly put the hot dogs on the hot rollers, and watch the hot dogs rotate. the hot dogs hot temperature meets my cold skin and its winking at me with its shiny reflection. rotating, over and over and over again.
F
beautiful writing
13:10: Note that your Wii U over the Wii U's HDMI cable has *WORSE output than a Wii* using the Nintendo component cables or a good Wii2HDMI adapter ($16). This has been proven over and over again, including here on TH-cam. So sure, it can run them natively over the HDMI cable, but they look worse than on my 2006 Wii with OEM component cables to my 2016 Samsung TV. And there's no mod for that. It's just something all Wii U owners must accept. The Wii is still the best way to play Wii and GC games.
For convenience I can see the merit and would even have considered it. But yeah this seems to check out. I know the original (as in first motherboard generations) Wiis could have a 480p fix so I wonder if there's a fix in the future.
I literally have that same monitor. I saw it appear on screen, and slowly looked up at mine, and back at yours and my brain just sort of gave up.
I also have the exact same monitor.
If they wanted to sell consoles that worked, they would be called GameGo not GameStop
I still wonder WHY the console was thrown out? Did they just.. not try another disc or even try cleaning the disc? There were literally no hardware problems!
Assuming the Gamepad wasn't included, it was maybe broken or something, rendering the console unusable, so instead of getting other gamepad, they just decided to throw it out
My guess is that the power supply broke and the original owner belived it was the console itself that broke, that also explains why the disc was left inside since without power the it can't be ejected.
@@TheNintendochannel64
my bets are on dead battery in the gamepad. a very common problem
Gamepad could've also broke
I got lucky and got a refurbished Wii U from GameStop that was in pristine condition, still had plastic shrink wrap around the console and the gamepad still had the plastic screen protector on it. No scratches or nicks at all. I modded it, added a 2 TB external hard drive, and installed RetroArch. This thing runs like a champ playing games like Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, Viewtiful Joe from GameCube, Pac-Man from the arcade, and everything in between.
I own many systems and handhelds and the Wii U is probably right up there in my personal top 5.
The nicest thing about playing gc games on wii u is that it's running on native hardware that was designed for that purpose. Not all pcs can emulate very well, but the wii u has a wii physically contained within, which is the exact same hardware as the gamecube. The only thing preventing the wii u from running gc games without homebrew and ISOs is that they removed the ability for the disc reader to read gc discs
I've had a WII U for a long time now, and it's so easy to mod. You have (almost) the whole Nintendo library on a single console! It's very great, even in 2021.
In terms of Handheld solutions I'd also say the 3DS is similarly great
@@dayandere2669 I use 3ds to mod 3ds and Ds games and wii u to mod gamecube, wii, and wii u games
Nintendo on the surface look like the perfect family game company, but they secretly rule with a totalitarian iron fist and if the tiniest unscheduled change occurs to a console, they'll punish you severely.
They're basically the Disney of gaming
@@SkyyySi Or Apple/Xiaomi.
Delete it anyone calling the wiiu a failure shall be isekai'd!
@Alts'Alts When it comes to how locked down the devices are, Apple is in the same field.
@@acumenium8157 Xiaomi is such restrictive that you even don't need to unlock the bootloader, because it's already, seems legit, it's rather Samsung (bootloader unlocking much harder, eFuses...), they try hinder third-party-repairs similar to Apple nowadays with non-working Features like TrueTone, fingerprint Sensor etc. after changing parts...
Jesus, the Wii U is almost 10 years old... I still remember watching a Wii U first impressions livestream by a tech channel I used to watch back then. Damn.
I’m incredibly disappointed in all the Wii U haters here
Did you know that Nintendo officially sold batteries for the gamepad with a much higher capacity than the OG one?
That's why there's so much extra space in the battery compartment :D
Just recently got an official unused battery and my capacity nearly tripled from 2-3 hrs to 8! Now this thing is actually usable for an extended session of Xenoblade Chronicles X without having to keep it plugged in ^^
TBF.... that is also partialy do to the abttery degredation of the original one.
a new WII U gamepad woudl have held around 4-5 hours of xenoblade X(speaking from experience)
AND TBF... playing XCX with the gamepad is a pain... you use the wii u pro controller wiht the gamepad on its charging stand(only included in the black wi u premium bundle) for the map
I've had a modded WiiU for a number of years now. I actually got mine when the console was new, and ended up stopping using it because my gamepad stopped functioning.
Since when at its "peak" the gamepad was stupid expensive, I ended up putting it in a drawer for a couple years.
Once the switch came out (and I couldn't afford it) I git a craving for some Nintendo and repaired my gamepad and homebrewed it.
Honestly it's great. I love this little machine, and I'm genuinely concerned that the situation with gamepads are gonna make these neat little consoles impossible to use by the end of the decade.
There are some videos here on youtube of people modding common cell phone batteries to use on them. I think a more ideal solution would be custom made battery adapters.
If implementations like DRC-Sim don't get any progress the wii u will effectively end up just being landfill, the consoles themselves will not have any defects, but due to nintendo being nintendo millions of perfectly good consoles will end up as E-Waste
to remove those tiny scratches from the console I've had good luck with "displex", which is a scratch removal paste made for early naughties phones. It's still sold, though you need to do quite some searching (maybe it's old stock or still being made IDK).
12:35 my dad taught me a meathod of using turtle wax and buffing it in to remove scratches. You can also use a substance called polywatch, but this is riskier.
6:48 It's like you read my live journal.
10:31 That explains why Disc LED kept turned on, ever since you plugged the power cord.
Wait, I wasn't the one single person to ever own a Wii U?
Crazy.
@Never Gonna Give You Up 😜👇 no
I used to own 2 of them ^-^
you too?
Finally met someone else that owns one
I have 2. One has a smashed gamepad screen, but the base console is usable, and my 2nd one was the replacement for it.
Brasso helps with the scratches but be sure to use black plastic restorer after wards
Small correction at 5:13: All Wii U adapters are dual voltage. They work fine with either 220V or 110V, despite statements to the contrary on the actual adapter.
I imported a US Wii U to a PAL region and it worked just fine without a step-down transformer or anything like that. Plugs right into the wall.
What an utterly stupid move by Nintendo not too sell the pads separately. How utterly idiotic can a gaming company be? No wonder it failed.
Honest to God I'd trust this guy with my broken Wii U more than I would any of the repair stores in my area
It’s about time Matt joined the WiiU gang! I had one when it was new, and I played it TO DEATH! Even now, though the game-pad was broken (damn you Nintendo and your irreplaceable gamepads!!), we still modded the ever living shit out of my friends WiiU and did all sorts of cool stuff. In my eyes, the WiiU really wasn’t a bad console.
my darn wii u gamepad charger broke like 2 years ago and i am finally getting a new one soon.
About the scratches: a vinyl cover would have worked great. You can just buy a larger sheet roll and cut it to size. Could have even gotten a glossy vinyl.
Off topic but I'm just so goddamn thrown off every single time something American shows up. I'm so used to you being Down Under, honestly. :P
Did he move?
@@thomasphillips885 Seems like he did, everything was from the US version of eBay with the US plugs and all that.
why in gods name would you move from Australia and trade it for the USA
@@othersideguy16 Beats me, mate.
@@othersideguy16 No fucking clue, mate
I recall Chuggaaconroy mentioned in I think his Yoshi's Woolly World playthrough that he bought a white Wii U to use the gamepad with his black Wii U because he really liked how it looked but couldn't use it because the white one was a European unit so the region lock prevented the gamepad from pairing with his US Wii U. I was kinda shocked to hear that but once the initial shock went away I realised that's exactly the kind of bullshit you should expect from Nintendo. I figured this problem would turn up during this video. Lo and behold, it did.
My boys have played the WiiU far more than the Wii and the Switch combined. Granted, we've got two modded WiiUs but still. It's a great console.
13:06
I'm actually really surprised you're saying this. How has the Switch *not* been busted wide open, with Fusée Gelée and such?
I remember when people were still figuring out custom NSPs, and all homebrew was run from the Homebrew Launcher which replaced the album button on the home screen. And when there weren't custom themes, or entire Qlaunch (home menu) replacements. Or even when there was no XCI installer and you had to convert it to an NSP first.
The only way I think you could say it isn't open for homebrew is that the newest firmware and the new hardware revisions aren't exploitable. But there's still a very active and large homebrew community for the Switch, I would say one larger than the Wii U's ever was.
Same. The issue is that the Switch features a microkernel. Microkernels are pretty rare, Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android and iOS all use normal "fat" kernels, where all of the kernel modules share a single process with the kernel core, meaning any security error in any of these modules compromises the entire kernel.
In comparison, by separating those modules from the core and running them as normal, sandboxed apps, the microkernel of the Switch becomes extremely small. Small enough for a single person to wrap their mind around the whole thing and polish it to perfection until there's no vulnerabilities left for anyone to find. Without any kernel vulnerabilities, there's no privilege escalation: userspace exploits are completely useless because without any bugs in the kernel, there's no breaking out of any app or driver's confines and into the rest of the console. Because of this, the Switch required everyone to tackle it in the opposite direction: attacking from the hardware side directly instead of building up a userspace exploit chain the way it usually goes.
Research is still ongoing in the community to more openly reverse-engineer and reproduce the TX voltage glitching method that remains the only publicly known way to run unsigned code on newer Switch models (and no word about whether even that's still possible on the OLED model)... Still a shame that since those guys were profiting from piracy and didn't share their exploit to the open-source community, Nintendo had an easy time taking them down and making modding the new Switches next to impossible.
Exactly that. The V2 is essentially impossible to crack for the average joe, which sucks
One only needs software, the other needs physical bits? I haven't looked at switch modding in a while but I remember this turning me off.
@@trashtrash2169 Depends mostly on the version. Old Switches that are open to fusee only require what electrically amounts to pushing a button, and the rest is done in software through a programming error in the console's USB interface when in RCM mode. A jig is no big deal. The new Switches are where it gets tricky, requiring an actual modchip being installed that cuts power to the Switch's CPU at a very precise window and duration to get it to skip the signature checks, and then takes over as the 2nd-stage bootloader to unlock the console.
It's funny. Back when consoles had small, simple BIOSes (6th generation and earlier) modchips and CFWs were much more common. The Switch had security so tight it basically required a return to basics. Fusée itself is a buffer overflow exploit that overwrites the stack. That's some '80s shit. And it only works becase it happens in a mode where none of the CPU security features developed in the last 30 years are turned on until the last moment, and by smashing the stack before the process completes we get full control. In fact, fusee grants more control over the Switch's CPU than you can get under normal circumstances unlocking a phone's bootloader or on a PC. Hypervisor secure world mode is typically only ever for the hardware manufacturer to play with. This makes it unusually trivial to extract the Switch hardware keys once pwned.
After seeing this, and knowing that I have nothing to lose with my Wii U, I think it's finally time for me to get into softmodding the Wii U half of it
Just be careful and make a backup of the nand n stuff, i bricked my wii u and now it's a paperweight without any backups
You should 100% I actually bought mine for that specifically and it’s soooo awesome!
definitely do it, your only brick risk is using CBHC and messing up or deliberately going into files if you're worried about that
@@echowoods7977 what's CBHC?
My guess is Cold Boot Haxchii but I typically suck at figuring out abbreviations
@@alfiegordon9013 I actually bought mine shortly after it came out, and unlike many people, I was not disappointed in the slightest.
Also, this video mentioned being able to load Gamecube games? Is that through emulation, or can I legit put a GC disk into the Wii U and run it?
I have my Mario Kart 8 WiiU Package still well treated sitting on my shelf.
Sure I have better ways to enjoy the games that work on it but in general, the WiiU is a nicer console than many people think it is.
As much as I love the Wii U, the name is admittedly stupid
I have that model too but wihout the package because it is a gamestop refurbished, everything works but i didn"t get the gamepad stand
@@gdemerald581 I think that's part of the reason it didn't do so well. Well, that and the marketing, both of which led to a downward spiral that left the console as another sad lump of untapped potential, unless the homebrew community starts making games that push its limits.
8:46 Cubic Ninja on the 3DS became an instant hit once the release of the ninjhax exploit
Yes that is kind of true basically the weather level creator but your new maximum limit so if you kept on like spamming stuff eventually you’ll get to the secret screen of ninja eggs but it’s not actually that secret because most people know it
The Wii U raised me. I didn't have an Xbox or a playstation or a PC, I had a Wii U. It entertained me non stop. Nintendoland, Wii Sports, literally every game on it is flawless. The Wii U has better games on it than the Switch does in my opinion. My parents still play on it. My grandparents come to mine every saturday night and they have a Wii Bowling tournament. They have so much fun. The Wii U will always have a special place in my heart
I grabbed one earlier this year from a goodwill auction because I wanted direct HDMI output for Wii games, and they were serious in the listing with "power tested only," they didn't bother to wipe the dust off and the front port cover was left open (which actually made me think it was missing until I inspected the console closer). Then when I received it there was a smash bros. disc in the drive and the 16gb SD Card had remnants of the previous owner's homebrew setup on it.
That is so wild I just finally replaced my broken gamepad after 5 years to homebrew my childhood console like last week!
Got a Nintendo Wii U earlier this year and I haven't regretted that decision.
It's a shame Nintendo never gave this amazing console the attention it deserved.
Nintendo actually did give the Wii U attention -- just look at the games! They're fantastic! It was the gamers who shunned it. Nintendo didn't do itself any favors with the marketing and naming scheme, but the console itself was solid and the first party games (and even some 3rd party) are tops. MK8, SM3D World, Yoshi's Wooly World, DKC Tropical Freeze, and on and on, they look gorgeous and the gameplay is pure Nintendo joy.
With the right hardware, you could theoretically make your own gamepad. Just after the Switch came out, people actually found the firmware on the gamepad. They got it so easily because it's stored on an unencrypted device.
Imagine region-locking a controller.... any other controller would've worked with the console, actually.
As of the middle of the console's lifespan, I think you're able to use any controller to start the system and interact with its menus - the 'pad was no longer required to fully operate the system. Obviously, some functions require it still, but if you had just used a wii remote the console could've probably worked
Except the system settings, which still require a gamepad to do anything
@@ihavenoideas5844 really? Damn, I assumed the wii remote could do the settings too
Got wiiu at launch. Love the console. Same reason you mentioned. It can play almost the entire nintendo library. I never got n64 to work great but everything else is perfect. Atari, gb, gbc, gba, nes, snes, gamecube, wii, wiiu, master system, genesis, sega cd, and tons more. Great console!
i almost spat out my drink 1:25 😂
I still have my Wii U and even though I have a Switch now, I will keep my Wii U until death do us part. So many memories of me and the boys playing local multiplayer. I wouldn't get rid of it for any reason.
Smart! I suspect it will only get more valuable as more gamers realize what they missed out on the Wii U years from now.
This Wii U situation reminds me of one time where my dad found a Wii in a box on the side of the road with a bunch of games in it that someone was going to throw out. The original owners probably threw it out because the wire in the sensor bar was cut but my dad fixed it and now it works perfectly fine. We also found that Wii Sports was in the disc drive. The stand was also missing along with the cover for the GameCube controller ports.
That cover for the GameCube ports seems have been engineered to fall off and disappear even without usage. Mine just vanished into the ether, and I didn't even have GameCube controllers.
Its like a child at an orphanage
Why would you sell the Wii because the sensor bar stopped working?
Those scratches can be greatly improved by buffing the console with ScratchX or any other similar automotive scratch remover for glossy finishes.
12:41 Disc cleaner? There are products out there that "fill in" the scratches on a disc without damaging the finish so that it doesn't make it difficult for the system to read it. If they're good enough for a disc drive, they've got to be good enough for the human eye.
Just a thought.
IMO,
The console is great, really good in fact. It just sold poorly and the media called it a fail so people didn’t like it, when in reality it was a great console
While it's not a terrible system, especially considering systems as the CDI, Game.com, Ngage, Ouya, Atari VCS, Amico, and others are actually terrible all around, it was one that by design was destined for failure thanks to many bad decisions from the name, going with a dual screen approach for a home console (dual screen is easier to deal with with a handheld than a home system), a vastly underpowered cpu that was used in early 2000's iMacs, poor marketing, no real killer apps till way after the system was dying, had they had a Mario 3d world, a Odyssey or even breath of the wild at launch instead of stuff like New Super Mario U it may have done better. Not talking Switch numbers but maybe N64 levels of sales. But yeah I agree that the Wii U wasn't a terrible system just one that was set up for failure from the word go
@@The_Real_DCT 100% on the money
The WiiU is under-rated.
Most of the best Switch games came out on WiiU first, and the graphics are just as good!
The Breath of the Wild looks awesome on WiiU.
It's technically 720p instead of 1080p but yes
Funny how I was doing this sorta stuff yesterday, and then you suddenly upload this today.
I've got my eye on you MattKC.
Actually, the Nintendo Wii U has a pretty large catalog of titles that can be played across a large variety of consoles. Officially, it supports the following platforms via its virtual console service: Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo 64, Nintendo Gamecube, Nintendo Wii, Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, and Nintendo DS.
The Wii U was never a bad console. It just had terrible marketing
13:06 This is completely false. The Switch is (typically) modded by injecting a custom payload into the recovery mode which Nvidia accidentally left enabled. It can do so much more because it doesn't even require the original Switch OS to boot homebrew. Even if your Nand is corrupted and you have no backup, you can still use the Switch as a Android tablet or portable Linux machine. Just about the entire OS has also been replaced by Atmosphere as most parts of it are reverse engineered, reimplemented and are open source. I first modded my Switch around 2 years ago and can easily say that it is one of the greatest experiences I've had with a modded console. There is so much you can do.
Ok but can you mod a Switch Lite yet
They patched this exploit like a year or two ago on newer Switches.
Not really because not only does it work exclusively on the standard switch, it also has to be the model from before 2019 so the majority of consoles are out. Also it kinda requires the thing to hold the pins which you have to buy soo...
You can still do it on newer consoles (including the lite) but it requires a mod chip. You also don't have to buy the jig, you just need to be able to short one of the pins to ground, which I did easily with a wire. And once you booted into RCM, you can enable AutoRCM to never need to do it again.
"Please insert a controller of the correct region. Idiot."
IM DYING XD
also 7:55 YES YES AVGN
reminds me of an edit someone made of avgn talking about billy mitchel then saying "that's right we're gonna cheat" its titled that and pretty funny
@@Kat21 YESS IVE SEEN THAT XDD
"I thought nobody was dumb enough to actually pay money for these... until I met Matt"
ouch^^
edit: there is only one thing dumber than that: regionlocks
Not sure if these are sold in the land of upside down, but 3M makes a headlight restoration kit with a bunch of fine grit sandpaper (going up to I think 2000 grit?), a buffing pad, and a foam-backed spindle or whatever its called that you can put in a drill and attach these different pads to. It's expensive, but the sandpaper is all 3M so it lasts forever, and all the squishiness of the pads and foam backing makes it great for plastic buffing and polishing. If you get yourself some fine cut polishing compound for the foam buffing pad you can absolutely achieve factory mirror finish on plastic. Just make sure that if you do use any of the sandpaper, you have water dripping over it as youre sanding to prevent the plastic heating up and going gooey.
no other content is come-back-and-watch-for-no-reason-able like matt's i fricking love him
As a viewer with healing problems, I really appreciate that you always add captions 🥰
And typing problems! haha.. :-D (Only kidding, of course.)
Always fun to see people actually care about the Wii U!
3:23
Sir, have you ever heard of the Nintendo Wii U Pro Controller/Nintendo Wii Classic Controller?
And, most Video Games developed for the Nintendo Wii U did not require The Nintendo Wii U GamePad.
No, the gamepad is required for the system to boot up correctly, despite the fact that most games don't require it.
@@zeropointgravity9051 you sure bc i was able to just use a pro controller with no gamepad
@@zeropointgravity9051 lies. When my Wii U gamepad died I used my Wii U with no gamepad for a month and it was fine
it needs it for the first boot and also to isntall homebrew....
as the homebrew entry points require the browser, and you cant navigate the browser without the gamepad(i may be wrong on the browser part? i am fairly sure you cant enter URLs with anything but the gampepad)
the Wii U needs the tablet for boot, not for gameplay
5:59 Although I'm sure its breath was wild anyways.
Oh god my jokes are bad.
8:28 hey if anyone is seeing this now and in the future the wii u now has autobooting in the form of tiramisu. This mod is fairly new like it's from december last year but it will auto boot
"It's like it's dressed up to be a magician." ...angry subscribe button mashing sounds.
Just being able to play any wii, wii u, and gamecube games flawlessly through hdmi off a hard drive makes it worth it alone.
Hard drive? You mean an external one, also you need a usb y cable or powered hdd to make most models work
@@namesurname4666 yep
@@rev0lu7ion it's really strange, they probably reduced the power and added 2 more ports for some reason, meanwhile on the wii modern hard drives work fine without an y cable
6:30 😂 funniest part yet but he's right
On the Wii U, you have a tv screen and a handheld screen. The Switch just has one screen you can play on one or the other but not both at the same time. The Wii U was handy because you have an extra screen like the DS or 3DS.
honestly the wii u is the most underated consle in history, so many good memories from it, and the games were also pretty fire.
I love the site spoken of at 8:13
used them for modding my 3ds
their instructions are very clear
(i dont think the spam filter likes me posting links)
i saw the community post yesterday and i was so excited for this video
Same
@Never Gonna Give You Up 😜👇 no
Subscribed to you for calling Nintendo out on their inept business practices and behind the times policies/features. You understand the struggle
Fun fact: original Wii U power supplies are, in fact, universal
did they seriously have to lie about that? what would they be gaining in the first place?
@@AbdAbdAbdAbd The same thing with most PS3s
oh and MattKC the reason for the region lock is due to the unique firmware the AUS tablet had a specific firmware which is why the region lock was their to prevent issues with updating the gamepad
Yeah dkoldies, 0:01 I thought he was talking about this
2:03, yeahhhh no, the actual worst selling Nintendo console is their first being the color tv game with 3 million sold, do your research next time
Wasn't it actually the virtual boy?
@@okknahhyes
He never said the Wii U is the worst selling, but that it would be remembered as such, which frankly, most people I know who aren’t very interested in game preservation, probably think it is.
The market was much smaller back then when the Color TV released. Also video games were still pretty young at this point.
At 5:35 it was unexpected
10:19 : There's a disc inside. That's the little light over the word "Disc".
10:44 my original Wii that I received back in 2006 had a disc reading error between Wii games and GameCube games. One of the last games that I remember playing on it was Legend of Zelda wind waker. After Trading the system into GameStop for a refurbished black one, I realized that I lost wind waker inside of the system. Or at least that's what I surmise because after that point, I had only the case and not the game. I would hate to think I "met a terrible fate", wait sorry wrong Legend of Zelda game.
Awesome that you got the Wii U working again! I find that the Wii U and Dreamcast are very similar; neither one sold particularly well and those who own them swear by them
... Except for the disk drive. The Dreamcast one is too loud.
Also - the Dreamcast shows it's 'powered by Windows CE'.
0:12 yeah I’ve heard of DK Oldies
Glad to see mattkc Back to uploading
@Never Gonna Give You Up 😜👇 no
5:07 hey so about that, apparently the official power adapters ARE universal voltage (i'm using a 110v one in an 220v country as we speak), this is so bizarre. like seriously what were they thinking?
Plot twist: nothing is wrong with the electronics, it's just a Wii U is all.