WiiKey
Contents
Welcome to the WiiKey Wiki
The WiiKey was announced at the beginning of February 2007 and shipped at the end of the month. It is one of many modchips available for the Wii by Nintendo and acts as a firmware replacement funneled through the debug serial port - tricking the DVD drive into believing that the backup is in fact legit, much like current Xbox 360 chips do.
Specifications
As listed on the chip's official website:
- Direct boot of Wii backups
- Direct boot of GC backups
- Direct boot of homebrew in GC mode
- Supports all currently available console/drive versions
- Supports D2B chipsets
- Sophisticated (true) update mechanism via DVD (future proof, expect cool features to come)
- Direct boot of different NTSC region Wii games/backups on US and JAP consoles (some incompatibilities)
- Partial support for NTSC region Wii games/backups on PAL consoles
- Partial support for PAL region Wii games/backups on NTSC consoles
- Boots different region GC games/backups (partially without swapping)
- Supports multi-disc games for BOTH Wii and GameCube
- Supports DVD-R / true DVD R and RW support (no bitsetting required!)
- Improved readsettings for recordable media
- Built-in audio fix (work in progress)
- Supports fullsize 4GB discs for GameCube homebrew
- Stealth mode
- 512 byte EEPROM to store configuration
- Quicksolder interface - no wires required
- Unique disc backup application via sdcard
- Compact design, best quality components, rock solid high speed controller
- Professional ESD packing
- Recovery mode - Can recover from a bad flash
Installation
Like its current competitors, the WiiKey is installed onto the Wii's drive either by quicksolder or using six wires. The chip can then be updated through the use of a Setup Disc which can be downloaded from the chip's website.
To open up the console, the following tools are required:
- A small prying tool
- A small phillips head screwdriver
- A tri-wing driver
GBAtemp member crumpster has written an excellent guide to opening and soldering the Wii.
Region Free Compatibility
As of now, all region free methods (be it patching with a region free application, or in this case, the Wiikey's built in region free capability) share the same method of patching. Therefore, all compatibility issues are the same, and can be documented on one specific page.
