The Nintendo Wii That No One Wanted
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- Опубліковано 5 вер 2024
- Back in 2011 Nintendo released a new revision of the Wii that lowered the price but also removed a big feature, or did they?
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#Nintendo #Wii
I’ll never forget when my friend told there was GameCube compatibly and I went home to flip the top, mind blown 🤣
Yeah it was basically a GameCube with wii compatibility
Ohhhhh myyyy godddddd!!!!
@@nicholascobb3838 i was 7 back then LOL
@@Jubrill some kids have nightmares from it, because they didn't knew about the Gamecube thing XD
I knew there was GameCube compatibility but not GameCube ports, so I was angry trying to get a Wiimote to work with them for a while before realizing there were ports.
I'd argue the Wii Mini is the true one no one wanted... this one was less desired, but lots of families had it.
@Sagittarian Wolf mini was worse - didn't even have internet functionality, literally can't even play mkwii online
@@Sryloth for nearly a decade it was completely worthless because you couldnt even mod the thing lmao
Yeah, Wii Mini was definitely the least desired. Not only did you not have GameCube compatibility, but you also lost internet - they even went out of their way to make it so the Ethernet adapter wouldn't work.
Of all the people I knew that had the Wii, I never saw GC games or controllers laying around except at my brother's house because his kids loved SSB Melee. Most people didn't care at the time. I'm sure now in used shops, people do care a lot, but that's hardly a concern for Nintendo. But the Mini launched so late, there hardly seemed any point. The only thing I can say about stripping the internet functionality is maybe Nintendo was afraid there'd be an uproar if people bought a new Wii with online capabilities... Only for Nintendo to shut them down a year or two later.
@@Monokai if the wii mini had network connection and they implemented streaming apps as it was after things like Netflix was already massive, it would of taken off as the best home streaming hardware on the market.
I will never forget this.
It was my first job, I saved so I could finally buy my first brand new console instead of an used one. I went to the store, I grabbed the box and even a matching color blue wii remote, I was so happy. I could not wait till I got home to boot up my old gc discs in my new wii since my old gc was consistently failing. When I took the box apart and grabbed the system... it was one of the biggest disappointments of my life until that point. I feld sad.
That’s too bad. Always do your research when it comes to hardware refreshes. Tech refreshes are always sold as “new and improved” but the company is actually looking to shave cost or make dough, and are screwing over the uneducated. Same thing happened 7th gen with the 1st PS3 which played PS1 and PS2 software only to have the features removed when the “newer and better” sleeker PS3 was released.
@@thefitgurutv I think the Xbox 360 was one of the few exceptions to this where the revisions were actually more reliable after Microsoft realized they needed to fix their shit with the red ring of death.
@@GeneralChangFromDanang Great point. They rebounded beautifully following RROD.
@@thefitgurutv i mean tbf sony never said the later ps3s were better they just made them cheaper so ppl would buy them, and also launch models were super prone to overheating and damaging and the newer ones don't, in fact u can check all the revisions and every time they could they'd make the CPU and the GPU smaller using better nodes as well
I nearly made the same mistake myself, I saw a brand new red Wii mini on the shelf but went for a regular white one, I knew nothing about the limitations at the time.
The first edition with the Game Cube ports where freaking epic.
Was so much fun going back to the Game Cube now and then 😲
You call yourself a gamer and collector? No space between it bro.
that's right.
Wish that there are generally consoles in variants that have built the predecessor.
I'm happy to pay more if I can play older games and maybe even get benefits like better graphics, faster loading times.
A switch with a dock for Gamecube and Wii games would be something. The Wii Remote could be emulated and replaced 1:1 by the Joy Cons and the Pro Controller could be the Gamecube controller.
I know! I still have my original Wii and everything works great! Never getting rid of that sucker! I still bring it out from time to time to play my old Wii, and even GameCube, games! I'm still kicking myself all over for selling my GameCube, though, as nothing quite beats playing on the original system ...
@@Fuchsfeuer no reason to emulate the wiimote, theyre bluetooth, the switch should be able to handle them fine if Nintendont could be bothered.
@@Cerus98 relax. You can be a collector and enthusiast while still making mistakes.
I thought that was the Wii Mini
Exactly what I was thinking lol
The mini is the one with the top loader and the red borders. The ugliest of the revisions in my opinion
@@thecommenter578 same. So many people like the design but it's so tacky. The original Wii and the 2nd revision are so slick and look simple, but nice.
Same XD
infact.. this kind of wii can play all story of nintendo from nes to wii (and some arcade, neogeo) can be used like mediacenter (wiimc). some dev relaunch multiplayer. server for free...
The logo being horizontal and the idea being placed horizontally shows the transition to the Wii U. You can see how people thought the Wii U was just a small upgrade of the Wii. This model did not help the Wii U sales at all. Just added more confusion.
It was the same color, too.
@@johnmickey5017the Wii u was also in white
another reason it flopped as well was that they really didn't market it well so people got confused and thought it was just another slightly upgraded Wii
@@tom13794 And then Wii Fit U dropped.
@@tom13794 not to mention Nintendo was competing with themselves. many games that came out on WiiU were either ports or too similar to games released on the more successful 3DS. examples were Smash Bros. 4 3DS & WiiU, Mario Kart 7 and 8, Hyrule Warriors, Mario 3D World & 3D Land, DKC Returns & Tropical Freeze, Mario Party, etc.
Somewhere in the distant past, two friends were on the phone and one was trying to tell the other friend that their wii has a GameCube controller slot too And the other wondered why they could never find the spot.
:-( Were you one of those friends? I'm so sorry.
@@JustStayingGroovy no I wasn't fortunately. This is in shoutout to the ones that were.
This was actually me😂
@@JunkyNinety5ive me
me bro
I had a Family System but since I had no idea what a GameCube was, to me it was basically the same experience as if I had had a regular Wii.
I brought a used Wii back to GameStop in 2012 for this exact reason. They sold me one without the ports and I brought it back saying, "shouldn't you guys make that clear?". At the time the store I bought from was not designating which ones had ports. They were all the same price. 99.99 used.
I’m someone who ended up with a Family System and realized later that I couldn’t play GC Games on it. My disappointment was massive. I looked around the box for a while, didn’t see any indication that it didn’t play GC games until I found some practically microscopic text on the box that said it didn’t play GC Games.
I think this was intentional to trick people into buying it.
I was actually trying to mildly pry open the flap for a while thinking it was stuck or something until I looked up the issue online.
I didn’t hear anything about this kind of Wii at the time.
Yeah, I got my Wii pretty late (2011) and I didn't realize until after I bought Super Mario Sunshine from a local game store that the one I had didn't support GameCube games, and it wasn't for another few months when I would realize there was a tiny warning on the box saying as such.
I've noticed the same later on. Though the colour should've been a dead giveaway already. What's interesting is you can technically mod GC controller ports in, the holes for them are even still in the shell on top :)
You know what’s annoying is that when you go to the channel where the game you put in pops up, it shows both wii and GameCube games. I remember being like, 7 , and asking my uncle to borrow his GC games.
I got my Wii very late (2013). I was disappointed a few years down the line, when I was getting into GameCube collecting, and my system couldn’t play GC discs.
90% of people who bought the Wii probably didn't intended to play GameCube anyway so not sure, most probably didn't even know what the GameCube was since it's probably the most casual console ever, mostly aimed to families
The thing with these revisions as well is that nintendo eventually fixed the issue where the component video output looked slightly worse than the gamecube on early revisionsons of the system.
Homebrew has a software patch for early wiis relatively recently that fixes this issue, for games launched with Nintendont and GX loader.
@@FoxbatStargazer yay
@@FoxbatStargazer nice, if only the Wii U had something like this for the Wii mode. It seems to have an aspect ratio issue.
5:45 Now this is something I didn't know. Even though I own both Wiis, I never took them apart. I came here expecting another typical teardown. What I got was a very interesting comparison and insight between those two. I'm glad that Spawn Wave does videos like these.
I subbed to this channel for the teardowns and videos like this. Always neat to see these sorts of things.
Would be possible to change motherboard some parts
I know Wii and Wii u. But I never even heard of this one.
@@user-ot7wb8sy1vI knew all of them. Wii, Wii U, Wii mini, and the other Wii with the shitty no backwards compatibility
Such a magical system. Still have me & my brother’s first edition Wii’s. So nostalgic going back through the calendar and seeing game history from 2007 lol.
Similar thing happened with the PSVita TV. The thing went from being really cheap cause nobody wanted it to really expensive after demand went up because a softmod made it possible to whitelist the entire Vita library.
i mean not all tbh souch based games don't work and some other that ujse the camera our touchpad etc. but tbh I like ppl soft modding systems to give them more usage, less e-waste
@@DEMENTO01 ps4 controller for touch
@@DEMENTO01 There's been homebrew around for years to emulate the camera. You provide the right picture and the game accepts it and moves on.
Is it same as pstv because I vaguely remember it being solf in argos but not the vita just ps4 and pstv
The family edition was my very first Wii. Although I was bummed as a kid it couldn't play GC games, I eventually modded it to play said games later on. I love this system
May i ask how you modded it play wii games?
@@JJ-nz8nb you can search up Tech James on how to mod your wii or any recent video on yt
The red Wii Mini with the top-loading disc drive is the Wii version no one wanted/talked about. Heck, I think it was exclusive to the Canadian market for a good while. Nintendo went even further to reduce its cost and removed all Internet connectivity as well as the SD Card slot. Yes you read that right, the Wii Mini couldn't even download digital games or let you play online lol
It was an insult to us Canadians.
I kind of want to mod a wii mini to restore internet and gamecube just because it’s much more compact.
@@Andrew-ww1hz That thing doesn't even have a Wi-Fi chip, good luck restoring internet with a soft mod...
@@ParadoxalDream It's been done before with hard mods
Agreed, I have no idea what Nintendo was thinking when they thought they could sell that crap for $100 plus tax AND also discontinue the old Wii on top of that..... I mean come on. It probably would have worked if they priced it at $60 and sold the old Wii at whatever price it was, or they could have skipped the Mini
Nobody in their right mind would have gotten that, they would have either A) ordered an older Wii off Amazon/ebay or get one used, or B) if they wanted a brand new old Wii, they would have to get lucky at a store or drive to the US to get one lol.
Worst console revision I've seen
I'll never get rid of my OG Wii. It's homebrewed and serves as my only emulation box in addition to playing my prodigious Wii and GC library. It still gets regular use. I love it so much.
I pretty much use it for loading Wii ROMs because it has an actual sensor bar, plus N64 roms because the emulation is more accurate than on a PC
get rid of your OG wii
@@mr.potatomanversionsix you're not my dad
@@tjzambonischwartz I would say some insult like “I am now” but I just don’t feel like being rude so touché
The REASON why I bought a Wii (besides wanting to play Wii Sports/Pokemon Battle Revolution) was to *go back and play those awesome GameCube games I missed out on.*
I’ve always been curious how many of the GC-less Wii’s Nintendo sold. When I’m at Goodwill going through their pile of Wii’s, around 1 in 10 doesn’t have the ports on top. I’m wondering if that ratio is anywhere close to what my “study” has found.
I have a blue Wii without the GC ports, it works perfectly
@@codezero7981 I’m sure it does. Wii’s are like tanks.
at least for me during the wii era almost nobody realised you could even open the top and play GameCube games, so people didn't notice any difference between the 2 models. its really confusing to people when I ask them which model wii they have because people have no idea there are 2 different models. its probably more expensive now though because of informed gamer nerds buying it instead of casuals
Yr ratio
Nice to hear some Goodwills still sell consoles. It has been a while since I have seen any games at all.
My parents got me this for Christmas and I loved it but then when I found out the others wii played GameCube I felt like my life was a lie
Hopefully you had a GameCube system to fall back on.
couldve mod it and play all gamecube games and wii games for free
@@Starofpeace-qf6qe but I need an adapter for All the controllers smh
@@44loko i just ordered one one and i cant wait for it i got the cables and the adapter i jst need the controllers wii is gonna come april 4th👍
@@Starofpeace-qf6qe I want to get one
We got the Wii as soon as it launched. I always wondered what the disc on the right was. I’d never even heard of a GameCube at that time.
Same here, sometimes the "Nintendo GameCube" splash screen would appear when I put a Wii game in, young me thought it was a bug and restarting the Wii fixed it, was scared of clicking "Launch" on the GameCube screen thought it would break up the console.
I stopped using my Wii 2012-15 and since coming back to it I've not once seen this happen, today I still wonder what would happen if I had launched a Wii game pretending to be a GameCube game
I still have my original wii, and i still boot it up sometimes, got it on release day, the wii is an absolute unit! :)
The original Wii makes me feel old since it was released just 2.5 months after I was born lmao
@@thatguydylan314 makes YOU feel old? I started highschool when it came out
@@mcdonkey500 oh dang, just to put that in perspective I’m in high school rn!
That was my childhood. I really loved the Galaxy soundtrack it came with. One of my all time favorite game systems.
When I went to yard sales and thrift stores I never once ever saw a wii that didn't have GameCube ports. I knew about this version but it must be really rare.
I got the Wii at christmas and accidentally dropped it when setting it up. I almost had a heart attack but the only damage it had was on one of the corners. Still have it and it's a literal tank of a system.
This and the GC were made to last and I can't believe I already see Switches or even PS5s or Series consoles breaking.
Underpowered? Yes
Fun? Absolutely
Modern consoles break more often due to added complexity from moving parts. The more technologically capable we get the more delicate they get.
Yeah that would be on the lower end of some of the abuse mine took, Never stopped working and sold it in a garage sale
@@garrettthompson580 Moving parts haven't added complexity. The only moving parts that affect the consoles functionality are the disk drive and the cooling fan. That hasnt changed in 20 years. What *has* changed is manufactures trying to use cheaper materials to cut costs, which when you do that, you sacrifice durability. The Switch is understandable given what they did with it and honestly, for what it is, its fairly durable (not as durable as their Gameboys, but they would be alot bigger if they were)
I'll take fun over power any day of the week.
My sister pulled my Wii off a shelf with a GameCube controller over a decade ago and it hit the floor. My eject button is fucked and needs wiggled to work when I press it, but otherwise the system still works perfectly.
I have a black Wii with GameCube compatibility. I never realized how rare it was when I got it all those years ago.
I own two gc black wii and one family black one a family blue one and one white one. I didn't know the back game cube ones were that rare.
I didn't know about gamecube compatibility until a few months ago. I've been a big fan of Nintendo my entire life. I'm not sure how I missed that
I bought one of this "family" models back in the days (a black 32gb) with the only purpose to play Xenoblade Chronicles. Turn out i REALLY like it and get myself into Zelda TP, Last Story, Wii Sports, Mario Galaxy, Mad World and Pandoras Tower. These was the only games i had for the system. And i never knew you can also play gamecube games with older models until recently.
32gb??
Sounds like you brought a Wii u
That's a *Wii U* not a Wii you dummy 😂
Could have just been a typo? Like, the Wii U and Wii consoles are pretty different in shape and like, if you've played through Xenoblade, twilight princess, and Pandora's tower, surely they would've noticed if it's a Wii U, right?
@@jennyholiday88 was black, had wii-motes (and i had the white soap pro pad), stand vertical...maybe i mixed the things. Was age s ago. But apparentely you cant forgot things on the internet.
I got this Wii as my first console. I remember going on the internet and seeing those Gamecube controller ports and being disappointed when they weren't on my Wii. The inclusion of NSMBW and the disc with Mario Galaxy music also made me beg my dad to get Mario Galaxy, so it was a win for me.
nsmbw and galaxy are the best marios
Then they released the Wii U which could also be softmodded to run Gamecube games inside the virtual Wii inside the Wii U just to make every disc based game playable on 1 console. Unintended but useful.
Man. This definitely goes to show how forgetful I am. I was testing a revision system for a customer yesterday and completely forgot it showed both discs.
I bought the og version on sale waaaay back, sports pack, and its just been sitting around my house for a decade. Lately I've been revisiting retro games, so its nice to have the Gamecube capability. Shame I don't have that many titles, they were always more expensive than other retro games, kind of a trend for nintendo games. retro gaming used to be a budget hobby, now its a little too pricey for my tastes.
Time to softmod it! You can get the entire library of GameCube games and much more on there now
These things were hot garbage. White classic with a soft mod all day long. The 25th anniversary red Mario console with matching Wii remotes was the best… but super hard to find! Snagged one complete in box at a yard sale for $15 years later.
Bro I had the red Wii with the 25th anniversary Mario bundled game that was my shit as a kid I have a homebrewed Wii U now but I miss that red Wii
I got a red one for Christmas when I was a kid it was great
Wait hot garbage? Is that good? xD
Nice on the red Mario Wii picked one up myself with the red controller and nunchuck, Wii Sports and Punch-Out last year for $20.
@@AdeptusAstartes1224 I’m the opposite, I got rid of my Wii U but got a red Wii a couple years later
I remember when this type of Wii console hit the market along with its commercials. I never bothered with it seeing as I already had the original system with GameCube compatibility.
I've actually gotten GameCube games to work by just plugging in a GameCube controller adapter
It won't lock into place but it still played , I've done it with both Sonic Heroes and Dragon Ball Sagas and I never once modified my Wii's hardware
yeah isnt there a gamecube controller you could connect to your wiimote?
I got one of these when they launched just because I didn’t have the money for the PS3 at the time and this was significantly cheaper. I had a lot of fun with a lot of different games and really got into shooters with the Wii zapper lol.
I ended up with the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. Red Wii edition later on in life as that was the last one publicly available before the sans GameCube port versions. There were a few afterwards, but they were "if you win this contest" specifically Canada had one that was for an art contest.
With a red wiimote plus included. The more beautiful and more "featured".
I have a boring launch one.
@@puni3094 yup! The family that sold it to me had the red remote and the red nunchuck. I gave them $60 I believe. Well worth the purchase.
I remember back in 2011 I asked my parents to buy me a Wii and I didn't know this revision was a thing. On christmas day I was so exited to play smash bros brawl with my GC controllers but after setting up the system and all of that I started looking for the GC controller ports but I didn't find them, then I took a look at the box and there it was.. "This console is not compatible with games or accesories from Nintendo GameCube" my dissapointment was unmeasurable. I eventually learned how to use the wiimote and I played lots of games there and I still have both my Wii and my GC so it wasn't too bad in retrospective but I really wish I knew about that back then.
I have this system. Obviously in my youth I was disappointed by the removal of gamecube compatability but I still enjoyed my wii library.
Now, since I homebrewed my wii, it's no longer an issue since I can play gamecube games now.
Given my distance from the wii to myself when I play, I was never going to use the gc controller slots anyways.
Overall a pretty nice console these days.
how do you get gamecube games on this wii version? ive been trying to for a while
@@spookyCRK hack your wii, there are videos out there. Go with the most recent one. Once you do use USB Loader GX and play gamecube iso files through there
@@PaladinNL5 i already have my wii modded but i dont know what usb loaded is
I think the reason why they couldn't remove GameCube compatibility completely is because the wii itself is basically an upgraded GameCube.
the craziest offer was with the gamecube. when it went down from 250 to 99.
You have to keep in mind that the gamecube was technically quite good and more powerful than a ps2 which cost more than 99 at the time.
Of course, I didn't have a DVD player with the Gamecube, but the price drop was really unique. Also bought the Gamecube at the time as I didn't have much money and already had a PS2.
It's a pity that not more people grabbed the 99 dollar/euro Gamecube.
Games didn’t compare
@@Texas_Holdin Does the anybody have care
Heck, it was $49.99 in 2007 and free after rebate at Hastings stores.
The Wii Mini is arguably even less thought of because until recently it couldn't be hacked. Now you can softmod it just like the others, throw Nintendont on there, and use a bluetooth controller like the Wii U Pro controller to play Gamecube games.
I had the launch Wii 😌 best days ever
I remember when I thought the memory card slots were for Nintendo DS cartridges. Of course, years later when I got GameCube games, it felt amazing to play them on the Wii
I owned a Wii as a kid and never knew it had GameCub compatibility. I remember flipping open that cover and looking in there all of the time too, I just never knew what those ports were for.
I still love my Wii. Once softmodded it’s an awesome console and good for emulation too. Still play it every now and then, it’s good that it’s not a modernish kinda console that doesn’t have overheating issues unlike the 360 and ps3 were experiencing at the time
also doesn't have good games that xbox 360 and ps2 were experiencing at the moment. it has like 5 good games lmao
@@davidvlasceanu723 That's just an opinion especially when the genre of games between consoles are different
The GameCube-related changes for the revised Wii are consistent with how it works on the Wii U. The Wii U also has all the hardware it needs to run GameCube games, aside from the appropriate disc drive, so all you need is ISOs dumped on SD/HDD and the right homebrew application to run them and patch in compatibility with the GameCube controller adapter.
I have a backwards compatible black one, quite lucky I've heard. It of course still works because it's a Wii, things indestructible.
Oh yeah, that stupid thing.
Good thing they had the good taste to make the Red Wii backwards compatible.
7:35 a launch Switch?
I get that you meant Wii 😂
Honestly they really should have made a Wii with a hdmi port.
well we have the wii u at least
They were going to but thought flat screens weren't as popular or cheap.
Funny to hear this when current gen hardware even has 8K on their boxes even if 8k tvs are like 2500 usd
A simple wii 2 with 720p retrocompatible with wii games would be so great...
Well that's where the Wii U came in
As others have said, that was the WiiU
I used to have this Wii version and I played A LOT of gamecube games trough Nintendont, using my Wiimotes with a Hori Gamecube Controller (it has Classic Controller connection), good old times💟
My first Wii was the Family Edition. And I still have it to this day.
I remember having the Game Informers when it was called the “Nintendo Revolution”, when they switched it to Wii I was so confused. I finally got one after my dad searched forever in February 2008. First game I jumped into was Super Mario Galaxy. Such a good time in my life.
I have a black family one, bought it extremely cheap used with an 25 gb external HDD. I re-modded it, got a 500 gb HDD with a nice case, put tons of games on it, also got GC games and left the 25 gb HDD for emulators. I'm also playing MK online and getting the news lol. Ah it was so scratched that I bought a skin of Super Famicom on Ali Express. I think for the prize is the best.
Gamecube ports were great for acessories. Like Cyberbike! That could be used with all racing gamecube games.
And dance pads. Or the Family trainer ones.
This is the Wii I had growing up. It’s still in my family’s living room.
the funny thing is that the gamecube didn’t sell at all here in italy so basically most of people didn’t even know what a gamecube was
Something of note is that even when the Family Edition (RVL-101) Wiis came out, they still kept making 001 fully GameCube-compatible Wiis with the new 65 nm process with 4-layer boards (as opposed to 6-layer on the launch Wiis), and they NEVER released the RVL-101 in Japan, so you could get one of the new Wiis with less heat output but still keeping GameCube compatibility. This is ideal, because launch Wiis had an issue where the wireless modules were too close to the graphics chip and since they ran hotter, and the fan did not run whilst in standby mode, leaving the Wii Standby Connection/WiiConnect24 feature on meant that the Wii would essentially cook itself on a lot of units and cause the graphics to artifact, showing black or randomly colored dots on the screen. These later revision Wiis do not have this issue because they don't run nearly as hot in standby mode and the hardware was apparently spaced out a little better to prevent this.
That was also when alternative color Wiis came out, so if you're lucky and want the cooler-running Wii without giving up on full GameCube support, any alternative color Wii (as in, not white) is guaranteed to be one of those later revision models if it has the logo readable while standing vertically. That means a black or red Wii that's got the text made for vertical orientation is the ideal if you want the latest revision that doesn't cut out any functionality. Plus, red Wiis are always newer RVL-001 units as they never came in 101/Family Edition versions. They also DID release white Family Edition Wiis, as well as white RVL-001 Wiis, with the newer revision boards, but it is not as simple as using the shell color to tell which one you have.
To tell which one you have, it's suggested that you use a screwdriver to unscrew the battery door, then look inside. On the text that you can see by looking in, you can see what board revision you have. Next to the circle will be a number. That number is the revision you have. If you have a 001 Wii, you'll know it's a newer one if the number you can see by the battery door, next to the circle, is 30 or greater. Anything less is the earlier 6-layer revision that runs hotter.
I was surprised when my brother told me he had a red Wii that played GameCube games. I didn’t know that was a thing at the time. This was around 2010. I took it home and modded it to play burned Wii/GameCube games as he just wanted it to be simple so he could still play his legit discs and he had no GameCube games until I burned him a few.
Do the black wiis have better battery life?
@@pixl2524 Yes, since they're all the 65 nm, the smaller chips that consume less power and put out less heat, so making the later models into a portable is best as it consumes the least power.
I had a black wii with gamecube controller ports
Interesting… so if i manage to get a black backwards compatible Wii, then it will be one of the better models
(And i might try and get a non backwards compatible Wii for a second room, since i won’t be playing gamecube games in that room anyway)
The one thing I never liked about the backwards compatibility is the slot is normal sized and they don't have anything telling you where the disc should go so if it's just a little off the disc would fall and get stuck
I knew exactly where this was going when I saw the Wii logo on the side. Only family system I have is the blue version since it never came out with the GC compatibility. If you want a really crappy Wii, get the Wii Mini
The wii mini can be softmodded as to not be so bad, MVG did a video on this. The softmod uses the bluetooth connection to upload the bluebomb payload from a linux os with a bluetooth adapter, after which the homebrew channel can be installed and a homebrew app can be used to inject a ethernet config file so it can use ethernet for net as well as the nintendont homebrew app which restores gamecube compatibility.
fun fact: the family Wii edition can still play GameCube games via homebrew
I showed that you can in fact bring back the backwards compatibility to the Family Edition Wii. It takes a little bit of work because you have to remove the GC ports from a dead wii and a handful of SMD's that need to go in as well.
Swapping the old drive is simple enough and allows you play the GC discs.
Do you have like a video or link to a blog?
I was just looking at these. Thankfully these newer models are a lot less common than the one with full BC support.
🅱️ameCube
I like these hardware reviews more than your Spawwave newsflashes
I'm surprised how you didn't mention Nintendont as you can get around of being able to play GC games on the Wii Family Edition with a Classic Controller.
Exactly.
That was a reason why i even bought wii classic controller. Great gamepad btw
Funnily enough, my parents bought my brother the Family edition when I was out and the lack of Gamecube ports is so cumbersome for using the thing as a retro machine, that I still would trade it in for a good condition Wii with the ports.
Honestly, I don't even need the disk drive, I just need the ports on to run emulators through Homebrew.
There are controller port adapters out there so you could use a GC controller that plugs into the wii remote but I think the wii remote turns off when playing GC games so I guess that's not happening. I'm happy I have my 25th Anniversary Red Wii CIB though it did cost a bit to get but not near as much as a new system these days.
No mention of the even more unwanted Canadian Clamshell Wii! I actually wanted the black Wii.. but the top loader could basically only play offline Wii games.
I grew up with that one, I didn't even know GameCube existed so I didn't mind then but about a year ago I upgraded so I didn't have to switch between systems
Also at abot 7:36 u said a launch switch lol
When I was a kid, I knew the Wii could play Gamecube games, but unfortunately, I couldn't play them due to:
-Not having a memory card
-Did not have Gamecube controllers
-By the time my parents bought the Wii, Blockbuster (when they were on business) weren't selling Gamecube games anymore.
what about GameStop back then
@@timelymirror7826 sorry for the late reply. I rented games back then. My parents didn't want to keep paying $60 games, so they think it was better to rent games.
I have the blue one. Its awesome! I don't have any GameCube stuff so this one was great for me. Its a cool garage unit! Love it!
Edit: I forgot about the Wii Pro Controller and Classic controller. Both of those are amazing. You can probably take advantage of those when playing GameCube games. There's probably some that'll mirror the GC controller im guessing that'll connect to the WiiMote.
If you softmod it and play Gamecube games through Nintendont then yeah, those controllers work. Doesn't work for the "normal" way though, the Wii turns off its wifi and bluetooth when doing so.
@@roflBeck yeah that’s probably best. Or just buying the launch Wii lol it’s a lot of work to get all of those ports going again and dropping In the launch drive.
I wanted a Gamecube-compatible Blue Wii so I bought one with a bad disc drive and got an original white Wii from a thrift store and swapped the guts. No blue port covers but I love it. An orange spice gamecube controller makes a fun color combination with it.
I'm glad Spawn clearly said that Nintendo changed their philosophy from the 64 and GC because it is actually the times they strayed away from their true DNA: family friendly systems for mainstream audience. The SNES and even more the NES were totally that and it is what worked for them. When they tried to do powerful machines they lost their way and sales were bad. Glad they come back to their old vision with the Wii and DS, and now the Switch.
At the time of their respective releases, the NES and SNES were powerful consoles (just look up Street Fighter II on the SNES and Genesis, and you'll clearly see that the SNES had better graphics than its main rival). It was with the Wii that Nintendo began trading power for price, and that was mostly because game development costs were really starting to rise. Also, the N64 and GC were family friendly systems for the mainstream audience. Nintendo has never changed their philosophy. The very reason there was a carrying handle built onto the GC is because Nintendo wanted the console to be easy for kids to carry. The discs are smaller because Nintendo wanted them to be easy for kids to handle.
I had that black Wii growing up. We grew up with very little, so not having Gamecube compatibility wasn't really an issue for us. Brawl and Mariokart were good enough :) The lower cost was a god-send.
7:38 Yes spawn, I could always "buy a switch" hahaha... mispoken but not miss understood!
I don't know how, but I got the "family pack" for Christmas back in the day, and it had the controller ports, too.
In fact, I was psyched that it was black and also had the ports. Not sure if I got lucky or what, but it's awesome.
Perhaps you got an old wii in new packaging.
I can rem my parents buying the white one at the so called amazing store Toys R Us. I've seen the wiis didn't have a gc section, but never realized it directly. Glad that I still have the og wii.
I think I remember hearing about this Wii lite version. They took out the Wifi adapter which made the Wii shop inaccessible.
I have the OG wii the white one. And it has the gamecube compatability. I just own no gamecube games lmakao. I remember when my mom first bought the wii and we set it up.
Tbh the GameCube functionality was half the reason I wanted it. Finally played windwaker and sunshine because of it.
I had the white one but I didn't even know it had Gamecube compatability at the time 😭
My parents threw away my gamecube and most the games since they thought the wii was gonna take all the attention. I didn’t notice at the time but that explained why I never saw my gamecube and it’s games again😭
@@alexbolt5 when you say throw away do you really mean that your parents threw all of it into the garbage? I'd be horrified if that were the case.
@@GenerationZ313 Yup they told me years later since they thought what’s the point of having 2 consoles😭
At that point of the Wii's life and the public who was demanding for more units, removing retrocompatibily to bring down the price is not a bad deal, my only issue is that with they also removing the controller ports you eliminate a control option that was very popular for anyone who wanted a more conventional control scheme (even with the classic controller already existing), it might've been better if they just removed the disc reader and memory card slots and left the controller ports
I can think of a reason to put in those ports onto a revision Wii.. I have a screwed up launch Wii with functional ports and a revised system that is totally functional. I have considered attempting this, I just never got around to it. Plus I didn’t think it would honestly work…
A few have tried before, and it works! You could create solder bridges on some of the connections (so you won’t need the resistors). The ohms for the resistors are around 0, that’s why this works.
There's a cord that allows you to use a Game Cube controller. It plugs into the Wii remote where the 2nd Wii controller plugs in & then the Game Cube controller plugs into that!
I was a late adopter to the Wii and got the family edition for Christmas 2011. I chose it over the og wii as personally i liked the look of it better and I thought getting nsmbwii included was a better deal tbh and i already had a GameCube. I actually don’t think the lack of backwards compatibility was that big of a deal tbh as probably 90% of families who bought a Wii didn’t have a GameCube so very few people actually used the BC. Unlike the Wii mini it still had WiFi so I still got to download games from Wii shop and watch UA-cam and stuff, it even came with motion plus built into the controllers which gave you better and more precise motion controls than the older Wiimotes had.
I still have my OG Wii that I bought in 2007. Even have a few GC games for it. I play it every now and then and it still works perfectly
I have memories of my white wii, that I loved until I saw that glorious **black wii**. I became wildly envious, until I learned that they removed gamecube support!
I don't know about in the States, but in Europe they did release model 1 Wiis in that same black finish, with gamecube ports and Wii Motion Plus wiimotes. I know because my sister had one.
I never got a Wii because I was waiting for one in black. But by the time it came out the Wii U rumors were starting so I decided to wait for that instead.
I have a black Wii with gamecube compatibility, I don't know about NTSC but PAL regions also had red one with backwards compatibility.
@@hyzenthlay7151 They're in the US too. I have one.
It also couldn't read DVD video, but there may have been earlier GC compatible models that couldn't do that either. I think it had to do with CSS decoding being available in the DVD firmware of the other models because Nintendo wanted DVD playback originally, but cut it due to added licensing fees.
wii is the most durable system I've ever seen rarely it breaks and these days even if it's disc drive ain't working it's easily modded and GameCube wii library is installed in hard disk along with snes nes gba roms etc
In case you were wondering, yes there is a White DOL-101 as well. I actually found one at a pawn shop for around $36
Interesting console. I miss the Wii 😓
Wii sucked.
If I had to guess, the horizontal orientation being made the default had to do with the problems of vertical. There's a reason why there were complaints about the wii breaking, but no one seemed to really think about why.
People weren't using the stand, so the thing would overheat as it tried to suck on a solid surface, or worse, a carpet. Then came the drops... If you look at how the GC ports are, it should be fairly obvious it was meant to be horizontal with the ports facing forward - the problem is that people would leave it vertical and it would inevitably get pulled off whatever stand/table it was on by the cords.
Removing the GC ports removed the cord problem, making it default horizontal removed the cooling abuses
I had the black one when I was younger lol. I remember having it lol, very good memories with it lol. Loved wii baseball. So much fun. God good times
Lol lol
lol
Lol
Lol
Haha
My first wii was the family edition. I bought it just for Mario Kart, and later realized you can homebrew to play gamecube so no problem there.
That’s the Wii I own, and yes, I wish I had the original
It has better component tv out.
@@puni3094 fair, but I want to play GC games, resolution doesn’t matter much to me
@@joshua9832 just mod it and use Nintendont
@@keratopsian don’t have a USB drive 😕, and plus I don’t feel like modding my console. I only soft modded it to get the rest of the wiiware and VC games I missed, and to play rom hacks.
@@joshua9832 Fair enough, and also you can just use a singular SD card without a USB
I owned a wii in 2009 and never knew it had the GC controller ports.
I discovered it by accident when my hand slid off the top and revealed the ports
Didn’t watched the full video yet but removed features let me guess… backwards compatibility?
I was so young when I got my wii that I didn't even know what a gamecube was. I eventually learned about them, and was surprised that the whole time my Wii could play its games. I eventually found out that I had the family version, so it indeed could not play gamecube games. I loved the thing nonetheless
I was glad to have the first edition of the Wii in Singapore because that was our introduction to the GameCube world which wasn't sold here at all.
The games and controllers were nowhere to be found in the Singapore market, but we managed to buy those off Amazon, including 3rd party GC and N64 controllers which could plug into our Wii remote for the wireless experience.
After all these, I still think it was strange that we didn't get to experience the full GC world. We had all the cartridge based consoles like the Gameboy range and N64 and all another Nintendo systems, but the market in Singapore just skipped past the GC and went straight to Wii. And even though we welcomed the Wii in Singapore, it wasn't localised. The firmware was an American one with most of its online services being unable to run outside the US. Though it was legally sold in Singapore, we even had official Nintendo service centres to go to in case something went wrong with the console.
It's crazy that the revised Wii ran on a 65nm process! It really shows how far chip fabrication has come in the last decade. Imagine the battery life your handheld mod would get if this chip was on 5nm+. It would probably sip power like a graphing calculator.
I had both an original Wii and a 2011 Wii. My original Wii broke somehow, so my family bought a Family edition because it was cheaper and also happened to be under a discount on my dad's credit card. We never had any older consoles, so it wasn't a big deal that it wasn't backwards compatible. Our 2011 Wii came with a Wii Sports/Sports Resort 2in1 disk, not Super Mario Bros Wii though. (But that was fine because we already had SMB, but hadn't tried out Resort yet.)
Yup, that's how it tends to go. Enthusiasts/tech heads/hardware lovers pursue the best overall hardware configuration. It's part of why those launch/early revision ps3's get so much attention despite having a massive process node size(for the cell and the RSX being 90 nm in the first revisions). Although on an interesting note I would love to see you do some sort of video about the frankenstein CechA01's that have popped up over the last 2-3 years. These units being ps3's that had components swapped out for newer process node parts(most commonly seen with the RSX of those early ps3's. Because damn did 90 NM get hot.)