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Wii Region hack status, AnyRegion Changer / Gecko OS / GC Booter / Starfall

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    Wii Region hack status, AnyRegion Changer / Gecko OS / GC Booter / Starfall

    Hey all, thinking about trying this on my Wii. It's a PAL machine with a WiiKey that I fitted in order to play Wii Fit which I bought in Japan last December. Of course, it turns out Wii Fit wouldn't work on it, probably due to the PAL Wii's lack of proper Japanese character support or something along those lines.

    Anyway, I just found out about this program that apparently lets you perform a proper region change including installing the System Menu from that region. I've read the readme and it seems pretty straightforward, and I'm aware of the risk of bricking but it seems you'd only get that if you didn't pay attention while setting the new region.

    Right now, my Wii is collecting dust in the attic. This would be one of the few reasons to get it down, if only to fiddle around with it and feel a bit elite, and also the Wii homebrew scene in general is becoming interesting

    The only things holding me back right now are

    a) the lack of information regarding successes/failures/compatibility

    b) that I'll be wanting Wii Sports Resort and chances are that'll include an update (for that little gizmo, I imagine, so brick-blocking may not help)

    On the DCEmu forums, one guy posted saying he'd converted his PAL Wii to JPN and it played Mr. Driller which didn't work with the Gecko thing (which I assume simply changes the stated region to play the game, like the WiiKey, etc).

    So I guess what I'm wondering is, would installing a proper JPN System Menu include the necessary character support?

    Please do us all a favour and refrain from the usual posts about bricking (unless it's specifically in relation to the program/process itself), warranties, or whether you yourself would risk doing it, because frankly I don't care. I've been doing this sort of stuff a long time now and understand the risks involved. Sorry for being brusque, but I get sick of reading that sort of stuff.

    #2
    I tried it yesterday as I have a PAL Wii fit and a USA Wii. I set the settings region to Europe hoping it would sort out the date issue when using Gecko region free but it didn't. Also couldn't change any settings using the Wii menu as the page could not be found.
    I'm guessing the only way to get around this is to install the EU system menu which is not an option for just the one title. I'll continue to use the TP hack to boot the region free loader.
    Looks useful if you want to buy VC or Wiiware stuff from other regions though.

    For you, if you install the JAP menu and set the regions all to JAP your console will be indistinguishable from a legit one.

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      #3
      If it's anytime I just tried out menuloader 0.5 let me boot a PAL game on my NTSC-US Wii, just booted it up under the Homebrew channel on my non-chipped wii, set cube and Wii to region free and voila. Not got many games to try , but I'm pleased non the less.

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        #4
        When you say region free do you mean you can set it so it plays wii games from any region without having to constantly switch it back & forth?

        If so can you still keep your wii the same but just let it play any region wii disk? Im tempted to give it a try but i have a lot of content on my japanese wii plus i buy stuff from the vc quite often so i'd like to keep that bit the same.

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          #5
          It appears to be that way, I don't think I have to do it each time. I'll try again later, there are some programs that allow you to tinker with the VC shop region aswell but I'm not too fussed about that.

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            #6
            Yeah, Menu Loader does region-free stuff (says 'most' Wii games) and it also does it by hacking the system menu while it's loading, so nothing is actually flashed I think.

            I've been thinking more about this, and it seems US Wiis have the best multi-region compatibility (include support for Jap games which the UK Wiis lack), so really I should be thinking about setting it to US and installing the US System Menu which, I assume, would then make it 100% a US machine and thus capable of playing the Jap games.

            Apparently, if you have a chip you have to be a bit careful as people have found changing their region stops their Wii booting any game. Reason for this is that the chips don't make it 'region-free', they just make the game the same region as your console. So for example, my WiiKey is set to region-free and so it tells the Wii all games are UK. If I then change the console region to US using that tool, the WiiKey will still tell the console all the games are UK and so none will boot! The thing to do in this case is to run the settings disc for your WiiKey (or whatever chip you have) and turn off the region-free support. If you're going for a more permanent solution like me, you could then just turn it back on once the machine's been set to US.

            I'm wondering why more people aren't embracing this idea, especially those with UK Wiis, as Gecko, MenuLoader, Wii chips and Freeloader all have pretty similar compatibility rates thanks to the language issue.

            Speaking of which, I saw a vid on Youtube by the AnyRegion guy that showed him setting his UK Wii to Jap but he didn't install the System Menu (which, by the way, puts 3.2 software on your Wii which gives you Freeloader support again) yet the intro warning message (which is an image, apparently, as someone managed to hack his) was in proper Japanese and the Menu itself had the date in Japanese, too.

            Well, tomorrow being a bank holiday, I guess it's as good a time as any to break out the Wii and start tinkering...

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              #7
              If you do change your region from PAL to US, you should be able to output in RGB as well? That'd be pretty nifty.

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                #8
                Originally posted by honeymustard View Post
                If you do change your region from PAL to US, you should be able to output in RGB as well? That'd be pretty nifty.
                I would imagine RGB scart wont work - as it didnt work when playing a US game with the Wii Freeloader - it changed the video output to S-Video.

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                  #9
                  Ok im been a bit thick here but where do you put the files on the sd card so the homebrew channel can see it as i have tried various locations but it dosent seem to show up.

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                    #10
                    I had the same problem, you need to put it in its own folder and rename it boot.dol, you also need a file called icon.png and menu.xml (I just used the one for Wii tetris)

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                      #11
                      Cheers got it running, i was feeling brave & changed my shop to us just to see. Apparently you can use points on your wii from any region so if your feeling particularly cheap you can set your wii to japan & get the cheapest wii points then set it all back & go spending, but i have no idea how nintendo are going to react to this.

                      The one thing that puzzles me is the warning screen saying your about to change shop countries, why is it there as you cant do it from your wii but its there on the shop. Seems odd really, like they implemnted the function but not to actually use it, or maybe its for nintendos use but then again why would they let you change countries?

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by importaku View Post
                        The one thing that puzzles me is the warning screen saying your about to change shop countries, why is it there as you cant do it from your wii but its there on the shop. Seems odd really, like they implemnted the function but not to actually use it, or maybe its for nintendos use but then again why would they let you change countries?
                        If you change your console's country settings in the settings menu (yep it is in there, though unrelated to region), the same message appears. This happens, for example, when you set your US console to Brazillian.

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                          #13
                          I'm waiting for my JPN Twilight Princess to turn up from PA so I can do this region hack. It's a JPN machine, but I have various US games that I've been using Freeloader for (until 3.3 system menu killed it).

                          Does it work properly for GC games too?

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                            #14
                            The Gecko Region Free only works on Wii games because it's just a loader, and is doing the loading in 'Wii mode'.

                            The AnyRegion Changer and MenuLoader will work for Wii games, GC games and even Virtual Console channels, because they (from what I gather) actually do some patching of the system menu. The latter does it on the fly, rather than permenently modifying the system menu.

                            I've yet to try all this, trying to grab a PAL Wii game to test, but obviously the Gecko method is 'safest' if you want to keep the system menu as stock. More interesting is the fact that this should see the appearence of proper custom system menu's.

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                              #15
                              Originally posted by charlesr View Post
                              I'm waiting for my JPN Twilight Princess to turn up from PA so I can do this region hack. It's a JPN machine, but I have various US games that I've been using Freeloader for (until 3.3 system menu killed it).

                              Does it work properly for GC games too?


                              A guy on there used his GC Mr. Driller which wouldn't work before but now works fine after setting the console to Jap mode so it should be fine. The only GC game I have here is a Pal Zelda bonus disc but my plan for today is to try converting the console to a proper Jap machine and seeing if it'll boot my Wii Fit. If it does (which I'm hoping it will) then I'll convert it to a proper US machine and just leave it like that. There's no real reason for me to do this other than curiosity, though.

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