Wii Unlock Systems - Which Is the Best?

When you start exploring how to unlock your Wii, you keep coming across the term "Homebrew." Now, some of you know what this means (and some are probably looking for information on unlocking your Wii because you know what homebrew is), but for a lot of people, this is a new term. Homebrew is simply the name given to original games, programs, and applications that have been created by gamers either writing code (games) from scratch or using an existing platform and modifying it to make it better or to add new features to a game. What is really cool about this is that since Wii homebrew is not licensed through Wii or Nintendo, you can find and download thousands of games and applications from the Internet.

The catch to all of this is that to be able to use Wii homebrew, you need to unlock your Wii. In the early days of Wii homebrew (way back in 2007) when the Wii console was first introduced by Nintendo, you would need to mod chip your Wii which took some technical skill and meant instantly voiding your warranty. For those who don't know, mod chipping the circuit board requires tampering with the physical hardware. A modchip is a device containing simple firmware that is usually soldered or clipped onto a circuit board typically for the purpose of altering or circumventing the normal functions of a device. In a game console like the Wii, a modchip almost always serves to enable the playing of backup and/or pirated copies of game. So, this required some technical skill and not only would you void the warranty, but it was also pretty easy to brick (meaning kill) your Wii.

Now, thanks to Team Twiizers (a group of game hackers that that have created many hacks for the Wii including the Homebrew Channel, the Twilight Hack, and DVDX), you no longer need to physically alter your Wii console to use Wii homebrew. This opens the doors to a lot more users and means you don't have to void your warranty. Technically inclined and web-savvy folks can find these and other similar hacks on the web and use them to unlock their Wii consoles.

The great thing about unlocking your Wii is that with software compatible with homebrew you can easily backup all of your current Nintendo Wii games to regular old DVDs. So, now you can put your original games in a safe place and play from the backed-up games you just burned. You can also use emulators which are applications that turn your Wii into any machine you want, from a regular NES to a Super NES, Sega Genesis, Atari -- you name it, you could do it. You can also play region-locked games anywhere, and you can even use your Wii to play DVD movies and MP3s.

Are you wondering how much all these emulators, homebrew games, and applications cost? They don't cost anything. They are completely free for anyone to download and it's legal if discouraged by Nintendo. However, the catch here is that you will have to find the files and instructions to help you unlock your Wii to Homebrew. If you happen to miss a file or not load the right software, the process can fail and you can even brick your Wii console.

To make this whole Wii homebrew experience accessible to a much wider audience, several enterprising guys sell solutions to unlocking your Wii with software. I call them Wii unlock solutions because they are not just a simple piece of software that you download and run. These solutions typically consist of guides as well as either the actual software required or instructions on how to find the software (the software itself is usually free and available on the Internet for download). Once you have found and downloaded the right software, the guides -- usually both eBooks and videos -- guide you through the process of unlocking your Wii.

There are at least a dozen of these solutions on the market. When you read the marketing copy and visit the web sites for these products, it is often a little hard to figure out which -- if any -- of them is going to work and what is included in the package. You will need to do some research and compare them to figure out which is best for you and which is the best value.