Hello darkness my old friend...

[Dos_Box]

Earlier this week I saw something on Gumtree and thought I just had to dive in with it. It's a Wii U, and I got it for pennies (complete with working gamepad, which are becoming scarce these days).

The idea is, after playing around and getting very frustrated, with a Rasp Pi for retro-gaming, to mod it and load it up with emulators.

So, last night I cleaned it down with some wipes (it was a bit grotty) and fired it up. I suspect it hadn't been used for quite some time as the firmware was well out of date, but once I'd completed the setup process and updated the system I suddenly rembered one fo the Wii U's main fail points. It's speed.

Honestly, it takes about 20-30 seconds just to get into the settings screen! The previous owners didn't supply any games (but it did have a Super Mario Maker disc left in it) but I did have a Mario Kart 8 disc here back from when I had one previously and dove in and wow, is it annoying to use.

The gamepad is painful to use (I will be getting a pro controller when I get around to it) and I can really see now why it bombed. Well, there are many reasons for it, but with slow disc access, pitiful storage and now, with some features disabled, it's a real dog!

Thankfully it's Wii backwards comptible and you can also have it emulate many other systems as well. The top games can also be had for pocket money prices from CEX (where I'm taking a trip tomorrow) and the Wii ones even cheaper.

I'm mainly going to use it for retro gaming as it'll be a lot easier to use the the Pi*

Is anyone else here still gaming on the Wii U or has everyone very sensibly moved over to the Switch?

 

 

*The Pi was a pain using RetroArch, not so much the setup and operation, but when using MAME for example, you have to manually set the screen details for each game as many are set for much older displays and with US created titles often requiring far more tweaking, it simply was a collosal pain. I'll find another project for the Pi in the spring, possibly feeding into the flight tracking systems.

[Chaniel]

I liked the Wii U but it was definitely lacking, I sold it many years ago to a guy who was going to put some custom firmware on it. I moved to a switch a few years ago, although while a Switch is better (comfort, screen quality, size etc) there are some software changes that still aren't a thing on the switch that kinda suck, things like folders for games etc.

 

I'm waiting for my Steam deck at some point this year, hoping I can emulate a lot more on that!

[chazzy2501]

this means its also n64 compatible? (as the wii was an overclocked N64)

[Garacesh]

I still have a homebrew'd Wii in the cupboard at home, along with a full complement of special edition anniversary wiimotes. Mario, Luigi, Yoshi and Bowser, IIRC.

I haven't touched it in years, but I can't bring myself to bin it.

 

Edit: My switch is also Gen1 and has the unfixable firmware flaw so I'm probably going to homebrew that at some point, but not until I have a second switch (as I suspect homebrews get the nintendo online services banhammer)

I don't pay for whatever they call their flavour of gaming-online-subscription but I assume e-shop etc won't work.

 

Edit2: There's also the ≈£100 I spent refurbishing a Gameboy Advance a few months back. That was a fun little project.

Edited January 7, 2022 by Garacesh

[chazzy2501]

I still have a dreamcast with the official keyboard and mouse and shemue2... Never gonna dig it out the attic. (also the official VGA cable!)

[Koldov]

Not really a Wii-U thing as such but really retro gaming in general...

 

I have tried resurrecting my old C-64, which worked well but as with you, the frustration of waiting for the game to load (tape) and the games/gameplay/graphics on a large modern TV being nowhere near as exciting as I remember (of course this was in my teenage years).

 

I also pulled out my Playstation 1 from the loft and managed to load up Tomb Raider (forgetting how pointy Lara Croft was and how frustrating the jumps were to get the correct angle and do it at the right time)... my other favourite was Tekken but honestly the graphics just look so blocky and glitchy now (even the change in quality to Tekken 2 was remarkable).

 

Then there is the Wii, but pointing the controller at the screen seems really a skill to learn in itself... plus I don't think I really have any of the games that I would really want to invest time in playing or money buying extra equipment for (really a first person shooter kind of guy - so something like Counterstrike with a gun type Wii controller)... Instead I have got Just Dance and Wii Sports/Fit which is basically what it came with.

 

I guess some of these things are the appeal of retro gaming, but I don't really get any time to game full stop, let alone faff about with waiting for things to load and relearning all the quirks...

[simpsonj]

Still have my Wii U, it's with my collection of older consoles (Raspberry Pie with Amiga games, Mini SNES, PS2, PS3 and 360) vying for time and HDMI ports!

 

Tbh, the only reason for keeping it is to some day play through and this time finish Xenoblade Chronicles X and maybe Legend of Zelda Windwaker. My main issue is that the Gamepad now has a range of about 2 metres, presumable because the battery is toast.

[Dos_Box]

this means its also n64 compatible? (as the wii was an overclocked N64)

 

Yes (under emulation). It's mainly the N64, MAME and possibly some SNES/Megadrive titles too, I'm looking to play.

[Dos_Box]

The Wii U also launched almost extacty 12 months before the Xbox One and PS4 and given it's lack of games many gamers hung back to see what was coming from Microsoft and Sony.

Also not helped by Nintendo treating third party devs very badly when it came to support and keeping all the best tips and tricks to themselves.

This article makes interesting reading about where the Big Nin went wrong with this machine - https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2014/01/a_third_party_secret_developer_gives_an_inside_story_of_working_on_wii_u

[Norphy]

this means its also n64 compatible? (as the wii was an overclocked N64)

 

It was an overclocked Gamecube, surely?

[Dos_Box]

It was an overclocked Gamecube, surely?

 

Not sure, all the chips (N64, Gamecube and Wii U) were of a RISC type although they were made by third parties such as IBM.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_technical_specifications#Central_processing_unit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameCube_technical_specifications

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_technical_specifications#Central_processing_unit

 

It is Wii backwards compatible (I seem to remember the Wii GC compatibility was due to the actually bolting on the (now shrunk) GC hardware onto the board. I think this is the same as the Wii compatibility of the Wii U.

The mods used for Wii and other emulation allow you to play games from disk image files and other 'nice' things. That should speed things up nicely.

[chazzy2501]

@Norphy

 

yeap, that's what I meant, or got confused with... The Gamecube.. I have have one as well, the resident evil edition in silver.. I think anyway.

 

yes the gamecube was an over clocked n64 and the wii could play gamecube games (and use the controllers) (the first ones anyway)..

[Dos_Box]

The Wii U gamepad is a thing of wonder though. it's like they didn't even bother to test it on humans. Some long fingered ape perhaps, but not on real people!

Their idea that it would be used as a second screen when playing games ignored the fact that you'd have to shift your eyes between two very distinct focal lengths. It also hurts your eyes on some games in lower light with it casting light into your peripheral vision. Not good.

[Duranis]

I picked up a super cheap (but decent spec) laptop with a broken screen and keyboard which we use as our "retro games console" and streaming device. I ripped the insides out and mounted it behind the TV on the wall. Faster than a Pii and less space consuming that having the actual kit.

 

Honestly it doesn't get used that much. It always sounds like a nice idea going back to play the classics but in reality there are very few games that have stood the test of time and are something that I would still actually want to spend any real time playing.

 

We still have in our "retro" consoles and games:

A first model C64

Mega Drive

Dreamcast

N64

Playstation 1, 2, 3 and 4

Original xbox

Multiple Xbox 360's

Wii

Wii U

Multiple Nintendo DS's and 3DS's

 

I still use a DS occasionally to play Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced and we do get the Wii out every so often as the balance board and party games on it are pretty fun for family game nights. The rest though is just mostly sat in cupboards and I will probably end up selling it all on this year to make space.

 

Have to admit I have just borrowed a switch and bought animal crossing. My 5 year old daughter got it for Christmas and I got strangely hooked, been pretty fun to play it together with her.

[round2it]

I still have a homebrew'd Wii in the cupboard at home, along with a full complement of special edition anniversary wiimotes. Mario, Luigi, Yoshi and Bowser, IIRC.

I haven't touched it in years, but I can't bring myself to bin it.

 

Edit: My switch is also Gen1 and has the unfixable firmware flaw so I'm probably going to homebrew that at some point, but not until I have a second switch (as I suspect homebrews get the nintendo online services banhammer)

I don't pay for whatever they call their flavour of gaming-online-subscription but I assume e-shop etc won't work.

 

Edit2: There's also the ≈£100 I spent refurbishing a Gameboy Advance a few months back. That was a fun little project.

 

just keep them in the cupboard the prices are going up and up

 

I have just got back into retro gaming and the prices are getting silly, unless you get them from a charity shop

 

 

you might want to look at getting a ps3 slim or a backwards compatible phat and putting some cfw on it , ps1 ps2 ps3 and retroarch its a good machine for that

Edited January 7, 2022 by round2it

[chazzy2501]

I bought a ps3 slim recently! I had a post about it here, really just to play ps3 games I missed. I've been playing singularity a time travel what not and the first drakes fortune.. The Nazi submarine bit was a cool.

[Garacesh]

just keep them in the cupboard the prices are going up and up

Huh, really?

I bought it for £25 a few years ago and assumed it wouldn't ever be worth any more lol.

[Dos_Box]

Huh, really?

I bought it for £25 a few years ago and assumed it wouldn't ever be worth any more lol.

 

Yup, it's well worth keeping hold of older consoles now. I really wish that I'd snapped up all the ZX Spectrums and other 80's computers that were going for pennies when eBay first launched. Now worth many, many times more.