wii lcd screen free sample

As of June 2008, Nintendo has sold nearly 30 million Wii game consoles. This significantly exceeds the number of Tablet PCs in use today according to even the most generous estimates of Tablet PC sales. This makes the Wii Remote one of the most common computer input devices in the world. It also happens to be one of the most sophisticated. It contains a 1024x768 infrared camera with built-in hardware blob tracking of up to 4 points at 100Hz. This significantly out performs any PC "webcam" available today. It also contains a +/-3g 8-bit 3-axis accelerometer also operating at 100Hz and an expandsion port for even more capability. These projects are an effort to explore and demonstrate applications that the millions of Wii Remotes in world readily support.

Any software on this page is primarily meant for developers and may not run without proper the development tools installed. Downloading and installing this software is at your own risk, and no support or guarantee is provided with this software. The official discussion forums for my wiimote projects can be found here: NOTE: For most of these projects, you don"t need the Nintendo Wii console. You only need the Wii controller and a bluetooth connection.

Using an LED array and some reflective tape, you can use the infrared camera in the Wii remote to track objects, like your fingers, in 2D space. This lets you interact with your computer simply by waving your hands in the air similar to the interaction seen in the movie "Minority Report". The Wiimote can track upto 4 points simultaneously. The multipoint grid software is a custom C# DirectX program.

1. First, follow this walkthrough on using the wiimote with C#. You may need to download a copy of Visual C# Express to compile/run this sample if you don"t have it yet.

3. Download the Wiimote Multipoint Grid sample program. Make sure your wiimote is connected via bluetooth, and then run the ".exe" shortcut in the main folder.

A visit to this project"s FAQ and Advanced Discussion post may be very englightening. You may also find the official discussion forums for my wiimote projects helpful:

Since the Wiimote can track sources of infrared (IR) light, you can track pens that have an IR led in the tip. By pointing a wiimote at a projection screen or LCD display, you can create very low-cost interactive whiteboards or tablet displays. Since the Wiimote can track upto 4 points, up to 4 pens can be used. It also works great with rear-projected displays.

1. Connect your wiimote to your PC via Bluetooth. There are a number of tutorials online on how to do this, possibly even for you specific software/hardware configuration. The Wiimote works with many (but not all) Bluetooth drivers. You can report/read about compatibility issues at 2. Download the Wiimote Whiteboard software to the right. Please read the "READ ME.txt" file first! Make sure your wiimote is connected via Bluetooth, and then run the ".exe" in the main folder. NOTE: Good placement of the wiimote is key to good tracking. View the README for more info.

Multitouch: The multitouch demos are custom C# DirectX programs. You may download the sample program to the right, but this is provided for developers without support or documentation. The code is built on top of this Wiimote library. Unfortunately, multi-touch capable applications are currently extremely rare. Hopefully, that will change as more developers explore its potential.

Mac/Linux Versions: Due to personal time contraints, I probably won"t be able to make a port myself. But fairly mature versions are available online. However, I haven"t tried them myself. I"ve also created a Source Forge Project - Wiimote Whiteboard, but it does not seem to be getting much love.

A visit to this project"s FAQ and Advanced Discussion post may be very englightening. You may also find the official discussion forums for my wiimote projects helpful:Downloads:

Using the infrared camera in the Wii remote and a head mounted sensor bar (two IR LEDs), you can accurately track the location of your head and render view dependent images on the screen. This effectively transforms your display into a portal to a virtual environment. The display properly reacts to head and body movement as if it were a real window creating a realistic illusion of depth and space.

1. Connect your wiimote to your PC via Bluetooth. If you don"t know how to do this, you can follow this tutorial. I"ve been told it works with other Bluetooth drivers, but I have not tested them myself.

2. Download the WiiDesktopVR (v02) sample program. Read the README file on program usage and configuration. Launch the "WiiDesktopVR.exe" in the main folder. A potentially more stable/Vista/64-bit compatible version has been created by Andrea Leganza. There also may be more variants on the web.

Developers Notes: The code is built on top of this Wiimote library. To compile the program, you will need a C# IDE and the DirectX SDK. More notes are in the README.

A visit to this project"s FAQ and Advanced Discussion post may be very englightening. You may also find the official discussion forums for my wiimote projects helpful:

Released in the 2009 holiday season, Scene It? Bright Lights! Big Screen! is a game show-styled trivia contest, featuring more than 2,800 questions based on contemporary and classic cinema. Players compete to provide the most correct answers to a series of questions and brain-teasers, which are often based on video clips or stills taken directly from feature films. After watching a sequence from a famous movie, players may need to choose the next line spoken, for example, or recognize the events taking place in a movie by quickly studying a freeze-frame of the action. The Bright Lights! Big Screen! edition of the game uses 23 categories of questions and puzzles. As in earlier Scene It? games, available for use on standard DVD players as well as on home computers and consoles, the controls are extremely simple; the challenge is in recognizing the scenes and remember the characters or events hinted in the question. In Bright Lights! Big Screen!, which is designed especially for play on consoles, players can choose movie-themed outfits and props to customize the avatar character that represents them in the game.

Press the A Button with the cursor over the arrows to move the screen position left or right. The maximum amount of change is -8 (Left) or +8 (Right).

You can change the screen format for your Wii display by selecting Widescreen (16:9) or Standard (4:3). Please note that in addition to using the Wii"s setting, you must also adjust your television"s options to take advantage of its own widescreen mode. Some television sets will not change to widescreen display even when receiving widescreen input from the Wii console.

Some Wii software supports a 480p progressive output that displays at an enhanced quality compared to the standard 576i display. To view Wii display output in 480p, you must change your Wii’s TV Resolution setting from 50Hz (576i) or 60Hz (480i) to EDTV/HDTV (480p). Confirm your selection once it’s complete. (Games that do not support 480p will be displayed in 480i.)

In addition, you’ll also need the separately-sold Wii Component AV cable to connect your Wii to your HDTV or EDTV television. (You cannot see Wii progressive display output when the console is connected to a television using any other kind of cable.)

Select this display output when using any other kind of cable to connect with your television, such as the Wii AV cable and if both your television and the software you are using supports 60Hz (480i) mode.

When images are in the same spots for long periods of time, some television screens suffer "screen burn-in." The Wii Console can help prevent this effect with its Screen Burn-in Reduction feature. When activated, the Wii console will fade the screen when Wii software is paused for five or more minutes. To revert the screen to its original brightness, press any button on the Wii Remote other than the Power Button.

A. I thought that the mini-games were all fun–my favorite was "The Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest," which was reminiscent of the sword fighting in Wii Sports Resort, only better because you had to play it with other friends. It required team work with two people being swordsmen and one person (the one on the game pad) being an archer. The game pad mechanics were really cool: when you tilted the game pad upwards your arrows would reload and when you tilted it to the sides your character on screen would turn to his sides to see if any enemies were coming. You used your right trigger to charge up your arrows, and the longer you held that, the more powerful your shot would be...

Q. Let me ask you: while I was watching you play that game–you were on the game pad–and your focus seemed to be only on the game pad. Meanwhile, your friend seemed focused only on the television screen. Did you feel like you were actually collaborating–because from my perspective it looked like you were having unrelated experiences.

A. No! We talked while we were playing! I really liked the game pad! The thing is, when you"re playing a split screen co-op, it can get annoying because you don"t get a lot of space. It can be hard to see what"s happening to your character. So I found it nice to have my own screen!

Q. Let"s assume that there is a Wii U version of Xbox Live included in the Wii U choice...I think I read somewhere that you would have a similar option.

A. Well, I"d go with the Wii U, then. That game pad is game changing! I like Microsoft fine but Nintendo owns the rights to Metroid, Link, Mario...those are just staple franchise characters.

(To sum: It was definitely a fun afternoon! PS: The amount of street-cred I now have with my kids is truly enviable. I have to thank Nintendo for extending their "Wii U Experience" invitation to me and my family!)

As most people know by now, Nintendo has a special deal for anyone who’s a Wii U owner and already owns a Wii Balance Board. If you download the free 31-day trial version of Wii Fit U from the Nintendo eShop, all you have to do is purchase this $19.99 Fit Meter and register it in-game to convert the trial version into the full version. Considering that the retail bundle of the physical game + Fit Meter will cost $49.99, you can save $30 right away. (This deal is only good until 1/13/14).

The Wii Fit Meter comes packaged in a small blue box. Opening the box revealed the Fit Meter itself carefully wrapped in a thin foam sleeve, all inside a small bubble wrap bag. There’s also a one-sheet instruction manual with basically one instruction: remove the plastic tab in the unit to activate the battery–and then refer to the Wii Fit U online manual for the rest. This sheet also has Nintendo’s standard 12-month warranty.

While early reports were that the Fit Meter would come in a variety of colors, for North America the only color you can get right now is black and grey. There are some rumors that they will be coming in red and green to match the upcoming Mario and Luigi Wii Remotes, and that other colors are already available in Europe. I’m sure they’ll be coming in multiple colors soon enough and the good news is, even in black and grey the unit looks really sharp and blends in with clothing when you wear it on your waist.

The Wii U logo is on top, and there are three buttons on the bottom, a left and right arrow and a large button in the middle. The middle of the unit is a 1″ x 3/4″ LCD screen; it looks like it can scratch easily, so I’d definitely cover the area with clear tape or a screen protector of some kind. For such a light object it seems pretty durable; I’ve dropped it about 3-4 times already each time expect it to come flying apart, but so far it’s stayed together. YMMV, of course.

When you power up the unit (basically by removing the plastic battery tab), you’ll see an icon of the Fit Meter next to an icon of the Wii U GamePad on the LCD screen, basically telling you to register it to your Wii U.

The first thing you have to do is start up Wii Fit U, but make sure that you’re signed in to the profile that you want associated with the Fit Meter. While multiple users in Wii Fit U can use a Fit Meter, each person has to have their own.

To get started with the registration process, you can go under User Settings on Wii Fit U, or simply click on the bouncing Fit Meter. You’ll get a description of the Fit Meter, as well as the option to register it.

Click on the “Register” button. You’ll be told to point the Fit Meter to your Wii U Gamepad. It took me a few tries before I realized I had to point the *top* of my Fit Meter to the *top* of the GamePad, basically pointing the Wii U logo to the dark and shiny infrared sensor at the top of the unit (take a very close look at the diagram on your TV to see how things should line up).

You then press and hold the middle (round) button on the Fit Meter (making sure not to move the unit). It may take a little trial and error to get the alignment right–the trick is to hold the Fit Meter reallysteady and parallel to the Wii U GamePad.

If you get an error message on your Fit Meter saying “Cannot Find Connection” or a message on your GamePad saying “Unable to connect with the Fit Meter. Shall I try again?”, chances are either the Fit Meter isn’t lined up just right, your hand might have moved, or you may not have kept the button held down. In any case, try again and it should work once you get the hang of it. When all goes well, you’ll see a “Transferring Data” screen as the system’s high-pitched voice repeats “transmitting data”.

On your TV, you’ll see the message “Your profile has been applied to the Fit Meter”, followed by a message from the animated Balance Board (with a new friend, the Fit Meter next to him) saying “I’ve put your information on the Fit Meter! Now you can record activity you do outside of Wii Fit U on the Fit Meter. When you’re training in Wii fit U, you won’t need your Fit Meter since I’ll keep track of the calories you burn. But be sure to wear the Fit Meter at your waist as you go about your daily activities! Then we can track the calories you burn throughout the day. To conserve power, the Fit Meter goes into sleep mode when not in use. Hold down the middle button to take the Fit Meter out of sleep mode. ”

Caution! Before deleting save data in Wii U System Settings, you must first reset and delete any Fit Meter registrations from Fit Meter in User Settings.

Lo and behold, when you look at your Fit Meter, you’ll see your Mii’s face magically appear on the LCD screen! Not only this, but with the typical Nintendo sense of humor, the Mii’s facial expressions will change as you exert more or less energy, which kind of reminded me of those old Tomagatchi pocket pets of many years ago.

To save battery, the unit will go to sleep mode and shut off its display, but will continue to track you. It’s unclear how long the battery will last, but as long as the majority of the time you keep the screen off it should last for a very long time–many months if not longer. And when the battery does finally go out, the good news is that it appears to be easily replaceable. You unscrew a single Phillips screw on the back of the unit, which reveals a standard CR 2032 watch battery, which you can purchase on eBay or at just about any drug store or retailer.

There’s actually a surprising amount of information you can get on the unit alone. Pressing the left and right buttons simultaneously appeared to reset the altitude. Pressing and quickly releasing the middle button lets you scroll through various tiny graphs on the unit, including a METs (Metabolic Equivalents, basically a measure of exertion) graph, an altitude chart (great if you’re hiking up a mountain), a chart of calories burned by week, and settings for volume (of the various chirps the unit makes) and for contrast of the LCD display.

Moving forward, whenever you start up Wii Fit U and select your profile with the registered Fit Meter, the system will ask you to point your Fit Meter to the GamePad and sync the data (note that you can’t sync data once you’re in the game–you would need to exit out of the game first to the Wii Fit Plaza and then re-enter).

After you register your device you’ll notice that some of the things in Wii Fit U change as well, which is confirmation that you’ve officially gone from the “31 Day Trial” version to the full, unlocked version of the game. First, you’ll notice that your Mii is now wearing the Fit Meter on his or her waist. There’ll also be two new menu options:

If you have exercise goals set up, Wii Fit U will determine from the synced data if you’ve met those goals through your daily activity, and if not, will suggest additional activities within the game for you to complete your goals.

Welcome to the tremendously risky future of video gaming. On Sunday, Nintendo delivered the first product in the next wave of major video game consoles, releasing its much-anticipated Wii U, just in time for the insanity of Black Friday.

For $299.99 (and, oh, seven hours waiting in line), you can grab an 8GB console; an extra $50 nets you a 32GB unit, complete with charging cradle for the Wii U Gamepad, some other accessories, and the flagship game, NintendoLand.

No matter the version, you"re getting a forward-thinking console that attempts to deliver more than mere graphics horsepower. As usual, Nintendo tries to think ahead, marrying a tablet and controller to create the Wii U Gamepad.

The company hopes that this innovation catches on in the same way that motion controls once lured moms and pops to stand up and bowl and hit imaginary tennis balls when the Wii first hit stores six years ago.

And at the same time, Nintendo hopes to gain the hardcore gamer back, delivering enough graphical power to run the hits that have long shunned the Wii in recent years.

Does it work? Well, the hardware is impressive enough to make this your go-to home console (Nintendo"s goal), and the games show the Wii U"s overall potential. But everything is held back by some iffy internet capabilities. Nintendo has long been an innovative game company, but with the Wii U it ventures out of its comfort zone to craft an online ecosystem. And in this respect, it gets off to a slow start.

The console itself is built well, and built simply. Six years after Nintendo"s Wii set ushered in the idea of motion controls – and set the stage for Xbox"s brilliant Kinect – the Wii U tries to do the same, building around the Wii U Gamepad.

Essentially, Nintendo took a traditional dual-stick controller and stuffed a 6.2-inch LCD touchscreen right smack in the middle. The resulting Gamepad looks like a tablet for kids, or a Sega GameGear with a much larger screen. But it somehow feels comfortable; even

The Gamepad links to the console wirelessly, and the Wii U unit looks much like your old Wii. It"s slightly longer than your Wii, but at less than four pounds, it"s Lilliputian next to an Xbox 360. Setup is relatively painless. Nintendo includes an HDMI cable, so you get top-notch graphics, and pairing the Gamepad and the console is simple.

The versatility of the Wii U once it"s set up is stunning. One of the most impressive features (and an underrated selling point) of the console is how nearly every title can have all its action shifted entirely to the touchscreen, freeing the TV for others in the household and essentially making the console "portable" to some extent. At times, I simply turned the Gamepad on and started playing a game on the touchscreen, leaving my TV on ESPN.

The LCD screen is not HD, but most games still looked solid, and many, such as Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition, looked downright impressive. And switching back and forth from TV to LCD screen is so easy; when NBA 2K13 on the small screen got taxing on my eyes, I finally switched Steelers-Ravens off on the big screen. NetFlix also works in this capacity, and in an era when everyone loves the Optimum app on their iPad, the Wii U"s ability to showcase full-console games on the second screen could be something special.

But the perfection ends quickly after that. The Wii U comes with one Gamepad, and you can"t buy additional Gamepads separately as of now. Nintendo intends other gamers to either use the Pro Controller, a standard controller without an LCD screen (and with amazing battery life), or WiiMotes. Yes, that means, you"ll dust off your arcane WiiMotes, the same ones that have been around for more than a half-decade and rely on classic AA batteries.

It"s a nice gesture toward backward compatibility, one meant to save families money, but it"s also a step backwards for gaming. After playing Dance Central completely freely on an Xbox Kinect, do you TRULY want to return to Just Dance 4 on the Wii U, with a WiiMote tethered to your wrist and comparatively inaccurate motion sensing?

Powering up the Wii U reveals a surprisingly sluggish menu system. Touchscreen navigation is intuitive and simple, but shifting between applications is strangely slow, taking more than 10 seconds to go from System Settings back to the main menu. The load time was so odd that I tried it three times just to make sure I hadn"t done something wrong. Hopefully, this is something Nintendo can fix in an update, because it makes an awful first impression.

Nintendo"s first-party titles and several of Ubisoft"s initial offerings show the originality that the Wii U hopes to cultivate, and they show plenty of variety. The included NintendoLand game showcases loads of multiplayer creativity, pushing the unique idea of "asymmetric gaming."

Both have one Gamepad-equipped gamer rushing around, while other players, equipped with WiiMotes, chase the gamer relying on communication and the big screen. Such experiences are tremendously fun, and you can expect to see plenty of copycat games – some taking these experiences to the next level and many serving as lazy ports – in the coming years.

More important is the host of quality hardcore third-party titles available. Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition, Mass Effect 3: Special Edition, NBA 2K13 and Madden NFL lead the flood. Each is a full-fledged game that makes no concessions, unlike the titles that appeared on the old Wii, and each runs smoothly.

They"re trying to show an interest in the Wii U"s second screen, of course, but by forcing you to look away from the big screen when playing games that were originally designed for the big screen, these games annoy more than they impress. Only Ubisoft"s Zombie U, built from the ground up for the Wii U, avoids such pratfalls.

Still, there are slight inconsistencies in the release titles. NBA 2K13 seems to suffer from framerate issues, for example, but none of this is unexpected. As one head of a prominent development house told me, Nintendo distributed development kits so late that "it would have been challenging" to truly put time and energy into a game that truly innovated on the Wii U. Expect more innovation in the Wii U games that show up next summer and next Christmas. You have to hope Nintendo"s online experience is also much-improved by next year, because, at release, the entire thing has plenty of shortcomings.

For months, Nintendo has hyped the idea of Nintendo TVii, an app that"s supposed to aggregate your on-demand TV options and cable programming to shake up the way you view TV. It"s similar to Sony"s Google TV unit, really, but pairing it with console capabilities could easily put the Wii U Gamepad in your hands permanently.

Such struggles instantly place the Wii U behind our current-gen consoles – the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 – as a multimedia hub. In the long run, you"ll love the fact you can watch videos on your Wii U  touchscreen. But for now? Get ready for plenty of early frustration.

Another issue is a lack of anything resembling Microsoft"s brilliant Xbox Achievement setup. Achievements have long held an allure, letting friends compete against friends for Achievement scores, and they"re so appealing that Sony followed suit with PlayStation Trophies. At the moment, however, there"s nothing similar in the Wii U"s online ecosystem. That"s a glaring omission, although, like everything on the Wii U, it could change in the coming weeks.

If you already have an Xbox 360 or a PS3, add this to your Christmas list, but feel free to put a few things above it. You can afford to sit tight for a few months, avoid the holiday rush, and wait out the Wii U"s early hiccups. One day, you"ll certainly want a Wii U, because this console"s potential is impressive, far better than its predecessor.

So unless you need to play New Super Mario Bros. U right now, you don"t need a Wii U. But it"s hardly the worst thing to find under your Christmas tree.

While not quite as elegant as the Switch, the PiiWii is one of the more sleek and practical solutions for playing Wii and GameCube games on a handheld ever modded. And it only took its creator three years to complete it.

Shank Mods, who you might remember as the guy who decided to stick the internals of a Wii inside an Altoids tin, recently took to YouTube to share his latest finished project: a handheld Wii that plays both GameCube and Wii games stored on USB drives. Like the Altoids project, the PiiWii also uses original Wii internals. That means there’s no emulation involved.

He accomplished this feat by cutting up the Wii circuit boards and rearranging them into a much smaller configuration that could fit inside a small, laser cut plastic shell accompanied by small speakers, a battery, and cooling system. As you can imagine, the smaller form factor means more heat, which is why there’s a beefy intake vent on the top and output vent on the back.

In addition to the LCD screen, the front of the PiiWii sports a combination of GameCube face buttons and 3DS circle pads. While it doesn’t have motion controls built in, it is compatible with Wiimotes via mini-sensors next to where the speakers output.

The only thing the PiiWii is missing is the original Wii’s optical drive. It was left out to stop the handheld from getting impractically big and heavy,. Games are loaded off of a USB flash drive, including WiiWare games, many of which will become officially unavailable when the Wii Shop Channel goes offline at the end of this month.

While Shank isn’t producing the PiiWii for sale, it is a great example of how old tech can be repurposed for convenient, modern use. For more details on how it was put together and the three-year saga behind its creation, you can check out Shank’s work log over on Bit Built.

During the Electronic Entertainment Expo last month, Nintendo introduced the world to the next iteration of its home video-game console. The new system - called the Wii U - takes yet another offbeat approach to video games, though it"s not as groundbreaking as the accessible-motion gaming of the Wii.

The Wii U, which will miss the holiday 2011 season and arrive on shelves sometime in 2012, represents a further evolution and update to the Wii itself. The new game system finally brings high-resolution gameplay to the Nintendo platform and promises video on par with Microsoft and Sony"s current game systems.

The new innovations of the Wii U focus on the player"s interaction with the system. Instead of a traditional button-laced handheld controller, the Wii U uses an iPad-like touch tablet with a 6.2-inch LCD screen built in. This new controller/display combination allows play even without a TV connected and includes a camera to track and augment traditional on-screen games.

The Wii U release date is about a year away, so a price has not been announced. Neither has much else about the system, besides that the Super Smash Bros. game series will be converted for the new Wii.

Parents who want to stay in the know should keep an eye on the Wii U. Undoubtedly, gamers young and old will be putting it on their birthday and Christmas lists next year.

The long-awaited and much-anticipated Nintendo Wii U,the company"s newest version of its Wii gaming console, finally became available on November 18 in the U.S., and I was lucky enough to get my hands on one. After playing pretty much non-stop for a couple days, I can say the Wii U is a big improvement over the original Wii.

It adds high-definition graphics to the Wii platform, bringing it up to the visual level of competing consoles. And the tablet-like GamePad controller brings additional functions and controls to your gaming. On the downside, at $300 to $350, the new Wii is at least twice as expensive as the original Wii (which is still available). Even so, after just a couple of days, the Wii U is widely sold out.

New design. The Wii U is deeper than the original Wii, but it"s fairly thin, so it won"t take up too much room in your entertainment center. You load discs into the front of the console, as you did with the original Wii. The Wii U has two USB ports on the front and two more on the back of the console, as well as ports for HDMI and AV connections. (Only an HDMI cable is included.)

The GamePad, the Wii U"s tablet-like controller, has a 6.2-inch touch screen, which looks good when you"re gaming or watching movies. It comes with a stylus and dual joysticks, two shoulder buttons and triggers, and four face buttons for gaming. It also has a Power and Home button and a separate volume control (while the sound on the GamePad is adequate for quick gaming sessions, I recommend using headphones for longer periods of gaming and for watching movies). More interesting is the TV button: Since the GamePad can also control your TV and cable box, the TV button brings up the onscreen controls for those devices. Getting started. Upon plugging in the Wii U, you"re guided through a simple setup for syncing the GamePad to the console, along with date and time settings. Next comes the setup for the universal remote feature, which I found was particularly helpful and easy. While setting up the Internet connection is easy enough, I did encounter an update that took just under an hour to complete on my system. (I"m sure the kids will love waiting for that on Christmas morning!)

Next you"re guided through setting up a user ID, either by creating a Mii (an onscreen avatar) or importing one wirelessly from a Nintendo 3DS. I imported my Mii with no difficulty. You can also transfer save files and game purchases from the original Wii to the Wii U.

Once I finished setting up, a home screen displaying floating icons and groups of Mii characters appeared, with an occasional pop-up message showing helpful tips. The GamePad is where the menu navigation takes place, though: It displays a grid of boxes with different apps inside, much like the home screen on the original Wii. You can navigate the screen with the joysticks or simply by tapping on the screen. You can also swap the images back and forth between both screens by pushing the X button.

But how are the games? After popping in the New Super Mario Bros. U game, I was happy to finally see Mario in HD. The GamePad screen mirrored the TV screen during the story mode of the game, so I could freely choose which screen was more convenient to look at. There are also multiplayer modes for up to five players—four onscreen and one on the GamePad.

The GamePad was a little awkward to hold at first, but once I was used to the button layout, I didn"t find it to be uncomfortable. To change things up, I switched over to Mass Effect 3: Special Edition. This game is also available on the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3, and it looks every bit as good on the Wii U as it does on those systems.

In Mass Effect, the GamePad served as a map and menu display: This is helpful and keeps the screen free of clutter. Also, by holding the select button, I could switch the game from the TV screen to the GamePad screen, a huge advantage for anyone who is married and/or has kids. (I can play a full console game on my GamePad screen while my wife is watching "Glee.") I hope to see this feature included on more Wii U games.

Another interesting application is Wii U chat, which lets you video-chat with other Wii U users. Nintendo has also created its own social networking feature for the console, called Miiverse. Here you can socialize with friends and post public messages for the world to see. You can use the GamePad touch screen to write and draw messages.

Bottom line. I"ve really enjoyed playing on the Wii U and look forward to more fun gaming. So far, I"ve found the GamePad to be a very intuitive addition to the game play. I definitely recommend the Wii U to anyone looking to upgrade from an original Wii console.

That doesn"t mean you should shy away from this console if you don"t currently own a Wii: Considering its HD visuals and a collection of more mature titles, hardcore gamers shouldn"t overlook the Wii U. There really is something for gamers of all ages on this console.

The Wii U comes in two versions: The white Basic Set ($300) comes with the console, GamePad, and connection and charging cables. The black Deluxe Set ($350) adds a console and GamePad stand to that bundle, as well as a game, Nintendo Land. I"d recommend springing for the Deluxe Set, because you"re getting so much extra value for the additional $50. Nintendo Land as a standalone game is $60 dollars, for example.

The Wii is Nintendo"s second disc-based home console, and the first to have fairly in-depth online capabilities, plus a sophisticated updatable operating system. The Wii shares much of its base hardware with the GameCube, and thus most models are backward-compatible with GameCube discs and Memory Cards.

The system menu contains a DVD banner for the Disc Channel, which would presumably be displayed when a DVD was inserted. This, along with spotted functions in the code (specifically syscalls 50 and 51, which control DVD video-related functions), suggests Nintendo planned to include DVD playback for the Wii.

The Wii"s hardware is capable of DVD playback, but it was scrapped likely because they had to pay a small fee with every console shipped for licensing issues (a similar situation occurred with the original Xbox, which required an add-on for DVD Video playback due to Microsoft omitting the DVD logo on its console so the licensing fee wouldn"t have to be paid for every unit produced).

The ability to play DVDs on the Wii can be "unlocked" through Wii homebrew software, but this does not work on some newer Wii consoles due to the drive chip being changed.

In diskBann.ash, the brlyt files show that the DVD Disc is actually still in the Disc Channel"s banner, but invisible and also to the left of the Wii Disc and is slightly off-screen. The same is also true for the reflection image of the DVD Disc. A shade for the DVD also exists, but is incorrectly named "DVDSahde" and is still invisible.

It is possible to get this image to show up, but you will need to edit the .brlyt file manually since Wii Layout Editor cannot save .brlyt edits correctly.

On July 20, 2021, a few prototype designs for the Wii Remote were leaked on the Internet, and some of them featured "Back" and "Pause" buttons as opposed to the final"s "Plus" and "Minus", which may have been the design intended for the scrapped DVD functionality.

The Disc Channel does not display this text when reading a disc, although it may be a leftover from the GameCube. In later versions of the Wii Menu, the locations of these strings still exist but are blank.

Even if the time limit option was implemented, the system uses the limitOver.ash file and doesn"t use the text string. These strings link in with the unused time limit option for Wii Channels.

Originally, games could have had a flag for controller requirements set, with the Wii Menu not allowing the game to be launched until the required controller has been connected. The Wii SDK includes a package for banner mastering; in its release notes, a note dated September 2006 mentions the removal of this flag, which was present in the game"s banner.

This was never used, even in Wii Menu 1.0, but the text seems to suggest that the Wii may not have launched with the Address Book or WiiConnect24 until Wii Menu 2.0. Interestingly, this string still exists in Wii Menu 4.3.

Some of the messages that were used to demonstrate the uses of the Wii Message Board at the Wii Channels conference on September 14, 2006. The message about the cat also appears in the Wii Manual on Pages 32 and 36. The cat picture itself is on the Photo Channel"s banner.

These were used to demonstrate the uses of the Wii Address Book. They also appear in the Wii manual on Pages 35 and 37. The UK Wii manual has different names, with "Dad Mobile" on Page 37 and just "Dad" on Page 39.

Specifically: See if it"s possible to get the Home Menu to display on TV no Tomo Channel G Guide for Wii in case these images display on the Home Menu. Also check the brlyt files, we might find where these images were supposed to be used, where they are located, and if they"re visible or not.

Within exBtn.ash are multiple files indicating that, at some point, the Wiimote had functionality to act as a TV remote. This may have also been from when DVD functionality was planned.

This feature would later be implemented in the Japan-only Ｗｉｉテレビリモコン (Wii TV Remote) to Platinum members from 2005 to October 2006, the month prior to the release of the Wii and the regular Wii Remote.

In Wii Menu 1.0-3.0, you can find a file called tvrc_DB.arc which has .bin files which probably were used to control the TV. TV no Tomo Channel G Guide for Wii also has this file.

In board.ash is an image called Nigaoe.tpl ("nigaoe" translates to "portrait") that contains a small picture of Mario. This icon was also used in early screenshots and videos of

Wii Menu 1.0 has a file called tanuki.arc, which inside it has a picture called okane.tpl ("okane" translates to "money") which has a render of Tom Nook from

myLetterS.tpl contains an unused picture of a memo for the Wii Message Board, while myLetterS_a.tpl contains the final picture of a memo. The unused graphic appeared in a prerelease screenshot.

myLetterS_Game_a.tpl contains an unused Animal Crossing graphic used for memos regarding the game which was shown at the September 14, 2006 Wii Channels conference. The only remaining Animal Crossing-related memo graphic that exists is the orange envelope with a leaf logo on the red sticker from sending a letter to the Wii Message Board via Pelly in the Post Office window of Town Hall in Animal Crossing: City Folk.

In letter.ash are two Mii icon pictures: myNigaoePos.tpl (an early Mii icon used to select Miis on the Wii Message Board), and th_mii_icon_a.tpl (the final Mii icon with the same use above).

Some early Wii executables have a variant on the standard error message, which is also present in sample disc error headers in the SDK. The "Startup Disc" placeholder System Menu has an even earlier message that mentions the Revolution.

The first ~300,000 Wii units to be manufactured included an incomplete System Menu. Rather than re-flash all of these units before shipping, Nintendo included a Startup Disc that was required to be inserted to update the system"s firmware on first-run. Most of these units were shipped to retailers for use in demo kiosks. These units would display the above screen instructing the user to insert the Startup Disc.

Early Wii retail boxes include a reference to the Startup Disc in the package contents, however only a few actually-incomplete units shipped to end consumers. Nintendo asked that users affected ship their units back to Nintendo for replacement.

The Startup Disc System Menu also checks if a Title ID of a Wii Disc is "RAAE" and if it is any other Title ID, then the disc is rejected. In any other version of the System Menu, if a Disc ID has "RAAE" then the disc is rejected (note that RAAE01 is the default titleID in the SDK). The Startup Disc Menu also accepts discs with Title IDs starting with a number, allowing it to natively run auto-boot discs such as the Wii Backup Disc and Movie-Ch Install Disc. If a disc is accepted, the Startup Disc Menu plays a short fade-out animation.

The Startup Disc was discovered on September 2, 2020, when an anonymous user leaked numerous internal Nintendo files to 4chan. The disc is a bulk title installer which provides Wii System Menu 1.0 (v33), MIOS v1, BC v1, Mii Channel v0, Photo Channel v0, Forecast, News, and Wii Shop channels v0.

In limitover.ash, there are some unused graphics indicating that you can"t use a Channel after a certain period of time. This was most likely intended for demos. Each title for the Wii has an option for a time limit, but Nintendo never used this on the Wii. This feature would later find its way to the 3DS and Wii U, which do have demos with a maximum play limit. In the Wii Shop JavaScript files, there are references to title categories including subscriptions, rentals, and demos; this is most likely the intended use of this feature.

When Wiis had their NANDs programmed in the factory, Nintendo would have used discs and tools to install boot2 and important system menu files. However, one of these tools was discovered by fluffy. These tools would be imported onto the NAND, and would then be deleted after they were no longer needed. However, one of these Wiis still had a factory tool on the NAND. The disc itself is known as "0002". What is known about it is that it can import files from an SD Card and then write it to the NAND. This application reads from a file on the SD card known as "all.ini", containing a list of DOL files launched from the SD card.

The Wii has a maintenance mode (available to access on all system menu versions!) accessible by holding the + and - buttons on the Wii Remote for several seconds on the health and safety screen. When continuing, the user is prompted with a message stating the following:

An interesting part about this mode is its ease of access. Usually, a mode made for testing a consoles functions wouldn"t be this easy to access (EX: Hidden in the consoles bios, a different piece of hardware used, or outright removing the mode from the retail release.) However, that"s not the case with the Wii. As of now, it"s unknown why it"s like this.

The Wii Menu has special handling for the titleIDs associated with the "region free" Forecast and News Channel stubs (00010002-HAFA and HAGA). It will replace the Start button with an Update button pointing directly to the Wii System Update feature (part of the Wii Menu), as well as hide said stubs if the matching region-specific actual Channel is also installed.

While the stub channels appear to be unnecessary for the functionality of those applications, they are still installed on every regular Wii released. They can be seen again by uninstalling the functional channels using homebrew.

Neither the actual channels nor the stubs are present on the Wii Mini or Wii U, as the WiiConnect24 service was not offered on those systems. If manually installed on a Wii U, the Update button not only remains functional but also provides access to the normally hidden Wii System Settings via canceling the update.

The nonfunctional v0 version of the Wii Shop Channel (00010002-HABA) preinstalled on 1.0 Wiis also has a banner and icon in the same style, but it is built into the channel itself instead of a stub.

Shortly before the release of 1.0, IOS was modified to not verify installed titles at runtime, to improve performance. This is the primary reason unsigned digital titles are viable on the Wii without further modifications once some method of installing them to internal storage is achieved.

Wii Menu 1.0 lacks a button in network settings to access the EULA hidden channel (which, along with the Region Select hidden channel, is not preinstalled on 1.0 systems).

The Disc Channel icon in 1.0 and 2.x has the Wii logo appear every few seconds. In 3.0, it was changed to have the Disc spin. The Wii logo also never appears.

Despite having always been possible in the main screen with the available channels, the three pages of settings could not be scrolled with the -/+ buttons until this feature was added in a certain version of the System Menu.

The destination of the bottom-left button was changed to hide the settings pages (as vWii configuration is synchronized from and to that of WiiU mode when switching between them).

As the Wii only supports the 480p mode when using YPbPr cables, but the Wii Mini omits components required for any video cable beyond the plain composite one (despite using the same DAC as the fully featured models), the 480p option was removed.

The Wii Mini famously dropped any official support for networking, going as far as recompiling every IOS to disable and fake Wi-Fi card support (which would otherwise be required for operation).

The Wii Mini, therefore, can"t be updated over the internet. Disc updates are also blocked, presumably since - despite the risk of incompatible Wii system titles being installed having been averted by the use of inflated version numbers on Wii Mini software - some disc updates (such as the one bundled with Xenoblade Chronicles) also include advertisement channels for online services.

For unknown reasons, the American splash screen was decolorized: the warning symbol and URL for further information are white instead of, respectively, yellow and blue. The Japanese and Korean versions point directly to a localized website instead of a language selector.

In the home menus of each officially-released game, the text showing each player and their number differ. In addition, the menu itself is known as the "Home Button Menu" in Japan and Korea rather than just the "HOME Menu" in the US, and the "Wii Remote" is known as the "Wii RemoCon" in Japan (or "Wii Remote Control").

Note that (just like the network configuration tool in DS and PlayStation 2 games), the "Wii"s" HOME Menu is in fact individually compiled in every licensed title, resulting in differences across them depending on the version of the HOME library used in the title.

While the international versions contain support for GameCube compatibility, the Korean version of the system menu does not, possibly due to the GameCube having ceased to be a mainstream console by the time of the Korean launch, and/or due to Korea being switched from Japan to a segregated region in the transition to the Wii. This change was also reflected in the Wii Mini and the Wii U"s Virtual Wii (but not the Wii Family Edition, which runs the same software as the original models).

Korean Wiis do in fact still contain the BC and MIOS system titles, respectively responsible for starting and running GameCube backwards compatibility.

Technically, the DAC used in any Wii can output any video mode, but (as an holdover from the GameCube with separate PAL and NTSC video encoders), RGB and S-Video formats remain exclusive to the respective two video standards, nullifying the former"s advantage as an universal format.

In Japan, where D-Terminal was popular, such a cable was released for the Wii: it is the only official video cable to use status bits (progressive scan and aspect ratio) available in the Wii"s video connector.

The Japanese version of the System Menu has a Simple Start option in the connection setup menu, allowing you to easily connect your Wii to a Simple Start compatible router. Since such routers are exclusive to Japan, the button got removed in the other regional System Menu versions.

A so-called semi-brick: on an incompletely region-changed console, the Wii Menu fails to load settings pages embedded into it from a nonexistant region- and language-specific path. This screen is always displayed in English.

The European Wii Menu allows the user to select between English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Dutch; the American version only offers English, French, and Spanish, while the Asian variants are monolingual and therefore completely lack this option from the third page of settings.

Note that, while there is only one kind of English/French/Spanish, a program may also read the console"s "AREA" region and discriminate on its basis to provide separate American and European localizations - or, equally as likely, fail to do so as in the case of the Wii Menu itself (pictured).

Tickets (licenses) for Wii titles primarily contain a title key for decrypting the title at installation time. That is itself encrypted through a common key, but the ticket can specify which of the common keys should be used.

Most Wiis only have the 0th key, which is sourced from the integrated OTP PROM (ebe42a225e8593e448d9c5457381aaf7 on retail systems) and therefore used on all software. But Korean consoles have a second key (number 1) in EEPROM, which is used by Korean software; while obviously resulting in supplementary regional segregation, the true motive has been debated since its discovery.

For unclear reasons, non-negligible numbers of Korean consoles were sold on the gray market after being converted to American. Nintendo attempted to destructively stop this with IOS70 and higher (i.e. Wii Menu 4.2+), which added to this combination the ability to read out the Korean Key and halt with an "Error 003" if detected on a non-Korean system.

Workarounds, apart from abstaining from use of Wii Menu 4.2 and higher, include copying IOS60 over IOS70/80 (in which case the detection will fail safe) and/or actively removing common key 1 with the KoreanKii homebrew.

DVDHome.bmg is a message file containing strings related to the removed DVD playback feature in the Japanese version of Wii Menu 1.0 (it is also present and identical in 1.0 RC1). Several of the strings resemble those in the retail HOME Menu, though with less clear wording.