Wii Homebrew Channel

After almost a year of purchasing my Wii, I finally installed Homebrew Channel on it! It was a risky decision, as I could brick my Wii, making it completely useless. So far, I have spent around US$800-$900 on the games and accessories. If you risk making an investment of such a large sum useless, it’s a big decision. I spend many hours on google, and found a lot of tutorials, made a list of what needs to be done, still was not sure how to get help if I do something wrong. I tried looking for people, who can do this for me, but it was suppose to be such a simple thing (only for those who has done it), no one seems to be able to make a living out of it! But I think it’s a good idea, as I know there are a lot of people like me, who may not wants to do it on their own, and let someone expert do it for them, like unlocking the phone. So, where was I? Ok, I had the tutorial, the stuff, but not the courage to do it. Finally, I registered myself to two such forums where this is being discussed, and post the message, just my inclination of doing it. I got few replies from some experienced guys, who have put the tutorials as well, asking if I need any help. So, I post some more messages, clear few of my doubts and decided to start. As it has given me some confidence, that someone is available to help, if I needed.

Just after 30 min, I was done, well almost, because I needed to test few things, which requires playing backup games and that took some more time, but in just less than 30 min, I was sure that nothing went wrong with my Wii and the new channel Homebrew is installed on the main menu.

So, I decided to pick the simple tutorial used by me, and add few missing information, which were left out of tutorial, thinking people are smart, but I think when doing something like this, its better to be dumb and follow exact instructions. Below is my version of the tutorial, hopefully it’s a better one!

*DISCLAIMER*

I WILL TAKE ABSOLUTELY NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY WII’S THAT GET BRICKED DURING THIS PROCESS. PROCED AT YOUR OWN RISK! MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO DO HERE! YOU ARE GOING TO MODIFY THE SYSTEM FILES OF YOUR GAME CONSOLE, WHICH CAN TURN YOUR CONSOLE INTO COMPLETELY UNUSABLE, AND YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO RECOVER FROM IT. SO, IF YOU THINK THAT THE RISK IS WORTH TAKING, ONLY THEN CONTINUE. THERE ARE VERY LOW CHANCES OF BRICKING YOUR WII, BUT NO MATTER HOW SMALL THE CHANCE IS, YOU SHOULD KNOW WHOM (YOU) TO BLAME IF SOMETHING WENT WRONG! ALSO, I AM NOT AFFILIATED WITH NINTENDO OR THE HOMEBREW CHANNEL. ALL PROGRAMS ARE PROPERTY OF THEIR OWNERS. THE HOMEBREW CHANNEL OFFICIAL WEBSITE IS HTTP://HBC.HACKMII.COM/.

PLEASE ALSO NOTE THAT THIS TUTORIAL AND FILES PROVIDED IN IT ARE ONLY APPLICABLE FOR A PAL WII USED MAINLY IN EUROPE AND SOUTH ASIA. I BOUGHT MY WII IN LONDON, AND USE IT IN INDIA, SO IF YOU HAVE NTSC WII, PURCHASED IN AMERICA OR JAPAN, YOU NEED FEW DIFFERENT FILES, THE STEPS ARE SAME, BUT MY SUGGESTION WUOLD BE TO GOOGLE IT.

Well, the Disclaimer is long, but really needed. It took me almost six months to decide that I should do it. I kept a track of what’s happening on the soft mod development, and around 3 months back, the steps are much easier, and the software is much stable. So, I decided to proceed. Its entirely on you, if you need to proceed or not. But even if you don’t, proceed reading further, just to know what is possible now.

What is Homebrew Channel?

The Homebrew Channel is a self-updating homebrew application loader by Team Twiizers which allows users to load homebrew applications without having to run the Twilight Hack every time. Once installed, users can access the channel from the Wii Menu just like any other Wii channel. It can launch homebrew applications from an SD or SDHC card or via TCP/USB Gecko using Wiiload. The newest release is compatible with the 23 Oct Updates.

Well, the above might be like greek to most of you, then here is the simple English definition:

• The Homebrew Channel is a freeware homebrew application loader – So, it is just an application loader, help run other application.

• It was developed to provide a way of easily running unofficial software on the Wii console. – So it can allow you to install and run many unofficial applications on your Wii, which Nintendo don’t want you to try, like media Player, Calculator, game emulators etc.

• Once installed, it appears as a standard Wii Channel on the Wii Menu. When launched, it displays a list of applications found on an SD card, and the user can select an application to launch by using a GameCube controller or the Wii Remote.

Hope the above make more sense to you. But, there is another use of this, which I think is most widely used by everyone – It can run backup games burned on normal DVDs.

Not that I am deep into piracy, as the most piracy I have done so far is to watch some online videos and listen to some online music, where I don’t know if the server it was loaded on has license to show it or not. I don’t download movies or music, let alone games. It’s because I don’t need to, I can get the movies/music easily and very cheap on stores here. Why should I download it?

But I do want to backup my Wii games, as each one of these cost me around $30 to $40, and I don’t want a simple media failure ruined my money. So, this feature is useful for me as well.

What do you need? And how to do it…
A printout of this or any other tutorial you are following, so that you don’t miss any steps.
Wii Software Version – You can get this by clicking on the Wii icon in lower left corner on your mail menu. The version is displayed on the top right corner, and it could be something like 3.2E or 3.3E or 3.4E….

An SD card – Make sure its not SDHC (if its very cheap, it is not, but check on front, it should be written SD or SDHC). Also, the size should be of maximum 2 GB, as Wii does not recognize cards of more than 2 GB size.
A Card Reader – To put required files on the card from your computer.
A Computer – Oh yes, you need a computer to download and put the files on SD Card.
Internet Connection – this is only needed if you want to downgrade your Wii system version. If your Wii system version is 3.3E or 3.4E, you need this, and you need to connect your Wii to internet, wired or wireless.
An original PAL Zelda:Twilight Princess game disk
THESE FILES – Donwload from this link, or the two other links below


STEP 1 : Make a shady SD card
UnZip the contents of the file linked above to your empty SD card.
**IMPORTANT** If you've got 3.4 firmware navigate to SDCARD/private/wii/title/rzdp/, delete data.bin and rename Twilight3.4.bin to data.bin, or the twilight hack will fail...... otherwise let's crack on......
STEP 2 : Twilight hack
Put the newly created SD card in the Wii's SD slot
Go into Wii Options/Data Management/Save Data/SD card/ and copy over the twilight hack file to the wii.
Run Zelda:TP straight away and when the save file is loaded walk your man backwards, the game should crash and the ELF loader will pop up and start installing the homebrew channel
When asked to update homebrew channel ... accept
STEP 3 : Downgrade/Upgrade to 3.2, If you're already on 3.2 skip to STEP 4
STEP 3-1 : Only for peeps with 3.3/3.4 firmwares... anything else skip to STEP 3-2
Load Wad Manager in Homebrew Channel and install IOS16-64-v257-prod.wad
Load Custom WM in Homebrew Channel and install cios_fix.wad
Load IOS Downgrader in Homebrew Channel
STEP 3-2 Load cIOS Downgrader in Homebrew channel, scroll down to 3.2e (e = europe for PAL) and install.
You should now be running 3.2 firmware
STEP 4 : Install goodies
Go to homebrew channel and install starfall, read the gumpf and press B&1 when ready ( if you read the disclaimer it says use 1 instead of 2... B&1 ) and install everything on the list by pressing + on each item ( you might have to press B&1 a few times to get it to work )
Run cIOS Installer in Homebrew Channel
Load "Install Shop IOS51". Say Yes to installing IOS51,Yes to patching a fix but leave the Wii Shop Channel.
Load Wad Manager in Homebrew Channel and install BackupLauncher_03g_Wiiish_v3_EN.wad and IOS38-64-v3609.wad.
Now you should have the Wii_ish backup loader channel on the Wii menu.. use this to launch Wii backups

You can softmod without downgrading to 3.2 but starfall only runs on 3.2 and blocks games trying to update or mess with the firmware.