Work Around System Updates If Your Wii Is Homebrewed

How to make a homebrewed Wii play games that need system updates

By
Charles Herold
Charles Herold
Writer
  • California College of Arts and Crafts
A former Lifewire Writer, Charles Herold has been reviewing and writing about Nintendo video games, consoles, and peripherals for two decades.
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Updated on February 10, 2020
Wii Console and Wii Remote (black)
Nintendo

System updates are dangerous to a Wii console with homebrew installed on it. The update can "brick" the system or force you to restore the Homebrew Channel. However, some game disks contain a system update and won't let you play the game until your console installs the patch.

What If Something Happens to My Console?

If something like this happens to you, you can use the below method to patch the Wii's System Menu so games stop bothering you to update them before they're playable. You can keep the Homebrew Channel without having to update those titles.

Nintendo ended support for the Wii console and discontinued it in 2013.

How to Work Around System Updates on a Homebrewed Wii

The easiest way to workaround system updates, if your Wii is running System Menu 4 or higher, is to use StartPatch. Otherwise, StarFall should be used for version 3.2.

To check your system menu version, go to Wii Settings. The version number is on the upper right.

These applications can apply various hacks to your Wii, including one that allows you to play import games and another that turns off the annoyingly repetitive system menu background music.

There is also a hack that prevents the Wii from checking to see whether a game disk includes a system update. Use StartPatch or StarFall to install this hack and you won't have game disks insisting on updating before you can play them.

It should be noted these applications are somewhat dangerous because they rewrite your system flash memory. You can play it safer with Gecko OS, which lets you play import and update-insistent games without altering flash memory. But, Gecko does fail with some games.

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