Just gonna throw this out there; If you’ve never had a Nintendo Wii, I’d genuinely recommend picking one up and modding it.
My last console was a PS3, after that I went exclusively PC since every newer console seemed far too expensive for the very few exclusives that interested me, and they began to charge a monthly fee to play games online. The only console I didn’t have from that generation was the Wii, as I’d always written it off as a gimmick. But after taking a closer look at its library, it’s surprisingly packed with good titles, and the motion controls are a pretty unique way to interact with games.
I picked one up a few months ago off ebay, and even for a lot that included a Wii balance board, it was less than $80. Modding it was extremely easy, and after it was done, I was amazed to find that it has access to a surprisingly polished online homebrew store full of emulators and cool little homebrew games that download and install with a single click.
That means the console has access to:
The entire Wii library (Including unique modern light-gun style games, like Deadspace: Extraction, plus Wii fit with the balance board, which is actually really fun)
The entire gamecube library with the Nintendont emulator (best paired with either a gamecube controller or the Wii Classic controller)
Pretty much every retro console such as SNES, Genesis, GB, GBC, GBA, etc with emulators
The highlights of the N64 and NeoGeo catalog thanks to being ported to the Virtual Console (the Wii shop is dead, so you’ll need to sail to get those).
You can even still play online in Mario Kart thanks to modders, and it’s still active!
All for less than $100. It’s an absolute gem of a console, especially when paired with sailing the high seas (which is really easy since the Wii has an SD card slot, so you can slam it full of stuff), and has quickly become my favorite of all time. I sold every other console I’ve ever owned, but I suspect I’ll be keeping the Wii for the foreseeable future due to its versatility and ease of use (especially for retro games, no messing around with RetroArch’s horrible interface!)
As somebody who manages a piece of software often used in wii modding: ye, do it! Mod a wii :p
But seriously, the ps3/wii/x360 era were the last gen where the hardware design was rather simple and easy to understand, making it fun to play with and learn.
The wiiu ended up with a bootrom making it harder and way more complex to run your own stuff on it ( outside of wii-mode and non-system menu stuff ). Then the switch was a whole new level (and we got lucky there with the bootrom exploit).
Switch added secure bootrom, executable validation, firmware blobs, no-execute memory flags, dedicated crypto hardware in cpu with it’s own firmware, more secure mmu mapping, …
Even if you had raw access you still needed to implement some stuff just get hardware even going.
Just gonna throw this out there; If you’ve never had a Nintendo Wii, I’d genuinely recommend picking one up and modding it.
My last console was a PS3, after that I went exclusively PC since every newer console seemed far too expensive for the very few exclusives that interested me, and they began to charge a monthly fee to play games online. The only console I didn’t have from that generation was the Wii, as I’d always written it off as a gimmick. But after taking a closer look at its library, it’s surprisingly packed with good titles, and the motion controls are a pretty unique way to interact with games.
I picked one up a few months ago off ebay, and even for a lot that included a Wii balance board, it was less than $80. Modding it was extremely easy, and after it was done, I was amazed to find that it has access to a surprisingly polished online homebrew store full of emulators and cool little homebrew games that download and install with a single click.
That means the console has access to:
All for less than $100. It’s an absolute gem of a console, especially when paired with sailing the high seas (which is really easy since the Wii has an SD card slot, so you can slam it full of stuff), and has quickly become my favorite of all time. I sold every other console I’ve ever owned, but I suspect I’ll be keeping the Wii for the foreseeable future due to its versatility and ease of use (especially for retro games, no messing around with RetroArch’s horrible interface!)
As somebody who manages a piece of software often used in wii modding: ye, do it! Mod a wii :p
But seriously, the ps3/wii/x360 era were the last gen where the hardware design was rather simple and easy to understand, making it fun to play with and learn. The wiiu ended up with a bootrom making it harder and way more complex to run your own stuff on it ( outside of wii-mode and non-system menu stuff ). Then the switch was a whole new level (and we got lucky there with the bootrom exploit).
Switch added secure bootrom, executable validation, firmware blobs, no-execute memory flags, dedicated crypto hardware in cpu with it’s own firmware, more secure mmu mapping, …
Even if you had raw access you still needed to implement some stuff just get hardware even going.
Xbox Series S is also great for modding too. Wii U is nice for modding too IMO.