I picked up a cheap Wii to give it a try for the first time after looking into its library and finding out how many gems it had.

I’ve jailbroken a bit in the past, like the OG Xbox and PSP, but by god, the documentation available for jailbreaking the Wii is just superb, made it an absolute breeze to do. But what shocked me the most was the tools available post jailbreak. Being able to quickly connect the Wii to wifi and then have access to an extremely polished Homebrew software store, full of emulators and cool little community made games, which I could download directly to my wii effortlessly with the push of a button was something I had never experienced before with older consoles.

After playing around with it for a few weeks, it quickly went from a console I had passed over for decades as a gimmick, to literally my favorite console of all time. Such a great little box with so many games that give a totally unique experience. Also the balance board combined with Wii Fit and the multiple EA Fitness games for it offer a surprisingly fun way to motivate you to get some decent aerobic exercise.

It also helps that they’re really well made, quiet little devices that barely take up any room (and it doubles as a gamecube, too!)