Wiikey - Testing the Nintendo Wii Modchip

Wiikey is one of the modchips that is available for Nintendo's Wii gaming system. The modchip Wiikey lets you play backups from the same region,  which means Wiikey can play backed up PAL games on European systems and backed up NTSC games on Japanese and US Wii systems.

It is possible to play Japanese games on US Wii systems and vice verse but it is currently not possible to play all NTSC games on European Wii systems with Wiikey. You can also play backed up and imported Gamecube games with Wiikey as well as Gamecube homebrew discs.

Wiikey is working. I thought I just share that information before I begin explaining what I tested so far. I have a friend who is one of those geeks who likes to import gaming systems to play the original version of the game instead of a localized version.

Forgot to mention, I do own a Wiikey modded PAL Wii gaming system, my friend owns a US Wii system with some US games. I was not able to test Japanese games at all but I doubt that this is interesting for most users anyway. He owns a US Gamecube as well and brought over some Gamecube games that I could check to see if they would run on the Wiikey modded Wii system.

The first thing everyone using a Wiikey should do is to burn a Wiikey Setup ISO to DVD and load it into the Wii system. This can be used to test if the modchip is working correctly and make a couple of modifications to the system. You have to set region override to ok to play games from a different region. You can also increase drive speed here.

It works great with backups from the same reason but many games, like SSX Blur US do not work on my Pal Wii system. I was able to play some US Gamecube games though, namely Outlaw Golf and Tales of Symphonia.

The conclusion is simple. If you only want to play PAL / NTSC games with the Wiikey you should go and buy it immediately. If you would like to play different region games with the Wiikey you should try and find someone who tested those games before you buy a Wiikey or wait for a new version of Wiikey or a new modchip that supports region free games.

One way to get at least a partial compatibility  is to use so called region free patchesr that patch backups of games from other regions to look like the correct region for your Wii system. I found a Wii region patcher compatibility list, take a look at it here.

Update: The Wiikey website is no longer available. We have removed the link from the article as a consequence.

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