Wii Unlock and Homebrew Software Reviews

If you have researched about how to unlock your Wii, no doubt you have seen lots of hype-filled articles and advertisements for products that promise to help you unlock your Wii without the need for a modchip. However, when you visit the websites where these products are sold, you can quickly become confused about exactly what it is that they are trying to sell you. So, in this post I am going to explain what these products are and discuss whether they really do work. In addition, I am going to share my opinions about which of these solutions you should take a look at and which you should avoid. In separate posts, I provide detailed reviews of 5 leading solutions:

• BreWii
• Homebrew Installer
• Homebreware
• Wii Unlock Plus
• Wii Unlocker Ultra

What Is a Wii Unlock Solution?

I call these products “Wii unlock solutions,” because while some of the vendors may imply that they are selling software, what they are actually selling is a set of instructions along with links to the appropriate software. In addition, while the advertising for these products – like so many other downloadable products on the web today – shows pictures of books, DVDs and packaged software boxes, what you are actually purchasing is a set of downloadable products. Typically, this set of downloads consists of one or more eBooks in PDF form as well as one or more videos that provide you detailed instructions on how to unlock your Wii. In addition, you usually get membership to the web site, meaning that you can return for updates and additional downloads in the future. On the web sites and in the guides you will be given links to various sources for the free software that you will need to download and use to unlock your Wii. To make their products more enticing, many of these vendors also include extras such as Wii cheat guides and other related digital products that you can download. Typically, the vendors promise lifetime updates. Most also offer 60-day money-back guarantees.

Do Wii Unlock Solutions Work?

While depending on what changes Nintendo might make to future versions of the Wii, this might change, it appears that the leading Wii unlock solutions do work. Now, this assumes that you carefully follow the instructions provided. The fact is that if you are tech savvy and do some research online, you can figure out how to do what is in these guides yourself. The actual hacks that these guides explain and the software applications that they are showing you how to download and use were mostly developed by Team Twiizers, a group of game hackers that that have created many hacks for the Wii including the Homebrew Channel, the Twilight Hack, and DVDX. What these vendors have done is created guides that “dumb down,” this how-to information so that less technically inclined people can do it themselves. Essentially, these solutions amount to “Wii Homebrew for Dummies” or “Wii Unlock for Dummies.” And, no, you can’t buy that book pictured here at Amazon, because it is not real

Should I Purchase a Wii Unlock Solution?

Whether you should consider purchasing one of these solutions really depends on how comfortable you are with working with computers and software. I am sure that some readers will be perfectly comfortable researching the Wii hacks for themselves and working through the process of unlocking your Wii. Many others may find that these solutions are extremely helpful because they put all of the pieces together in one place and provide detailed instructions. The best of these guides go through the process of how to unlock your Wii in great detail both in print and videos, so even someone who is a total newbie can have a lot of confidence in getting it right and not bricking their Wii.

Can they really guarantee that you won’t brick your Wii, void your warranty or that they will always be able to keep up with future updates? The truth is that they can’t. No one can do that. However, for the typical, non-technical Wii owner who wants to unlock their Wii and experience the world of Wii homebrew, these solutions offer a relatively safe and painless approach to unlocking your console’s potential.

Which Wii Unlock Solution Is the Best?

I’ve written detailed reviews of five leading Wii unlock solutions and rated them based on Features, Effectiveness, Ease of Use, Value and Support. As I have already noted, they are all generally effective, that is, if you follow the instructions carefully, you will be able to unlock your Wii. A couple are easier to use than the rest because they provide more detail and the instructional videos are put together better. Customer support is not that great for any of these products – it’s not like they have a team of tech support staff waiting to answer the telephone. In fact, what you can expect from the better vendors is a reasonably prompt response to email requests for support. A couple of these solutions have reputations for pretty lousy support, because they take forever even to answer email requests for help. The big difference between the top two products and the rest is the set of features and extras that are bundled in the package. When you read the reviews, you will see that Wii Unlocker Ultra and Wii Unlock Plus are head and shoulders above the rest based on the items included in their solutions. As for overall value, 4 of the 5 products that I looked at are priced the about the same, with the only outlier being BreWii which is priced about $5 more than the others, despite lacking many of the features that the two leading products have. You can take a look and judge for yourself, but Wii Unlock Plus and Wii Unlocker Ultra are my two picks.

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