You Could Brick The Nintendo Wii U Just For Not Using It, Reports Claim
You Could Brick The Nintendo Wii U Just For Not Using It, Reports Claim
by razorbeamz
34 Comments
blackthorn_orion
Think this is probably what happened to mine. Left it unplugged for a couple years, plugged it back in intending to put homebrew on it and back up all my stuff like I did for my 3DS, and the thing just doesn’t start.
Not the worst thing in the world; biggest loss isn’t really the games (pretty much everything I had on it save for Mario Party 10 has been ported to either Switch or PC at this point), but I’m a little disappointed at losing the save data for all those Wii games I had transferred over (esp. Animal Crossing).
It also pretty much guaranteed I’ll never go back and finish Xenoblade Chronicles. I was halfway through when I gave up initially and there’s no way I’m ever gonna replay however many hours I’d already put into that game just to get back to where I was.
jjmawaken
I wonder if this is similar to how the Switch won’t turn on if the battery completely runs out since it needs power to start charging. I wonder if you can charge it for a long time and hold down the home button for a while like the manual reset on the Switch? Is it just the tablet or the system itself won’t turn on?
InSixFour
Damn, I haven’t turned mine on in quite awhile. I’m going to have to dig it out and see if it still works. I’m going to be extremely upset if it doesn’t work. I have some awesome Mario Maker levels on there that I want to go back and play.
Latereviews2
Guess I know what I’m doing when I get home
Wubbzy-mon
Well that is going to kill the Wii U’s longevity. If it will brick by not being used for too long, that is a massive problem.
UncleBen94
Well mines likely dead. I haven’t used it in like 7 years.
Edit: apparently it still works! Only problem is my Wii, which also hasn’t been used in that long, has had the rubber stopper bits melt onto the WiiU. Nothing a little rubbing alcohol couldn’t fix.
Edit 2: last time it was used was September 2017. So almost 6 years
AdamantiumLive
The Wii U was the first Nintendo home console I ever owned, I skipped the Wii era. Which means that I also used to console to catch up on many Wii games. I’d easily call Donkey Kong Country Returns one of my favourite games of all time.
My Wii U has remained in the shelf next to the Switch and PS5 and I haven‘t plugged in in for a little over a year now. Yes, there are ways of course to emulate many titles now and most major Wii U games have been ported to Switch, but basically loosing access to my entire Wii/Wii U collection would still be pretty devastating…
TwEE-N-Toast
Another Kick the crotch for those of us who bought the Wii U.
ClydeFrog90210
I booted mine up this past fall after it sat in a closet since 2017 to play some Windwaker. It worked fine. Spooky report but I don’t know how reliably consistent it is
LordValgor
If it truly is NAND flash corruption, then it isn’t restricted to only the Wii U. Any device that uses NAND flash will eventually succumb to this if not powered on every once in awhile. Other names for it are “data rot” or “data degradation”.
skweed0869
thankfully you just need a nand backup to fix the brick because you can use an exploit to boot into software before the wii u operating system starts
Dang, never planned to do it, but guess I’m going to try to homebrew to backup the NAND
stickdudeseven
Welp, I guess this is the sign for me to finish Xenoblade Chronicles X finally.
HauntedMike
With the eshop closing and now this, i’m pretty happy the emulation scene for Nintendo is extremely robust. Never hurts to have a plan B
brainsapper
Anyone else finding themselves firing up their Wii U after reading this?
Meanwhile I can pull out my SNES and it works no problem.
Something about older tech that I miss is sturdiness. That sense it will last.
nefhithiel
Oh no! The wiiU was my first actual console that I got new (handhelds only before). I’ve still got it hooked up to a small tv in my office so I suppose it’s ok. 🤔
DJ_DankRoast
Well i guess I will turn mine on for the first time in four years, see if it works, and then sell it. I don’t want to hold on to it for a long time if has this risk.
The one console I regret buying. Luckily there are only a few game still exclusive to it that I care about.
Tandran
Oh, well…mine is probably fucked, been sitting in a box for like 3 years
Wild-Ladybug
I don’t want to lose my wii u but I also don’t want to dig it out of storage to turn it on at the moment
Spiffster13
Welp I have a chore to do today
CaptainPleb
Happened to mine, it turns on but no image shows on my tv and the gamepad won’t connect to the console.
Nintendo_Boi158
Well now I’m just scared. Imagine all the games and experiences that will be lost to time in the next 5-10 years.
jstep32x
I actually bought a Wii U from eBay in May 2021 and it had an issue where I couldn’t access the daily log app. It crashed the system and showed an error code. I remember taking a picture and sending to the seller and he told me that it wasn’t used in a long time.
I had to dig for the pic I shared with him that had the error code and it was the same code mentioned in the article. I also remember that it was really slow when I tried to use it. I ended up getting a replacement system and it worked so much better than the other one.
halsgoldenring
I’d expect this to be rare if it’s just being reported on now.
HighVoltOscillator
my wiiU is modded and I use it more regularly, through i haven’t used it in maybe 5 months but it’s still plugged into the wall and in sleep mode in the tv console
this is scary stuff though, does anyone have a tutorial for those with a modded wiiU to back things up in a way where we can restore it if we get this error?
stuminus3
I can’t really trust any article that refers to the Wii U as a “portable” console.
WhimsicalCalamari
> Nintendo Wii U has aged like fine cheese
subject matter aside, what is this writing
grawptussin
Thought mine was bricked. Turns out, the USB stick I was using for game storage had failed and was causing cascading failure.
If you suspect your Wii U is bricked, remove all external storage and try to boot it up.
Kenaf
I can confirm this, I recently fired it up to try the original Splatoon to compare it to Splatoon 3 and found it had this issue. Don’t have a NAND backup so it’s now a paper weight. I called Nintendo and all they said is they don’t support it anymore. Very upsetting as someone who has a collection of consoles spanning their whole life.
For what it’s worth, mine is a launch deluxe console.
Distractinc
I was debating starting a wii u collection. That debate has ended.
G_flux
My cousins come over every once in a while and always play MK8 on the Wii U, even though we rarely use it otherwise. Thanks for unknowingly saving me from NAND flash corruption
ImmoralityPet
Do you hear that? It’s the sound of thousands of Wii Us being turned on today.
XavandSo
My launch unit bricked itself after a software update in 2014 and Nintendo were completely unhelpful back then.
I love the Wii U console so much but this slow death is disillusioning. What’s the point in continuing to invest time and money when it will just die? My replacement console has sat on my shelf for a while and hasn’t been turned on in a year.
I was completely against the idea of Switch ports and would just continue to play the Wii U versions but over the past couple of months even I’ve been rebuying my favourite games digitally when they appear on sale.
The King is dead, long live the King.
fred7010
Basically any device which uses NAND flash is susceptible to data degradation, not just the Wii U.
The difference is that the Wii U has proprietary encryption, so you can’t just replace the internal storage drive and fix it.
Chances are you can leave a Wii U for years and have no problem booting it up. Mine was fine – I booted it up the other day after about 5 years with no issue. But if you want to be safe, it’s probably best to turn it on every couple of years (and while you’re at it, softmod it and make backups).
34 Comments
Think this is probably what happened to mine. Left it unplugged for a couple years, plugged it back in intending to put homebrew on it and back up all my stuff like I did for my 3DS, and the thing just doesn’t start.
Not the worst thing in the world; biggest loss isn’t really the games (pretty much everything I had on it save for Mario Party 10 has been ported to either Switch or PC at this point), but I’m a little disappointed at losing the save data for all those Wii games I had transferred over (esp. Animal Crossing).
It also pretty much guaranteed I’ll never go back and finish Xenoblade Chronicles. I was halfway through when I gave up initially and there’s no way I’m ever gonna replay however many hours I’d already put into that game just to get back to where I was.
I wonder if this is similar to how the Switch won’t turn on if the battery completely runs out since it needs power to start charging. I wonder if you can charge it for a long time and hold down the home button for a while like the manual reset on the Switch? Is it just the tablet or the system itself won’t turn on?
Damn, I haven’t turned mine on in quite awhile. I’m going to have to dig it out and see if it still works. I’m going to be extremely upset if it doesn’t work. I have some awesome Mario Maker levels on there that I want to go back and play.
Guess I know what I’m doing when I get home
Well that is going to kill the Wii U’s longevity. If it will brick by not being used for too long, that is a massive problem.
Well mines likely dead. I haven’t used it in like 7 years.
Edit: apparently it still works! Only problem is my Wii, which also hasn’t been used in that long, has had the rubber stopper bits melt onto the WiiU. Nothing a little rubbing alcohol couldn’t fix.
Edit 2: last time it was used was September 2017. So almost 6 years
The Wii U was the first Nintendo home console I ever owned, I skipped the Wii era. Which means that I also used to console to catch up on many Wii games. I’d easily call Donkey Kong Country Returns one of my favourite games of all time.
My Wii U has remained in the shelf next to the Switch and PS5 and I haven‘t plugged in in for a little over a year now. Yes, there are ways of course to emulate many titles now and most major Wii U games have been ported to Switch, but basically loosing access to my entire Wii/Wii U collection would still be pretty devastating…
Another Kick the crotch for those of us who bought the Wii U.
I booted mine up this past fall after it sat in a closet since 2017 to play some Windwaker. It worked fine. Spooky report but I don’t know how reliably consistent it is
If it truly is NAND flash corruption, then it isn’t restricted to only the Wii U. Any device that uses NAND flash will eventually succumb to this if not powered on every once in awhile. Other names for it are “data rot” or “data degradation”.
thankfully you just need a nand backup to fix the brick because you can use an exploit to boot into software before the wii u operating system starts
https://github.com/GaryOderNichts/udpih
Dang, never planned to do it, but guess I’m going to try to homebrew to backup the NAND
Welp, I guess this is the sign for me to finish Xenoblade Chronicles X finally.
With the eshop closing and now this, i’m pretty happy the emulation scene for Nintendo is extremely robust. Never hurts to have a plan B
Anyone else finding themselves firing up their Wii U after reading this?
Meanwhile I can pull out my SNES and it works no problem.
Something about older tech that I miss is sturdiness. That sense it will last.
Oh no! The wiiU was my first actual console that I got new (handhelds only before). I’ve still got it hooked up to a small tv in my office so I suppose it’s ok. 🤔
Well i guess I will turn mine on for the first time in four years, see if it works, and then sell it. I don’t want to hold on to it for a long time if has this risk.
The one console I regret buying. Luckily there are only a few game still exclusive to it that I care about.
Oh, well…mine is probably fucked, been sitting in a box for like 3 years
I don’t want to lose my wii u but I also don’t want to dig it out of storage to turn it on at the moment
Welp I have a chore to do today
Happened to mine, it turns on but no image shows on my tv and the gamepad won’t connect to the console.
Well now I’m just scared. Imagine all the games and experiences that will be lost to time in the next 5-10 years.
I actually bought a Wii U from eBay in May 2021 and it had an issue where I couldn’t access the daily log app. It crashed the system and showed an error code. I remember taking a picture and sending to the seller and he told me that it wasn’t used in a long time.
I had to dig for the pic I shared with him that had the error code and it was the same code mentioned in the article. I also remember that it was really slow when I tried to use it. I ended up getting a replacement system and it worked so much better than the other one.
I’d expect this to be rare if it’s just being reported on now.
my wiiU is modded and I use it more regularly, through i haven’t used it in maybe 5 months but it’s still plugged into the wall and in sleep mode in the tv console
this is scary stuff though, does anyone have a tutorial for those with a modded wiiU to back things up in a way where we can restore it if we get this error?
I can’t really trust any article that refers to the Wii U as a “portable” console.
> Nintendo Wii U has aged like fine cheese
subject matter aside, what is this writing
Thought mine was bricked. Turns out, the USB stick I was using for game storage had failed and was causing cascading failure.
If you suspect your Wii U is bricked, remove all external storage and try to boot it up.
I can confirm this, I recently fired it up to try the original Splatoon to compare it to Splatoon 3 and found it had this issue. Don’t have a NAND backup so it’s now a paper weight. I called Nintendo and all they said is they don’t support it anymore. Very upsetting as someone who has a collection of consoles spanning their whole life.
For what it’s worth, mine is a launch deluxe console.
I was debating starting a wii u collection. That debate has ended.
My cousins come over every once in a while and always play MK8 on the Wii U, even though we rarely use it otherwise. Thanks for unknowingly saving me from NAND flash corruption
Do you hear that? It’s the sound of thousands of Wii Us being turned on today.
My launch unit bricked itself after a software update in 2014 and Nintendo were completely unhelpful back then.
I love the Wii U console so much but this slow death is disillusioning. What’s the point in continuing to invest time and money when it will just die? My replacement console has sat on my shelf for a while and hasn’t been turned on in a year.
I was completely against the idea of Switch ports and would just continue to play the Wii U versions but over the past couple of months even I’ve been rebuying my favourite games digitally when they appear on sale.
The King is dead, long live the King.
Basically any device which uses NAND flash is susceptible to data degradation, not just the Wii U.
The difference is that the Wii U has proprietary encryption, so you can’t just replace the internal storage drive and fix it.
Chances are you can leave a Wii U for years and have no problem booting it up. Mine was fine – I booted it up the other day after about 5 years with no issue. But if you want to be safe, it’s probably best to turn it on every couple of years (and while you’re at it, softmod it and make backups).