I got into the import game scene a few years ago and the ease of importing games has always been an issue. Handhelds have typically been region free, but only recently have home consoles been region free like with Playstation 3. Before the Wii was released, Nintendo was claiming it would be region free — this had me very excited. Shortly before the launch, Nintendo of Europe killed these hopes and dreams as they stated it would actually be region locked. While home consoles have typically been region locked, there have been workarounds to make import playing possible. For Gamecube, I had something called Freeloader. It was a bootdisc that would let me boot up and play import gamecube games.
The same team behind the Gamecube Freeloader had been working on an import-enabler for Wii and it looks like they’ve finally done it.
This is what they claim:
• WII FREELOADER IGNORES ALL REGION-CODING.
• WII FREELOADER IGNORES ALL WII UPDATES ON A WII GAME DISK (INCLUDING SUPER SMASH BROS. BRAWL).
• WII FREELOADER IGNORES THE NECESSITY OF CHECKING FOR GAME UPDATES; THUS ALLOWING THE GAME FILES TO BE PLAYED SAFELY WITHOUT ANY RISK OF BRICKING YOUR WII CONSOLE.
• CODEJUNKIES STAFF HAVE CONFIRMED THAT IF A WII FIRMWARE UPDATE SOMEHOW BLOCKS THE WII FREELOADER, THEY WILL SEND YOU AN UPDATED WII FREELOADER FREE OF CHARGE WHEN ONE IS CREATED, AS LONG AS YOU HAVE PROOF OF PURCHASE OF YOUR ORIGINAL COPY OF WII FREELOADER.
Sounds like a solid deal. We’ll see how these claims hold up but I do plan on ordering one.
