Ordering Pizza On The Nintendo Wii (Again)

January 22, 2026 by Lewin Day 3 Comments

The Nintendo Wii first launched in 2006, and quickly became a fixture in living rooms around the world. It offered motion-controlled bowling, some basic internet features, and a pretty decent Zelda game. On top of all that, though, you could also use it to order a pizza, as [Retro Game Attic] demonstrates.

The Wii used to organize different features of the console into “channels.” Way back in the day, you could install the Demae Channel on your Wii in Japan, which would let you order fast food from various outlets using the Demaecan service.

The Demae Channel service was discontinued in 2017. However, it has since been resurrected by WiiLink, which is a homebrew project which replicates the functionality of the original Nintendo WiiConnect 24 and Wi-Fi Connection servers. As it stands, you can load the WiiLink version of the Demae Channel (or Food Channel) on to your Wii, and use it to order pizza from your local Domino’s Pizza. It only works in the United States and Canada right now, and there are no other restaurants available, at least until further development is completed to add JustEat compatibility. It’s not entirely clear how much of the functionality was recreated from the original Demae Channel; what is clear is that plenty of custom development has been done on the WiiLink version to integrate it with modern delivery services.

What’s so exciting about this is how well it actually works. The app perfectly nails the classic Wii Channel visual style. It also seems to integrate well with the Domino’s API for digital orders, even displaying simple updates on holiday opening hours and order times. Pricing data and images of the pizzas are all available right in the app, and you can even make modifications. It might be a gimmick… but it actually works. Notably, though, the app avoids any stickiness with handling payment—thankfully, pay-on-delivery is still legitimate in the pizza world in 2026.

Will this revolutionize how you order pizza on a daily basis? Probably not. Is it one of the coolest Wii hacks we’ve seen in a while? Undeniably. Video after the break.

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Building A Keychain Wii Looks Possible

July 26, 2024 by Lewin Day 10 Comments

The original Nintendo Wii was not a big console, per se, but you could never hope to fit one in your pocket. Or…could you? As it turns out, console modders [Wesk] and [Yveltal] reckon they have found a way to make a functional Wii at the keychain scale!

The concept is called the Kawaii, and as you might expect, some sacrifices are necessary to get it down to pocketable size of 60 x 60 x 16 mm. It’s all based around the “Omega Trim,” an established technique in the modding community to cut a standard Wii motherboard down to size. Controllers are hooked up via a dock connection that also provides video out. There’s no Bluetooth, so Wiimote use is out of the question. You can still play some Wii games with GameCube Controllers by using GC2Wiimote, though. The Wii hardware is under-volted to allow for passive cooling, too, with an aluminum enclosure used to shed heat. Custom PCBs are used to handle power and breakouts, which will be open sourced in due time.

The forum post featured an expression of interest for those eager to order aluminium enclosures to pursue their own Kawaii build. Slots quickly filled up and the EOI was soon closed.

As of now, the Kawaii is still mostly conceptual, with images being very compelling renders. However, it relies on established Wii modding techniques, so there shouldn’t be any shocking surprises in the next stage of development. Expect to see finished Kawaii builds in gorgeous machined aluminum housings before long.

We’ve seen some other great Wii portables over the years. The console remains cheap on the used market and was built in great numbers. Thus, it remains the perfect platform for those eager to get their feet wet in the console modding community!

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Ultra-Tiny Wii Uses Custom Parts And Looks Amazing

April 19, 2024 by Lewin Day 17 Comments

The Nintendo Wii was never a large console. Indeed, it was smaller than both the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and most consoles of previous generations, too. That’s not to say it couldn’t be smaller, though. [loopj] has built what is perhaps the smallest Wii yet, which measures roughly the same size as a deck of cards. The best bit? The housing is even to scale!

There’s no emulation jiggery-pokery here. This build uses an original Wii motherboard that’s been cut down to the bare basics. Measuring just 62 mm by 62 mm, it features the CPU, GPU, RAM, and flash memory, while most of the extraneous hardware has been eliminated. Power and data is provided to the board from a special Wii Power Strip PCB, while the Periphlex flex PCB handles breaking out controller interfaces. Indeed, the build is nicknamed Short Stack as it’s built from a number of specialist PCBs for builds like this one. It also uses two boards designed by [YveltalGriffin] — the fujiflex for HDMI video output and the nandFlex to handle the Wii’s NAND memory chip.

[loopj] also had to design two further PCBs specifically for this build. One handles power, the micro SD card, HDMI connector, and controller ports. Meanwhile, the second handles the power, reset, and sync buttons along with status LEDs. Another neat hack of [loopj]’s own devising is using TRRS connectors in place of the original bulky GameCube controller ports.

Ultimately, it’s volume is just 7.4% that of an original Nintendo Wii. It’s probably possible to go smaller, too, says [loopj], so don’t expect things to end here. We’ve seen some other great Wii mods before, too, like this excellent handheld design.

Wii-Inspired Controller Built Using Raspberry Pi Pico

January 1, 2024 by Lewin Day 2 Comments

We all thought Nintendo was going to change the world of gaming when it released the Wii all those years ago. In the end, it was interesting but not really fundamentally life-changing for most of us. In any case, [Sebastian] and [Gabriel] decided to build a Wii-like controller for their microcontroller class at Cornell.

The build uses a pair of Raspberry Pi Pico microcontrollers, communicating over HC-05 Bluetooth modules. One Pico acts as a controller akin to a Wiimote, while the other runs a basic game and displays it on a screen via VGA output. The controller senses motion thanks to a MPU6050 inertial measurement unit, combining both gyros and accelerometers in all three axes.

The duo demonstrate the hardware by using it as a pointer to play a simple Tic-Tac-Toe game. It’s in no way going to light up the Steam charts, but the project page does go into plenty of useful detail on how everything was implemented. If you want to create your own motion gaming controller, you could do worse than reading up on their work.

We’ve seen some other great examples of motion controls put to good use, like this VR bowling game. Video after the break.

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A white Wii console sits on a grey table in the vertical orientation with its front facing the camera and its back away from the camera at a slight angle to the right. Next to it is a 2x sized replica which dwarfs the diminutive console. A purple light runs across the back edge of the table.

Wii XL Is Twice As Nice

June 2, 2023 by Navarre Bartz 17 Comments

The Wii was a relatively small console when it released, but it packed a big punch when it came to its game library and the impact it had on the industry. [Bringus Studios] wanted a Wii that physically matched the grandeur of one of Nintendo’s greatest successes, and built the Wii XL.

Basing the scale of this console around an 80 mm case fan, the final product has twelve times the volume of the original Wii. This leaves plenty of room for an unmodified original Wii, its power brick, and all the various cables and adapters necessary to bring the ports to the exterior of the case. To power the fan, [Bringus Studios] designed his first PCB to leach power off one of the USB connectors while still allowing data to pass through.

Given the size constraints of his 3D printers, he used melamine MDF for the sides and had to print the other panels in multiple pieces, resulting in some gapping in the front panel where the prints peeled off the print bed. We really love the use of a modular design that leaves room for future improvements, since no project is ever truly done.

Power is routed through a figure eight power connector on the outside to a female two prong plug on the inside while USB and HDMI are routed out the back via a combination panel connector intended for RV and boat use. If you don’t remember the Wii having HDMI out, that’s because it didn’t, but HDMI adapters are easy to come by for the machine.

In case you want to see more supersized projects checkout this giant XBox Series X or ponder if it would’ve been better with an enormous 555.

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How To Install Mac OS On The Nintendo Wii

May 3, 2023 by Maya Posch 5 Comments

What if you could run Mac OS on a Nintendo Wii game console? That’s probably not a thought that has occurred to many Wii owners or Mac OS users, but that is no excuse not to give it a try, as [Michael] handily demonstrates in a recent video by running Mac OS 9 on a Nintendo’s legendary console. The first major issue is what anyone who has ever tried to put a Hackintosh together knows: just because a target system runs the same CPU architecture can you necessarily install Mac OS (or OS X) for Intel x86 on any Intel x86 system. The same is true for the Wii with its PowerPC CPU and running Mac OS 9 for PowerPC on it.

In order to make this work, a workaround is employed, which uses the fossilized Mac-on-Linux project to run PowerPC Mac OS essentially on Linux for the Wii. This is a kernel module which allows Mac OS to run at basically native speeds on Linux, but it being a Linux kernel module, it meant that [Michael] had to hunt down the correct kernel to go with it. After creating an SD card with a functioning bootloader, he was able to boot into Wii Linux with MoL enabled, and try to install Mac OS.

OS X didn’t work for some reason, but Mac OS 9 did work, albeit with severe font rendering and audio glitches. All of which seems to come down to that while it is possible to get Mac OS running on the Wii, doing so is definitely more for the challenge and experience. By the way, if all this sounds a bit familiar, it’s because [Michael] referenced the Mac-on-Wii work that [Dandu] did last year to make this latest iteration happen.

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This Wii Has An Apple M1 Inside

November 9, 2022 by Navarre Bartz 8 Comments

The conveniently tiny logic board of the M1 Mac mini has lead to it giving the Mini ITX format a run for its money in case mods. The latest example of this is [Luke Miani]’s M1 Wii. (Youtube via 9to5Mac)

[Miani] chose the Wii as a new enclosure for this Mac mini given its similar form factor and the convenient set of doors in the top to maintain access to the computer’s I/O, something he wasn’t able to do with one of his previous M1 casemods. The completed build is a great stealth way to have a Mac mini in your entertainment center. [Miani] even spends the last several minutes of the video showing the M1 Wii running Wii, GameCube, and PS2 games to really bring it full circle.

A Microsoft Surface power brick was spliced into the original Wii power cable since the Wii PSU didn’t have enough wattage to supply the Mac mini without significant throttling. On the inside, the power runs through a buck converter before making its way to the logic board. While the Mini’s original fan was too big to fit inside the Wii enclosure, a small 12V fan was able to keep performance similar to OEM and much higher than running the M1 fanless without a heat spreader.

If you’d like to see some more M1 casemods, check out this Lampshade iMac or the Mac Mini Mini.

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