Does Wii Play DVDs

After a rousing session of Wii Sports, you may be asking: Does Wii play DVDs? It can get pretty tiring swinging that Wii Remote around, doing yoga with Wii Fit, and playing a variety of other physically active games, so you may want to curl up with a good movie afterward. Wouldn't it be convenient to watch a DVD on the same machine that offers great Mario games?

Although most people pick up the Nintendo Wii in order to play the huge library of terrific video games, they also want to go beyond just the gaming experience. That's partly why you can gain access to those Wii Channels. From there, it is possible to get real-time weather forecasts, receive news updates, and customize your Mii characters. The Wii can even play GameCube games.

In this way, you would think the answer to the question--does Wii play DVDs?--would be a simple and straightforward one. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work out that way.

So, does Wii play DVDs? For better or for worse, the simple answer is no. For a lot of people, this answer may come as a huge surprise, given the relative affordability and availability of DVD-playing devices.

The confusion is furthered by the fact that the discs for Wii games look a lot like regular DVD movies. The discs themselves are exactly the same size and take on much the same appearance. One side has a label and the other side has a shiny surface. In fact, Wii game discs are DVD-based and have the same capacity. If you didn't know any better, you would assume that they are one and the same. However, Wii game discs are not exactly the same as regular DVDs.

That said, Nintendo announced that it is working on a version of the Wii that will support DVD-Video playback. The update will be software-based, but Nintendo asserts that the upgrade will require "more than than a firmware upgrade."

If you do a quick video game console comparison, you'll quickly discover that much of the other home video game market is able to handle DVD movies. The Xbox 360 fully supports DVD playback, for example. Even the older PlayStation 2 could play DVD movies, whereas the newer PS3 can handle Blu-ray Discs as well.

Despite the lack of official support for DVD playback on the Wii, the online community has come up with an unofficial solution that provides a "yes" response to our pressing question: Does Wii play DVDs? The more complicated answer involves a yes.

Legal ramifications aside, this Wii "hack" may also void your warranty and possibly render your Wii inoperable with certain firmware versions. As such, you should proceed with extreme caution and at your own risk. LoveToKnow can, in no way, be responsible for anything that may happen to your Wii as a result.

If you want to play DVDs on the Wii, you will need a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and an SD memory card. You will also need to use something known as the Homebrew Channel. According to the online tutorial, you will also need no higher than Wii firmware 3.3. The system update pushed out on October 23, 2008 is incompatible with this DVD "hack."

A detailed step-by-step tutorial of the entire process, including pictures, can be found at Nintendo Wii Fanboy (Joystiq). The short version is shown here:

1. Collect an SD card (no larger than 2GB) and a copy of Twilight Princess.
2. Remove all GameCube memory cards.
3. Download the necessary files and extract the zip file onto the SD card (from computer).
4. Insert SD card into Wii and turn it on.
5. Insert Twilight Princess.
6. Go to the Game Saves section and replace the Twilight save with the one on the SD card.
7. Start Twilight Princess.
8. Load the appropriate save file.
9. Walk backwards and boot the Twilight Hack.
10. Download and extract the next batch of files to your SD card (from computer).
11. Rename install.dol to boot.dol.
12. Load Homebrew Channel on the Wii.
13. Load boot.dol and choose Basic Install.
14. Boot Mplayer from the Homebrew Channel.

And that's it! The necessary files can be found at Joystiq.com.

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