I know that DVD playback is possible on modded Wiis, but I don't really want to mod my wii.

Does anyone know of any rumours of firmware updates to enable DVD playback or anything like that? If a mod chipped Wii can do it, can't a normal Wii do it if Nintendo gives us the correct firmware?

And also can firmware updates be burnt to CD and applied to an offline Wii?

Thanks,
Richard.

*cough* you can soft mod your wii to play dvd's i think.

i haven't tried it yet...

http://hackmii.com/2008/08/libdi-and-the-dvdx-installer

theres been rumours for ages but nothing that strong to suggest Nintendo needs to or want's to add the functionality in. It'd probably mean paying a bunch of licensing costs that they don't feel is really worth it, especially given the Wii is selling like hotcakes without the dvd feature.

of course they can do it with the correct firmware but...I mean as you stated it's doable on modded ones.

So soft modding is downloading firmware which is Nintendos + fanmade extras.

What happens if you put a soft modded console online?

Actually, the softmod only installs a channel which lets you run homebrew software. It is not a replacement firmware. It requires a legit copy of Twilight Princess and a hacked save for that game to initially install the homebrew channel from an SD card. Many people have this hack installed, and while Nintendo has tried to stop it with the most recent update (breaks the first version of the hacked save, but doesn't remove the homebrew channel) it doesn't seem to do anything negative to go online with the homebrew channel installed.

The tech to read off the DVD drive is very new, and I haven't tried it myself, and here's why:

I think that on currently existing Wiis it is a BAD idea to use it as a DVD player. The machine simply isn't designed to do it, and while the chances of it are slim, it could reduce the life of your console. There are various threads and theorems about this, and I don't claim to be an expert on optical drive media technologies, but when DVD players can be found as cheap as $20-30 I just don't see it being worth it.

Post of the month.

Thanks.

Plus the Wii's optical drive doesn't like DL disks very much.

Yeah, wasn't that evident with SSBB which caused the consoles to lock-up!

Must be a real cheap drive if it can't read DL discs very well

That's both surprising and disappointing. Nintendo's usually known for over-engineering their products and keeping quiet about it (e.g. DS battery life vs PSP, they said it was rated at ~11 hours when often people have gotten 15 or more). Using lowest-bidder DVD drives is very unlike them, especially considering it's an integral part of the console.

I'm hoping it was just one particular run of Wiis (wasn't there one run of Xboxes that had the RROD problem worse than another, due to a chipset or motherboard issue?) and that it's since been fixed. Still, something to keep in mind while I'm shopping for a Wii.